I Have the Power of the Sun

[jakkuh_t]

 

[lou007]

guys make a follow up video about the water heating system...& how to control it's temperature.... the people needs this kind of green solutions....
cheers

[Ritsu-]

Did they just use a Steam store page to sponsor Epic Games

[Tan3l6]

Dyson sphere starting in small scale? Way to go!

[Nystemy]

The idea of micro inverters is that if a panel gets shaded, then it doesn't effect the other panels in the array. There is also bypass diodes in practically all panels, but these tends to have a bit of voltage drop across them, and this eats into efficiency not to mention sometimes confuses MPPT inverters...

 

In regards to cooling solar panels, the efficiency improvement from cooling them can be quite noticeable. In a lot of situations one can just take a garden hose and spray some water over them and see the power output increase as a result. So stealing the heat from the panels and actually using the heat for something else isn't a stupid idea.

 

A fair bit disappointing that the water loop can't handle glycol. I would have implemented it by adhering the PV cells to an electrically insulated aluminium sheet _{(the panel frame is most often made of aluminium already.)} and then added some basic copper tubing to the back of the aluminium. _{(with some thermal pads between the aluminium and copper to stop galvanic corrosion. It is out doors after all.)}

 

But I guess the corrugated plastic water channel and the melted on pipe connection is a more cost effective solution:

_{(If this isn't plastic then I am surprised... And plastic isn't known for having good thermal conductivity, not to mention that this just seems lightly pressed onto the glass back of the panel, and glass isn't a good thermal conductor either. So the aluminium sheet idea might honestly result in a larger thermal transfer.)}

[xeroja876]

Super glad to see he went solar , I went about a year ago and couldn't be happier , I have plans to add another battery and a few more panels this year to be completely off my power company's grid 

[Zodiark1593]

Ten years later: “I have the power of the Atom!”

[xnamkcor]

I can't believe you would perpetuate the myth that solar energy is infinitely renewable.  Millions of years from now we'll all be sorry.

[Quackers101]

inb4 they say one got scammed or directed the power differently to the neighbour.

[SolarNova]

The problem with Solar panel setups isnt their efficiency ... its the ROI.

 

IIRC in the UK it cost around £5000 for the average 3kw array (we tend to have smaller houses and thus smaller roofs in the UK), with money earned from excess power and energy schemes, and saving on bills each year, it will still take 20 years before you break even.

Ofc they do become more appealing when energy prices skyrocket due to reasons outside ur control, but still..

 

Its just not worth it. Especially for young people who are likely to move house later in life before they see any returns on the investment.

[Nystemy]

3 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

The problem with Solar panel setups isnt their efficiency ... its the ROI.

 

IIRC in the UK it cost around £5000 for the average 3kw array (we tend to have smaller houses and thus smaller roofs in the UK), with money earned from excess power and energy schemes, and saving on bills each year, it will still take 20 years before you break even.

Ofc they do become more appealing when energy prices skyrocket due to reasons outside ur control, but still..

 

Its just not worth it. Especially for young people who are likely to move house later in life before they see any returns on the investment.

At an electricity price of lets say 30 cents/kWh. _{(the sources I find though states a current price of 27 cents/kWh in the UK.)}

And a production of lets say 50% of peak throughout the day, ie 1.5 kW. _{(for a 3kW installation)}
If it then produces this for only 8 hours a day _{(ie getting shaded a fair portion due to poor placement and/or weather)}, then this is 12 kWh saved per day.
If we then say it lives up to this for only 250 days a year _{(due to weather)}, then it will generate 900 $ worth per year in savings.

Ie, the initial investment is returned on after around 7.3 years. Might take 10, or just 4. It all depends on the weather, placement and the electricity prices on the grid. But it sure isn't 20 years.

[Varx]

I just had an enphase system installed not too long ago. If you're on Firmware D7.x.x or above, you're going to have trouble with the default HomeAssistant integration. The new firmware now requires you to grab an auth token from the enphase cloud before it will let you talk to it locally. It's lame, but you can grab a token that good for 6 months from their "entrez" system. So with some tweaks to the integration it should work fine. 

I forked the main envoy_reader integration and got it working with my system on Firmware D7.x.x. It's been pretty solid for a few weeks now. I'm trying to get people to test it out so they can  accept the pull request.

Not sure if I'm allowed to post my github link here. Let me know if anyone wants to try it out. I made an account just to tell you guys this. So hi everyone. 

[Egg-Roll]

This video had more censorship than a Japanese adult video... I understand him wanting privacy and I don't blame him, but equally choose better locations to shoot then. Less work for editors and less likely they will make a mistake giving away your location, it's really a win/win for LMG...

 

3 hours ago, Nystemy said:

At an electricity price of lets say 30 cents/kWh. _{(the sources I find though states a current price of 27 cents/kWh in the UK.)}

And a production of lets say 50% of peak throughout the day, ie 1.5 kW. _{(for a 3kW installation)}
If it then produces this for only 8 hours a day _{(ie getting shaded a fair portion due to poor placement and/or weather)}, then this is 12 kWh saved per day.
If we then say it lives up to this for only 250 days a year _{(due to weather)}, then it will generate 900 $ worth per year in savings.

Ie, the initial investment is returned on after around 7.3 years. Might take 10, or just 4. It all depends on the weather, placement and the electricity prices on the grid. But it sure isn't 20 years.

That may be true there, but not here. Here's BCs not sure how it all works exactly but sounds simple enough under x is x amount anything more is x amount.

https://app.bchydro.com/accounts-billing/rates-energy-use/electricity-rates/residential-rates.html

 

Here in Ontario you would be smart to push all power out collected and use a battery bank charged at night to live off of since we have a 3 tier billing cycle, night being the cheapest. For me the ROI would be about 15-25 years (10-15 cheating the system) after install which is why I have not done it, and why very few have here or only have installed 4 or so panels. Financially speaking it's a bad decision for most here. Tho I should note, I think our hydro plan has changed to a flat rate thanks to the pandemic but not 100% sure, should really find out lol...

 

However what would be great is a follow up video about this setup in a years time (1 year from move in) to find out how the whole system is working if they are on the road to ROI and how long etc.

[Needfuldoer]

Corrugated plastic can work fine for heating water, that's all those "solar pool heater" panels you can buy from pool supply stores are.

[HenrySalayne]

"What would I do with this information but monitoring the power output?" 

If you earn exactly the same amount for pushing energy into the grid as you have to pay for pulling it out of the grid, there is not much sense in using the power output as a input for home automation. 

But in regions where this isn't the case (greeting from Europe! ) you could time certain events to the power produced. Load up the washing machine or the dryer in the morning and it will only start the program once enough solar power is produced. The same can be done with fridges, ACs, heat pumps, boilers, etc. 

This is one of the requirements for the electricity grid of the future. Storing electricity is notoriously hard and automation like this will put less stress on the grid. 

 

[xnamkcor]

16 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

"What would I do with this information but monitoring the power output?" 

If you earn exactly the same amount for pushing energy into the grid as you have to pay for pulling it out of the grid, there is not much sense in using the power output as a input for home automation. 

But in regions where this isn't the case (greeting from Europe! ) you could time certain events to the power produced. Load up the washing machine or the dryer in the morning and it will only start the program once enough solar power is produced. The same can be done with fridges, ACs, heat pumps, boilers, etc. 

This is one of the requirements for the electricity grid of the future. Storing electricity is notoriously hard and automation like this will put less stress on the grid. 

 

"Mother, I am hungry. when will dinner be ready?".

 

"When the Sun is sufficient!".

[Ultraforce]

21 hours ago, SolarNova said:

The problem with Solar panel setups isnt their efficiency ... its the ROI.

 

IIRC in the UK it cost around £5000 for the average 3kw array (we tend to have smaller houses and thus smaller roofs in the UK), with money earned from excess power and energy schemes, and saving on bills each year, it will still take 20 years before you break even.

Ofc they do become more appealing when energy prices skyrocket due to reasons outside ur control, but still..

 

Its just not worth it. Especially for young people who are likely to move house later in life before they see any returns on the investment.

In British Columbia, there is a provincial tax exemptions related to solar panel systems as well as solar thermal. Additionally, there are some federal benefits. There are places in Canada where solar panels are a better choice, but they've talked extensively about why they are kind of locked into having LMG be British Columbia and in the Greater Vancouver Area.

[Varx]

3 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

"What would I do with this information but monitoring the power output?" 

If you earn exactly the same amount for pushing energy into the grid as you have to pay for pulling it out of the grid, there is not much sense in using the power output as a input for home automation. 

But in regions where this isn't the case (greeting from Europe! ) you could time certain events to the power produced. Load up the washing machine or the dryer in the morning and it will only start the program once enough solar power is produced. The same can be done with fridges, ACs, heat pumps, boilers, etc. 

This is one of the requirements for the electricity grid of the future. Storing electricity is notoriously hard and automation like this will put less stress on the grid. 

 

Even with net metering it can make sense. My power company pays out nearly as much as it costs (slightly less since it doesn't pay back the fees/taxes that are per kwh) but we're on a time-of-use plan. That's why I got into homeassistant. I'm trying to set it up so it lowers my AC's  temperature when there's plenty of extra sun, and raise it when its cloudy and/or when time-of-use rates are up to maximize the arbitrage. (Kind of treating my house like a thermal battery). I'm also mining on my gaming PC and want it to mine *only*  when it can do so on 100% solar energy. 

[xeroja876]

You lucky ppl talking about ROI , and your cheap power 

[Mr.Prevo]

On 3/20/2022 at 6:27 PM, lou007 said:

guys make a follow up video about the water heating system...& how to control it's temperature.... the people needs this kind of green solutions....
cheers

YES PLEASE!!!