Battery/electric vs Petrol

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Martyn Honey said:

It is now 12 years since putting in the solar panels and the batteries are now going. The trouble is, that he has 12 and they’re €390 each!

Okay living in southern Spain you obviously get more sun, but nothing is free in the end.

From a lay perspective it would have made more sense for UK to have spent all the money it has invested in solar panels and put them in southern Spain (even more logical to have mounted them 500km further south in the Sahara but less political stability). A 1100kV DC  line would have lost about 6% to southern britain. There's probably a lot more places for pumped hydro storage capacity in the mountains too.

 

In fact it makes more sense for pensioner like I to migrate to Spain to eke out our final days, it would contribute to their economy and reduce the need for new houses here.

[eggsarascal]

1 hour ago, AHPP said:

Not sure to be honest. The batteries are full. I think I've got the controller set to charge at 14.3-14.5v and now I've put a load on it to see how many amps are coming in, it's sat happily at 14.4v in oblique bright sunshine. Highest amp readout observed on the controller over twenty seconds or so was 3.6 but it's jumping around and I doubt is drinking in the max considering how full the batteries are.

Well, you're still a complete moron for harvesting that free electricity.

[Vespasian]

5 hours ago, AHPP said:

When you consider the cost of wars to get the petrol/diesel and the coincident oppression from a state large enough to wage those wars, petrol/diesel is pretty expensive. Rudolf Diesel designed his eponymous engine to run on vegetable oil, which is easily grown in most places. It's all sunshine power bear in mind. Black oil has just sat in the ground for a long time.

Though you have a point about the hidden costs of oil, it doesn't hide the fact its still cheaper to suck it out the ground than to grow bio fuels from crops...

The thing about bio fuels is you need an awful lot of land to replace only a small percentage the fuels we get from crude oils..  

 

I suppose in Africa early in the last century it might of made sense to make the argument about growing crops for fuels..  population would of been a small percentage of what it is today... the numbers of cars only a couple of thousand..   scale that up to todays population and it ain't possible..

[Vespasian]

5 hours ago, AHPP said:

£100 - 500W of panels

£10   - some hinges and coach bolts to hang them up

£20   - charge controller

£30   - wiring

£20   - assorted tat like cigarette lighter sockets

£7     - my little inverter

£30   - bigger inverter

£5     - fuel to collect batteries I get for free (paid for through my own wit and ingenuity if you prefer)

 

£222 - total

 

It's been up for two years and I'll be amazed if I have serious problems before 10 years. Charge controllers and inverters are the things that can go wrong. My last larger inverter lasted 5 years but most of that was bumping around in a van, not sat still in a house.

 

I bought the stuff outright and I get no subsidies.

 

 

I lived off grid for eight years. Minimal solar setup, 100 watts of panels and 120 AH of storage or so. It was fine for charging a phone and a few lights. Its when you want serious power for washing machines, kettles, cookers, water heaters, power tools and so on that the problems arise. Even a site generator won't easily boil a kettle (it will but not good for the gennie) You're talking massive output for water heating...

 

 

something tells me the people promoting living off grid are hiding something..   

[Haironyourchest]

Isn't USA the largest producer of oil today? No more foreign wars needed, maybe. Enough oil under Alaska to last a hundred years. 

[Rough Hewn]

 
 
I lived off grid for eight years. Minimal solar setup, 100 watts of panels and 120 AH of storage or so. It was fine for charging a phone and a few lights. Its when you want serious power for washing machines, kettles, cookers, water heaters, power tools and so on that the problems arise. Even a site generator won't easily boil a kettle (it will but not good for the gennie) You're talking massive output for water heating...
 
 
something tells me the people promoting living off grid are hiding something..   

Eight years off grid?
Really Vesp?
[emoji848]

[Haironyourchest]

2 minutes ago, Vespasian said:

 

 

I lived off grid for eight years. Minimal solar setup, 100 watts of panels and 120 AH of storage or so. It was fine for charging a phone and a few lights. Its when you want serious power for washing machines, kettles, cookers, water heaters, power tools and so on that the problems arise. Even a site generator won't easily boil a kettle (it will but not good for the gennie) You're talking massive output for water heating...

 

 

something tells me the people promoting living off grid are hiding something..   

My set up was shoestring, before LEDs, li-ion storage and brushless turbines. The tech is cheaper now, but for reliable supply it's still a massive investment, unless you have a very dependable River or somthing. Too much power when the wind, rain, sun is in force and not enough storage is also a problem. Some people heat huge water tanks, but that's an investment too. In the end, I was still using fossil fuels, parrafin candles, deisrl for driving, gas for cooking, (wood for heating). Not for ideological reasons, I just wanted to live remotely. Never bothered with a gennie, too expensive to run and noisy

[Vespasian]

2 minutes ago, Haironyourchest said:

Isn't USA the largest producer of oil today? No more foreign wars needed, maybe. Enough oil under Alaska to last a hundred years. 

The problem is, for america to do well it needs to sell to other countries.. and if those other countries are deprived of oil.. they go bust, they can't buy..  america goes bust...   don't matter if america was self sufficient in oil it still has to police the world one way or another...   

 

 

[Vespasian]

18 minutes ago, Rough Hewn said:

Eight years off grid?
Really Vesp?

I was quoting haironyourchest

[Ratman]

Eight years off grid?
Really Vesp?
[emoji848]

He lays on his settee with a rake of blankets over him for warmth! Thats living off grid Rough..... God did ya not know! [emoji849][emoji849][emoji849]