Peter’s Raw Materials

Category: Solar Energy

  • Solar Power update (part 8)

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    (continued from part 7) So here we are. February 2010. We had our solar array online for close to a year now.What are the first year impressions of our life with a 1.2kw solar array in our front yard? First, if you read the initial installment of my solar power posts you will notice that we built a post with a mount laid out to hold 12 panels. Because 200W panels aren’t cheap we only populated half of the array at first. These…

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  • Solar Power bucket of salt (part 7)

    (continued from part 6) After all the good vibes coming out of our solar installation I really need to reinforce something I knew long before I decided to spend almost $15,000. You can’t really predict the weather so we can only estimate our yearly average power production. Right now, in mid-February, on a cloudless day my PV system produces about 5.5Kw from sunup to sundown. Let’s assume during the summer we might get up to 8Kw per day. That’s an average of 6.75Wh…

    Read more: Solar Power bucket of salt (part 7)

  • Solar Power (part 6)

    (continued from part 5) We’re still waiting for some insurance details to be cleared up. But at least finally the people from SCI-REMC, our electric utility, were here to do an inspection and a test run of the system. A nice, warm day (for January) enabled Alex and me to swing the mount to its proper angle of 45 degrees. Now, that really looks imposing. The people on my street finally know what’s happening. It was very sunny that day and on the…

    Read more: Solar Power (part 6)

  • Solar Power (part 5)

    (continued from part 4) Alright, so I’ve been a bit busy. Two weeks ago Alex came over with his friend Ken to put up the mounting brackets for the PV panels. For that they set up the scaffolding. Here the panels are neatly laid out in our front yard. $1200 a piece! I sure hope none of my neighbors comes around the curve too fast with his truck and flattens these. Now the electric connectors are put in. All six panels are mounted!…

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  • Solar Power (part 4)

    (continued from part 3) As a we are waiting to go operational I have some time to ponder the pros and cons of my $15,000 investment, alternative energies in general and solar in particular. Despite my feeling of doing something good for the environment and (maybe) for our bottom line I know that this technology is young, even though it has been around for decades, and like my computer the equipment I am installing might be outdated in a few years. Our calculations…

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  • Solar Power (part 3)

    (continued from part 2) Together Alex and I started digging in my front yard in early October while our supplies were on their way. There was to be a big 3×3 feet hole, almost seven feet deep. This was where our steel post was going. The main hole soon got too narrow for two people and I started digging the 24 inch deep trench for the electric line going from the post to the house. You want to keep that as short as…

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  • Solar Power (part 2)

    (continued from part 1) Alex, my solar assessor – his company is Solar Systems of Indiana – came over one cold winter day early 2008 with his Solar Pathfinder and a device called a Kill-A-Watt. The Solar Pathfinder is used to determine the best place on your property for a solar installation and how much sunlight you can actually harvest taking into consideration stuff like tree line and geographical location. The Kill-A-Watt is such a good investment that I got one myself and…

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  • Solar Power (part 1)

    In the last year or so the term ‘alternative power’ has really come to the forefront again. High fuel prices, talk about peak oil and dirty coal. Good thing, too, because we need to talk about it. Especially during 2008 I kept getting emails from countless action groups and organizations such as the Sierra Club and the World Wildlife Fund mentioning it. The issue is actually on people’s minds…. For some reason it has been on my mind since I was a teenager.…

    Read more: Solar Power (part 1)