Conferm my thinking

[NERDRAGE88]

Why use agm over flooded?

[ButchDeal]

Why use agm over flooded?

They have a higher charge / discharge rate. For bimodal as backup , unlike off grid, you want smaller more stable batteries with less maintenance.

[NERDRAGE88]

I see. Is your sig your inverter? I'm trying to figure out how this bimodal deal works.

[ButchDeal]

Yes I have the outback

[NERDRAGE88]

I looked it up and I think I found what I want. Now I have to cough up 20 grand. But that's with basically everything including 21 panels. That's not bad considering I was going to buy 24 batteries that are $800 each. Plus...plus.... Thanks for the help by the way. Like I said before I was planning on going with grid tided with backup but I guess Igot discouriged when I thought it was way more than it actually is. After that reality 4x4 it's looking cheaper than I thought and the connection price that the poco charges is cheaper than the battery maint. and cost in general. I'll admit I didn't research vary well and got cought with my blinders on.

[Sunking]

Why use agm over flooded?

You wouldn't you would have to justify AGM.

What you are missing is battery cost. Ideally to get the most money out of them, they must be used every day, about 20% of their capacity for maximum life and Value. Batteries have both a Calendar Life and Cycle Life. In reality you will never see Cycle Life Claims, the clock runs out before then and Calendar life gets them.You have to replace the batteries every few years at even higher cost today. They will go up at a higher rate of inflation than electricity.

But here is the point, if you take care of them, just the battery cost alone is going to cost you 50 to 60-cents per Kwh. That is if you utilize them every day. Use them as back up and several hundred times more with very limited power. However that is for Flooded Lead Acid Batteries. AGM is a different story. AGM cost twice as much as FLA batteries intitially, and only last half as long. Meaing they cost 400% more then FLA, so your Kwh cost skyrocket up to $2/Kwh

So why would you choose to do that if the utility only charrrges you 10 to 15-cents per Kwh for all you want? Why would you volunteer to pay 5 to 10 times that much?

Two things you cannot do with Off-Grid systems, both arre impossible.

1. Save money
2. Lower your carbon foot print.

So now ask yourself why are you wanting to go off-grid?

The only way to do it if you want emergency power is a grid tied system and a pad mounted generator. There is one peice of equipment you have not included in your hybrid system. They require a generator. Any battery system requires a generator. Have you included those cost along with a 500 gallon LPG tank or diesel?

[NERDRAGE88]

Actually I did mention a generator kinda and yes I do plan on that. I never said I wanted to be off grid. I don't want to go through the trouble, in case you haven't noticed, it's not generally excepted by society. My original plan was to be connected but not use it much and I came to that conclusion because I didn't really look into how it worked and after this discussion, looked herder and found its not as much as I thought (grid tied). All I was looking for was a way to reduce my dependance on the grid and do my part in utilizing natural resources to obtain power. Yes I'll admit I lost track of where I was going with this idea. Maybe if I have a well I'll use solar to power the pump and there are some vary interesting heating and cooling that are solar friendly that I may just use solar for those and reduce the energy those use from the grid.

I do see your point with batteries not being economical and I really value your imput and I am considering using a genny for backup instead.

[ButchDeal]

Net metering is the most absolute max efficient option with most carbon and money offset. Why are you trying to avoid the simplest and most efficient option with overly complex, expensive, options?

[NERDRAGE88]

I'm not tiring to avoid anymore and I admit I was ignorant. I have decided to go with net metering. I didn't mean to mislead anyone. I guess I thought it was implied but I guess not. Really all I want is to help reduce power the demand from the power grid that hungry things like ac require. There are many ways to reduce power consumption but things like ac there isn't much option besides keeping it at a certain temp and leave it.

I was trying to avoid rinning a generator in an emergency except if I absolutely needed it. But it has been said that is the best backup.

Is there a way to use solar if in an emergency so a generator doesn't have to be ran all the time.......IN AN EXTENDED EMERGENCY SITUATION......sorry not yelling just maligning sure it's understood that I'm NOT run the genny all the time. As in I can use solar if the power is out. I do realize that if that is a possibility I would have to keep power from going back into the grid.

[Wy_White_Wolf]

Yes the poco allows net metering. It's Rocky Mountain power and they have tons of stuff about it on their page. I'm pretty sure its municipal. Not entirely sure. I just skimmed so far, hopefully they don't charge and if they do its not much

Rocky Mountain Power is part of PacifiCorp. They cover parts of 8 states. As far as I know none of there subsidaries currently charge a solar access fee but that could change with any rate increase

WWW
.

[NERDRAGE88]

According to there brochure its 1.95 for 100kw.

[Sunking]

Really all I want is to help reduce power the demand from the power grid that hungry things like ac require. There are many ways to reduce power consumption but things like ac there isn't much option besides keeping it at a certain temp and leave it.

I understand, but taking it off grid cannot be done without great expense. It boils d down to this. Anything you take off-grid is going to cost you many times more than what you can buy the power for. Not only do you not save any money, but you also greatly increase your carbon footprint. It takes considerably more energgy to make the equipment and batteries than they will give back over the life of the system. You end up wastin resources, not conserving them.

Exact same reason Hydrogen cars failed and will never be used. It takes 20 units of energy (from natural gas, more from electricity) to make one unit of usable hydrogen energy. It pisses away resources. So if your objective is to save money or Mother Earth, last thing you want to do is take anything off-grid.

Don't feel bad, 95% of the folks who come here have the exact same flaw in logic. Kind of sad really if you think about it. A complete failure in our education system taken hostage by special interest minority groups.

[NERDRAGE88]

You do realise that I said I wasn't going off grid. Yeah it first I was going to use the grid sparingly with batteries and whatnot but I admitted I was ignorant and I am no longer heading in that direction and listened to you about generators. clearly you didn't read all of my post that you quoted ant took it out of context. If you have an agenda of some kind, spare yourself the affort. Please don't take what I write out of context and fully read people's posts.

[SunEagle]

I understand, but taking it off grid cannot be done without great expense. It boils d down to this. Anything you take off-grid is going to cost you many times more than what you can buy the power for. Not only do you not save any money, but you also greatly increase your carbon footprint. It takes considerably more energgy to make the equipment and batteries than they will give back over the life of the system. You end up wastin resources, not conserving them.

Exact same reason Hydrogen cars failed and will never be used. It takes 20 units of energy (from natural gas, more from electricity) to make one unit of usable hydrogen energy. It pisses away resources. So if your objective is to save money or Mother Earth, last thing you want to do is take anything off-grid.

Don't feel bad, 95% of the folks who come here have the exact same flaw in logic. Kind of sad really if you think about it. A complete failure in our education system taken hostage by special interest minority groups.

I think the main problem is that a lot of people believe their POCO is robbing them blind because of either high rates or too many hoops you have to jump through to install a grid tie system.

Because the POCO's have been in business a long time they can generate power much cheaper then a home owner can. It just seems they are overcharging the home owner but until there is a breakthrough in energy storage technology power from the grid will cost less from a battery system.

[Eleceng1979]

Nedrage,

If you have poco power available, use it. Buy a grid tie setup for your pv and your done. It will offset your bill... provided net metering is allowed and not too silly of charges. Paying a minimum connection charge of $10-20 bucks a month is far cheaper than any battery cost long term. If your poco power is not reliable, buy a generator as a backup. I have lost poco power for weeks during ice storms and the economics of batteries is still insane for me. Bottom line if you already have poco power keep it, if you can get it then get it, if it cost a ton of money to get the poco lines ran then maybe consider off grid...if it is economical vs the lines

In my opinion... key word... the economics should drive this decision as this is a considerable investment. If you have more money then most and don't care about poor investments, then go ahead. You could buy a whole house generator every 7 years and with fuel cost added and it would still be cheaper than batteries...

You can get grid tie inverters with limited power when the grid is down and the sun is up with no batteries. So a baby, sunshine only backup solution... at 1500-2000 watts each.

Please do the math on wind power too... unless you have a very good site I consider it a second choice, behind solar.

Oh, and sunking in correct, my math shows battery inverter economics at 15x my poco rates...hence my grid tie system.

[Sunking]

Oh, and sunking in correct, my math shows battery inverter economics at 15x my poco rates...hence my grid tie system.

No question from me. I know a battery is system is a piss poor choice. If you have commercial power available in the USA, you are a fool going off grid and deserve to loose money.

[NERDRAGE88]

Nedrage,

If you have poco power available, use it. Buy a grid tie setup for your pv and your done. It will offset your bill... provided net metering is allowed and not too silly of charges. Paying a minimum connection charge of $10-20 bucks a month is far cheaper than any battery cost long term. If your poco power is not reliable, buy a generator as a backup. I have lost poco power for weeks during ice storms and the economics of batteries is still insane for me. Bottom line if you already have poco power keep it, if you can get it then get it, if it cost a ton of money to get the poco lines ran then maybe consider off grid...if it is economical vs the lines

In my opinion... key word... the economics should drive this decision as this is a considerable investment. If you have more money then most and don't care about poor investments, then go ahead. You could buy a whole house generator every 7 years and with fuel cost added and it would still be cheaper than batteries...

You can get grid tie inverters with limited power when the grid is down and the sun is up with no batteries. So a baby, sunshine only backup solution... at 1500-2000 watts each.

Please do the math on wind power too... unless you have a very good site I consider it a second choice, behind solar.

Oh, and sunking in correct, my math shows battery inverter economics at 15x my poco rates...hence my grid tie system.

I thought about wind too as secondary to solar. Usually, where I live, when its not sunny, excluding at night (sometimes its stormy at night so that is a bonus) its stormy and windy. I have an idea on how i want to do it. Yes I have thought about (with grid tied I'm not sure its an issue since extra power goes to the grid) a load dump and was planning on using an electric water heater (the element to heat water to not waste heat).

[ButchDeal]

I thought about wind too as secondary to solar. Usually, where I live, when its not sunny, excluding at night (sometimes its stormy at night so that is a bonus) its stormy and windy. I have an idea on how i want to do it. Yes I have thought about (with grid tied I'm not sure its an issue since extra power goes to the grid) a load dump and was planning on using an electric water heater (the element to heat water to not waste heat).

Generally wind systems have an RPM range that they need to be in. If the wind is too great the device applies a break. Stormy would usually fall into the break catagory. For wind to be useful and have any ROI you need long periods of steady wind.