It pays back slow. but .25/day would be 91 dollars a year provided you fed that much in everyday which you said you didnt.
The important part is it does eventually pay for itself now. For a very long time that was not true. Investment firms think you should double your money every 7-12 years with stocks and mutual funds… If you are leary of the stock market and want an investment Solar isn’t a bad choice.
Party is over, missed a letter. From 1e jan. we get €0.04 instead of €0.25 for the surplus after credits. Well, if things are to good to be true, most of the time… I enjoyed it, but it is how it is.
The number on the LED is battery bank voltage. This is an AGM 12vdc bank that runs the well pump, WiFi network, phone chargers, LED house lights, and Yoni 18650 battery chargers. This number dictates what one does every day during the winter.
Today the number is low, so we have to run the Yanmar 2.8kw diesel engine. I made fuel for this engine last spring. It’s a mix of off road diesel and methylesters( Biodiesel). The Yanmar spins a 10SI alternator.
It occurs to me, I may be posting this in the wrong thread. I have no argument with PV versus charcoal. PV works in the winter when nothing else does. No even the sun. It doesn’t provide much for the investment. Probably as much as as peltier junctions strapped to a wood stove. Once built, it provides no hassle.
Charcoal powered engines are the only ones that will start, without life support, in this weather. Yep, you have a butt load of maintenance to do (see Matt’s comments), to keep them running, but they start.
The Onan generator on gasoline, I cannot hand start. I cannot start the diesel Yanmar without pouring a boiling kettle of water over the injector. I could hand crank the H, and start it on wood or charcoal gas. No choke needed.
I guess I don’t understand how the comments about losing the economic arbitrage of selling PV Power to the grid. It has nothing to do with charcoal. If you didn’t consider not being allowed to sell the power to the grid, then you didn’t plan ahead. It’s like taking a job so you can buy propane to heat the dishwater with, instead of heating the water on your wood cook stove with sticks from your yard. You better save up a bunch of money for propane, so when they fire you, you haven’t wasted your time.
There is different kinds of PV too. That 48v stuff is not good for survival. The 12v PWM controllers work when the MPPT controllers are brain dead. Anything can charge 12v, while hardly any 48v charger systems exist. It’s nearly impossible to slap together a high amperage 48v charge system. I end up dismantling the bank and charging cells individually.
I want you to think about this stuff when you go and plan for a system to live on, while not having grid.
Excellent post Bruce. I have no issues with PV. I got credited as the originator of this thread because I was first in line when Chris moved it from Tone’s thread. But, PV is of no use to me unless they have panels now that work well in half light. I’m guessing we have about the same climate and we can go for weeks on end without a hint of sunshine. In Summer I live under tree foliage. However you go about it I have great admiration for you guys that are off-grid. Most certainly could be many more of us down the road if not by choice then by circumstance.
That is something I didn’t know, and never even thought of. 
Do MPPT controllers fail a lot? They are seemingly built into everything now, and at the chip level they are pretty inexpensive. (I run into them looking for OTHER chips, but the chip component cost is only a fraction of the product price for a lot of electronics.)
They have a harder time doing that in the US, because we have ‘grandfathering laws’ which protect investments made prior to a law or rule changing.
Thanks Bruce, real life report about off grid. Daily job you have there in those circumstances. Well, I am on the other side of the spectrum, PV is just a play and free energy. It was never installed to sell the energy, that was just a bonus as long as the energycompanies were asleep. And now they wake up, one after another. Like others said and you probably also know, it is dirt cheap compared to what you get. The downside is that it delivers the energy when you need less, during day/night, summer/winter. Last panels I put on the wall and they do a great job at the moment, almost double then the system on the roof. Interesting test.
Do MPPT controllers fail? I was lucky then, just once in twelve years. And as soon as I got some money or chance I put another system on the roof. Six inverters running now.
Well, peakshaving was my plan, off grid the next dream but with the new machinery it is almost impossible. A liitle maybe to peakshave to 3-50A. Blew the main fuses out a few months ago . It would be a generator running all day. Not going to try that, no machines, no income.
Most important, it is not vs but and, you cant rely on one source, you know that more then anyone.
What you say is the real truth of it JoepK . . .
“you can not rely on one source”
Regardless if the electrical power source is All Grid; All PV; all engine generator for 100% of the time.
What the real question here should be: to not be All Grid dependent should I begin with PV? Or with woodgas?
What in my mind will have to connect them will be IC engine generating capability.
Put in all of the PV you would want and sometimes you will want, or need some engine generating.
Huge battery banks just buys you time.
And if to not be 100% of the time Grid dependent then to me the engine generator has to come first.
Oh. Wow. Then just like a PV filled battery bank you only have the time of on-hands generator engines fuel storage.
Loops you back to woodgas.
O.K. then; do get an engine generator that can be wood fuel gassed.
A fellow can stop the efforts and $,$$$ sucking four-ways investments anytime, at anyplace, they would feel comfortable.
Why some of us keep setting aside for PV, as of yet. Not yet satisfied with our IC engine generator; fuels for it; legs of it yet.
The actually silliest to me being those trusting faithfully the the Grid will always be brought back to them.
Or that engine generator fuels will alway be made available to them.
Same-same. “you cannot rely on only one source” Ha! Why BruceJ. has developed three. PV solar. Variety of IC engine generators. Variety of engine fuels sources; bought out, and DIY.
Actually the best efforts investment is in yourself. Able to some way fudge together power come what may.
Many, many here can do this.
Like the fable of nail-soup; stone-soup . . . be the can-do guy actually proving, confident then that they can light the lights. Power the refrigerator and well pump one way or the other.
And this will not be the jim-cracky I/O programmer; the every figure balanced to the last decimal point bookkeeper-accountant; the brainiac geek chasing efficiency bragging percentages.
Be the scared hands-on; torn finger nails, worn knee jeans types.
Steve Unruh
All true Mr Steve, but this springs out. That is the reason I hang out here. Not for if the grid fails or other if’s, just because I want this. I am 55 years old and the fingers on one hand are enough to count our grid fails. No need to invest in that other then I just want that.
It wasnt a choice LOL. Consumer cut the power off I had not money so off grid I went and never went back. Im my situation I dont know what tomorrow is going to bring. Feast of famine but at least when famin hits my power in not affected. I can run on gasonline finances are available; if not I have gasifiers I can choose to run and make fuel to run them.
I have a 48 volt system and yep 12 volt can be done in the appocolipse pretty easy. 12 volt alternators everywhere, charger gallore etc. However when you get into higher AC outputs then those inverters are not if at all available they take in a higher DC current. However I do have multiple back ups. 12volt to 48 buck converters, and I have multiple 48 volt stand alone chargers. (3 of those) and then the onboard charger. I plan to get another charger this year.
What’s a good 48v, 240v charger? What do you use?
Mine is built into the EG4 its capable of 80 amps 60 volts peak charging. Its a 6500 watt 220 volt twin phase. Im going to wait until a used one comes available from Singature Solar and buy it. Price for a used unit is worth it just for the charger alone. But I can then stack them too.
I bought the AIMS chargers too. They are 20 amp chargers and run on 110 volt.
This is what these panels and charge controller are dedicated to keeping charged. This Volvo has a 24vdc system, which is kept topped up by the solar.
You should run that loader more often - the exhaust stack is growing branches
Reminds me of this:
I never realised you were offered a fixed price/kWh. We are payed the hourly spot price only (some companies offer a few crumbles extra on top).
Do you still have the net metering (grid as a battery)?
Yes. It is a party overhere . Gonna change, some day. Just today went back to our old provider, Greenchoice. Contract three years, grid metering ( by law) and after that €0,08. Nice afterparty . I am having a pissing contest with my friend from kindergarten. He won this time, a month ago it was €0,11. Haha, I laughed at him, now the other way around. Anyways, we use almost 50% of the pv direct, the rest via credits/ metering. Still a no brainer, the rest is partybonus.
Of course this is with a shop near the house, if you go out working you use less pv direct.
Battery is coming. At the moment 25 kWh 48 V LFP and around 35 Lion from a Golf E. Difficult to combine and I dont like Lion. Got the pack from the same friend. A leftover from upgrading his Nissan He didnt telk us that last year when we went to CZ. We couldnt reach his first stop without a wet pence and slipstreaming . Crook/ bandit, he has a 130 kWh pack from a Taican. We had a good laugh afterwarts and he didnt take money for using his charge card. Cheap anyway, compared to diesel or gas.
All that you’ve written is like a science fiction story about the future. Our story is more like Mad Max.
On the “other energy thoughts” part of the topic, has anyone tried using those Seebeck/peltier modules to make some power with their wood stove? I know they aren’t efficient, but neither is building a giant solar panel mount, adding hundreds of dollars worth of solar gear, only to harvest albedo light. I never actually spec’d out the dollars per watt. That job sounds like a Sean job.
I am sort of swirling around with ideas around these design constraints:
The first thing that stands out to me is getting a H running on charcoal again. I could use it with out buying fuel.
Anyhow
Bruce,
My limited experience with Peltier devices is they are not efficient, but “generate” cold or heat with highly portable devices. They are not so good at harvesting, maybe run a couple individual LED’S. Yes, free electricity! Maybe run a transistor AM/FM radio, thekind with an earphone jack for audio. Your mileage may vary. 
I think Matt tried. They work -best- with huge differentials in temperature so one side attached to the wood stove and the other to the 6ft snowbank outside your house. They are pretty inefficient and generally don’t produce a lot of power.
Wholesale Solar panels costs globally were $.33/w but with a 100% premium in the US last year. Most US imports were bifacial solar panels that do harvest albedo light. The two sided panels can gain and extra 11-23% more energy and are used in solar farms. However with no income, solar is completely “pay it forward” and it is also seasonal.
Since the first thing that stands out to you to save money is getting the H running on Char again, that is probably your best bet. However, identify the second thing, because with no cashflow, it takes longer to acquire pieces and parts required to implement changes.
