Solar

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jmellc

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
Occupation
Facility Maintenance Tech. Licensed Electrician
I looked into solar some years ago but never got far with it. Very little available here. I found companies on the web but all of them were far away, no local reps or showrooms. I sort of let it fizzle.

I see a situation now where solar would sure be a great thing. I live in Durham, NC. Is anyone in this area seeing much of solar now? I might look into it to advise a friend. A great setup would be about a 60 amp panel with 4 circuits.
 
jmellc said:
I looked into solar some years ago but never got far with it. Very little available here. I found companies on the web but all of them were far away, no local reps or showrooms. I sort of let it fizzle.

I see a situation now where solar would sure be a great thing. I live in Durham, NC. Is anyone in this area seeing much of solar now? I might look into it to advise a friend. A great setup would be about a 60 amp panel with 4 circuits.
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J, what type of solar are you talking about? Off grid, grid tied, grid tied with backup?

Yeah solar is great I have free electricity now. I have always wondered why more electricians don't have it at their places.
 
electrofelon said:
J, what type of solar are you talking about? Off grid, grid tied, grid tied with backup?

Yeah solar is great I have free electricity now. I have always wondered why more electricians don't have it at their places.
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Off grid. So you have total solar? A friend needs minor power for a small outbuilding. Too far from house to feed from there. POCO would charge out the wazoo to provide lines.
 
How much power and energy do you actually need? Just electronics and LED lights or something with real power?
These days there are plug-and-play UPS-style battery packs. e.g. Bluetti (google it) Put some solar panels on the roof within their spec, and if the load is modest enough and not critical that might be sufficient. Not that I've tried it myself, I do bigger systems.
It's critically important with off-grid to understand the real load in both power and energy. It's not cost effective to just overestimate most of it like we tend to do for standard utility-fed residential wiring.
 
jaggedben said:
How much power and energy do you actually need? Just electronics and LED lights or something with real power?
These days there are plug-and-play UPS-style battery packs. e.g. Bluetti (google it) Put some solar panels on the roof within their spec, and if the load is modest enough and not critical that might be sufficient. Not that I've tried it myself, I do bigger systems.
It's critically important with off-grid to understand the real load in both power and energy. It's not cost effective to just overestimate most of it like we tend to do for standard utility-fed residential wiring.
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Lights and small refrigerator. I used to read about solar DC power being effective without need of an inverter. I am looking for info about that as well.
 
electrofelon said:
J, what type of solar are you talking about? Off grid, grid tied, grid tied with backup?

Yeah solar is great I have free electricity now. I have always wondered why more electricians don't have it at their places.
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Am in Seattle area, no solar as I like my 200 ft D fir trees too much <G>
 
electrofelon said:
J, what type of solar are you talking about? Off grid, grid tied, grid tied with backup?

Yeah solar is great I have free electricity now. I have always wondered why more electricians don't have it at their places.
Click to expand...
Unless someone gave you the solar panels, it’s not “free” electricity. Places where the KWH rate is high, it could possibly pay off, but where I’m at, even with the taxpayer subsidies, it would not pay off. But it is a cool thing to do.
 
hillbilly1 said:
Unless someone gave you the solar panels, it’s not “free” electricity. Places where the KWH rate is high, it could possibly pay off, but where I’m at, even with the taxpayer subsidies, it would not pay off. But it is a cool thing to do.
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I've had mine for 4 years, it has just paid for itself. I did not file for the state incentive. So ok prior to about now my electricity hasn't been free, but I'll have free electricity for the next 20 years. The use of the word "electricians" in my statement was assuming the use of sweat equity and getting materials at wholesale which any electrician should be able to do and thus have a similar payback. We are seeing normal full price customers now with about an honest 8-year payback. By the way have you looked at your bill lately? I bet you'll find your rates have gone up quite a bit lately.
 
electrofelon said:
I've had mine for 4 years, it has just paid for itself. I did not file for the state incentive. So ok prior to about now my electricity hasn't been free, but I'll have free electricity for the next 20 years. The use of the word "electricians" in my statement was assuming the use of sweat equity and getting materials at wholesale which any electrician should be able to do and thus have a similar payback. We are seeing normal full price customers now with about an honest 8-year payback. By the way have you looked at your bill lately? I bet you'll find your rates have gone up quite a bit lately.
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The highest bill I’ve had is $250, running two houses. One totally electric, the other gas heat only. Gets pretty cold up here in the mountains. Normally runs under $200 with the a/c in the summer. We get our power from the TVA, more than six hydroelectric plants within 50 miles of me. The local EMC is doing solar, but the engineer laughed about it, he said it has no payoff other than political. I would like to do microhydro, it has a much better payoff, but the stream I would like to use, is deemed “trout waters” so the government prohibits anything within 25’ of it. Where your at the payoff is much quicker, and if you can get 20 years out of your panels, that’s a bonus!
 
hillbilly1 said:
The highest bill I’ve had is $250, running two houses. One totally electric, the other gas heat only. Gets pretty cold up here in the mountains. Normally runs under $200 with the a/c in the summer. We get our power from the TVA, more than six hydroelectric plants within 50 miles of me. The local EMC is doing solar, but the engineer laughed about it, he said it has no payoff other than political. I would like to do microhydro, it has a much better payoff, but the stream I would like to use, is deemed “trout waters” so the government prohibits anything within 25’ of it. Where your at the payoff is much quicker, and if you can get 20 years out of your panels, that’s a bonus!
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How much is your electricity? " I think for these purposes the most accurate thing to do is take your total bill amount, subtract the monthly service/meter fee, and divide that by the number of kilowatt hours used. I can't imagine it being less than 2/3 of what mine is, and that hardly makes it to "no payoff" territory. Have you talked to anyone else about it besides this engineer? Of course metering policies can effect the numbers significantly too.
 
I’m
jmellc said:
I looked into solar some years ago but never got far with it. Very little available here. I found companies on the web but all of them were far away, no local reps or showrooms. I sort of let it fizzle.

I see a situation now where solar would sure be a great thing. I live in Durham, NC. Is anyone in this area seeing much of solar now? I might look into it to advise a friend. A great setup would be about a 60 amp panel with 4 circuits.
Click to expand...
I’m surprised, western NC is big into solar, at least commercially, so I figured the rest of the state would be.
 
hillbilly1 said:
I’m

I’m surprised, western NC is big into solar, at least commercially, so I figured the rest of the state would be.
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I Cant speak to specific numbers or statistics, but my sense was Georgia was pretty big into solar. I worked on a number of utility scale systems there in the mid to late 20 teens. The solar GC said Georgia power was generally friendly to solar and easy to work with.
 
Th
electrofelon said:
I Cant speak to specific numbers or statistics, but my sense was Georgia was pretty big into solar. I worked on a number of utility scale systems there in the mid to late 20 teens. The solar GC said Georgia power was generally friendly to solar and easy to work with.
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The EMC has some here, but the majority is across the state line in North Carolina, they must have a bigger incentive program. South Georgia has some big farms.
 
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