I've been hard at work on the plans and NEC study for my hybrid battery/grid-tie installation out in the back woods of Eastern Washington state, and figured it was time to finally register for this forum after months of reading and learning. As an electrical engineer and independent inventor with a bunch of patents, I've found it challenging to realize that an eagerness for coming up with innovative new ideas is not particularly applicable to putting together a solid system that will satisfy code requirements and long-established best practices for power electrical systems and fire protection.
It's also been challenging to come to grips with the severe limitations of today's energy storage technology. After all these years, the best solution still seems to be what's been around longer than I've been alive: a ton of very expensive lead and sulfuric acid in big red plastic boxes that will sit out in the garage for 10 years (at best, if I'm careful) slowly degrading before I have to get it trucked away with another pile of boxes dumped off in its place.
This site has been an excellent resource, making me stop and think about things and pointing me in the right direction to further research what's available and what's acceptable under the NEC. I don't know if SunKing reads this particular forum, but I want to thank him in particular for his thousands of sobering and informative comments, and also his hilarious dry humor. He will undoubtedly think I'm nuts for proceeding with the huge expense and complexity of a hybrid system (and my area isn't even that great for solar insolation), but I hope I'm at least spared from his full scorn by avoiding a Nickel-Iron battery, taking the code seriously, and not ever expecting any financial payout from this project.
There are people who devote their spare time and money to building car stereo systems so loud you can't actually sit in the cars while they play at full volume, to huge tropical fish and coral tanks in their basements, to launching bowling balls a mile above the desert with solid-fuel "model" rockets taller than you are, and to beating other people at a game involving 64 black and white squares and little statues of horses and castles. For me, generating a substantial part of my electrical energy usage from the sun that hits my property is in that same category!
It's also been challenging to come to grips with the severe limitations of today's energy storage technology. After all these years, the best solution still seems to be what's been around longer than I've been alive: a ton of very expensive lead and sulfuric acid in big red plastic boxes that will sit out in the garage for 10 years (at best, if I'm careful) slowly degrading before I have to get it trucked away with another pile of boxes dumped off in its place.
This site has been an excellent resource, making me stop and think about things and pointing me in the right direction to further research what's available and what's acceptable under the NEC. I don't know if SunKing reads this particular forum, but I want to thank him in particular for his thousands of sobering and informative comments, and also his hilarious dry humor. He will undoubtedly think I'm nuts for proceeding with the huge expense and complexity of a hybrid system (and my area isn't even that great for solar insolation), but I hope I'm at least spared from his full scorn by avoiding a Nickel-Iron battery, taking the code seriously, and not ever expecting any financial payout from this project.
There are people who devote their spare time and money to building car stereo systems so loud you can't actually sit in the cars while they play at full volume, to huge tropical fish and coral tanks in their basements, to launching bowling balls a mile above the desert with solid-fuel "model" rockets taller than you are, and to beating other people at a game involving 64 black and white squares and little statues of horses and castles. For me, generating a substantial part of my electrical energy usage from the sun that hits my property is in that same category!
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