[Rhodes22-list] Going green

[Michael D. Weisner]

Solar energy generation systems are very interesting.  It seems that it is 
not cost effective to produce electricity when the sun shines and store it 
in batteries for night use.  Most affordable (look at the tax breaks, 
especially for commercial installations) solar energy systems are connected 
to the grid to sell power to the utility during the day and buy some back at 
night.  The system requires only solar panels, an inverter and a net meter, 
no batteries.  This is quite different from some of the "backwoods" off-grid 
systems that you find in remote cabins.  Some of them are DC based with 
small inverters for AC appliances.

BTW, some of the energy saving fluorecents seem to have very reduced life 
when operated on AC inverters.  This appears to be caused by cheap, "square 
wave" (not sine) inverters.  If you are using fluorescents off the grid, 
keep this in mind.

Mike
s/v Shanghai'd Summer ('81)
Nissequogue River, NY

From: "Steven Alm" <stevenalm at gmail.com> Wednesday, June 20, 2007 5:32 PM
> How about solar panels?  Convert your hot water heater, stove, furnace and
> electric car all to electricity and power them all with solar panels. 
> What
> would it take?
>
> Slim
>
> On 6/20/07, R22RumRunner at aol.com <R22RumRunner at aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> Rik,
>>
>> It became a no brainer for me when I figured out how many 100 watt
>> incandescent's we had and how much it was adding to our air conditioning
>> load.  Time
>> will tell, but so far I'm pleased. I even replaced the 40 watt bulbs in
>> our
>> outdoor lights. I find my self walking around the house looking for bulbs
>> that
>> haven't been changed out yet. I have spot lights on the top of the garage
>> which
>> I haven't changed out yet, but then I haven't seen them at the hardware
>> store.
>>
>> Rummy
>>
>>
>>
>> ************************************** See what's free at
>> http://www.aol.com.
>> __________________________________________________
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>>
> __________________________________________________
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>