Danielle Black wrote:Hi all,
I am really excited about the idea of, one day, building my very own alternative energy system. Ideally this would involve both wind and solar energy. What I am trying to figure out right now is what parts I would need in order to make a control system for my solar/wind power. How do all of these components work together to keep the lights on? If anyone could offer prices for these components, that would be extremely helpful as well. Thank you so much for your help in advance!
--Danielle
It appears that you have gotten a variety of information here so I will not belabor the points already made. However, asking for "adivce" on prices, etc. without specifying your needs (either now or in the future) makes the entire issue diffiicult to assess.
Let's start by putting a few things into perspective. Once you do that, hopefully you will rapidly determine whether such an idea is actually within your means/ability.
Before you do anything in the "buy" column, you need to sit down and seriously examine your "needs". What are your specific needs? What can you "live without"? An alternative energy system for the way you probably live right now is going to cost in the range of $350,000 or so just to get the "hybrid system" you are "dreaming about".
I have a system in place and running (very much like what you are describing) and that is where I came up with the figure I used above. Let's examine the actual issue.
First, you have to know what your current standard of living uses in terms of energy expenditure. To do this, you might want to get a small item called a "Kill-a-Watt" and examine the actual energy expenditure of each and every item you wish to "preserve" for your "NEW" life style. It will cost you about $100. You plug it into the wall, and plug your item into it. Then it will tell you what the energy consumption of that item is. You extrapolate that into a monthly energy consumption plan and then go to the next step. There just is no sense in "buying" anything till you have a firm idea of what you will need. Further, what you currently use if not planned well will exceed what your system can produce and seriously disappoint you.
Once you have determined these numbers (and they will astound you) then you have to design a system that will produce what you "REALLY NEED" out of all the things you "currently use". Let's look at a example.
Light bulbs are an easy thing to examine. If you use ten 100 watt lightbulbs for 5 hours a day, you consume 5 kWh. (1000 WATTS (1 kW) X 5 HOURS) At the present time, one kWh of electricity costs about Eleven cents...at least where I live. Now, you have some place to start. Multiply that 5 kWh by 30 days and you have 150 kWh for that month alone in just
light bulb use. Your cost is $16.50...just for those
light bulbs.
Now you want to look at ALL your energy consumption items. If you have an electric stove and an electric
dryer, you will quickly realize that your "alternative energy" system will closely approximate the "Hoover Dam" in consumption and become painfully discouraged... OR, you can consider alternative living choices to conform to your energy production capability. If you add this to your light bulb use, your hair dryer use, your refridgeration and freezer use and the list goes on, you will quickly see that any system you buy will need to generate and be able to provide you with somewhere in the range of 4000 kWh per month which in my neck of the woods would give an eletric bill of over $300. And that doesn't include the electricity your husband would use in the shop to weld, or light or operate his equipment. AND if you have animals and WINTER, you need to keep your
water from freezing which uses about 500 watts or 12 kWh/day)
OK, now we begin to see that all of this starts to get a little more tricky unless you take some serious look at your "consumption" and decide exactly how much you are going to actually use. (by the way, air conditioning and heat weren't figured in to the above figures so you can add that to all of this)
Lets assume you have made the following alterations in your lifestyle.
1. You have changed every bulb in your house to
LED which burns on average 0.1 watt per hour. While the cost of LED bulbs is coming down, the power cost for 100 light LED bulbs will cost less than a single 100 watt bulb with the "old system". You unplug your 52" Wide screen TV when it is NOT being used. So there is something you can do to be "ready" to buy your "alternative energy system".
2. You have built a "rocketmass heater" for your living space and now burn about a cord of wood over 4 months during the winter rather than the 4-5 cords with a regular fireplace or
wood burning stove.
3. You let your hair dry after washing it without the use of a 1500 watt hair dryer which would suck all the juice out of your system in a matter of minutes.
4. You are cooking with liquid propane stove and using a tankless
water heater which uses propane for it's fuel (or natural gas) (Ed. note: we can't get natural gas here in my neck of the woods...)
5. You wash your clothes once a week and actually wear them more than one day in order to minimize your water,
soap and electricity consumption)
I can go on here but I think you get the idea. The desire to have an "alternative energy production system" is an admirable goal, but unless you approach it realistically, you will be frustrated at every step.
Now, based on the truth here, I will explain MY system. I currently have 16 solar panels (170 watts each) and a 3 kW wind turbine) which charge 24 AGM batteries (3 banks of 8, wired in series to give a 48 volt system)
Each of the batteries is 305 amp/hr. yielding 915 AMP/HR. Remember AMPs are the amount of flow, Volts are the pressure (if you equate Ohms law to water) I have a 6000 watt inverter and a charge controller for both solar panels and the wind turbine. In any given day I am not able to make the entire 6000 watts/hr because the sun doesn't come up till after 0800 and sets before 1700. That is nearly 9 hours of sun, most of which is not really very direct although my panels face south at the same angle as my latitude. My wind turbine does spin more than most places because I am located in the "Saudi-Arabia-of-WIND" here in the midwest. Just the same, it is not always spinning at 12 mph all day/every day.
Therefore, at my current utilization rate, I am able to light my house (yes, I have LED's and CFL's everywhere). I have the fridge and freezer on the system. I have the tankless water heater on the system which burns propane so it consumes very little. I have all energy efficient appliances and included in that is a pellet stove and a geothermal heating system. Despite these steps, I still consume power from the grid because I have to keep the
cattle water from freezing, the welder able to work, and a variety of other power consuming items I choose to use; NONE of which will probably be available if we lose all to EMP.
If I choose to operate solely from my own system, I would have to cut WAY BACK in my consumption. My electric bill for last month was $350 and that included what I produce!
So, now that you have an idea as to the "realities" of an alternative power system from a "utilization" perspective, lets get down to cost. At the moment, Alternative energy systems cost in the range of $5/watt produced just for the equipment. Remembering any job costs 33% in materials and 66% in labor, you are looking at $100,000 for a system like mine. My good fortune is that I did most of my own labor. I let a licensed electrician do some stuff because I had to have it inspected. I brought all the wires to the boxes in the house and had him "hook it all up" saving me a lot of money. I designed and built my own tower for the turbine, and poured the 7 yards of
concrete to provide its base.
In summary, you are now better equipped to plan your dream in a more "realistic" manner. Hopefully, you will be able to use what I have explained in order to give your family a better life with your own power.
I will
answer any question you may have if I have not already terrified you with the "realities" of the situation.
