# How will you save energy and money, both?



## Taniya (Nov 17, 2007)

Create your own killer energy saving and money saving solar power strategy

Recent government surveys have found that the average Australian household is using 20-30% more energy than necessary.

This is like standing at the window at your place and throwing dollar bills into the wind one at a time. Intelligent energy usage and bringing energy saving methods and appliances into your life can save you big money and help save the planet. 

Energy audits identify inefficiencies in the use of energy in your home or business and suggest the most efficient and cost effective ways of reducing energy consumption.



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UPS (uninterruptible power supply) Devices


POWER FROM THE SUN IS FREE AND ENDLESSLY RENEWABLE

All the energy stores in the world's reserves of coal, oil and natural gas is matched by energy released from just 20 days of sunshine. 

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Have a nice day


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## DriftWood (Nov 17, 2007)

I wish summer was just starting the way it is down under. Clouds and rain snow mix today.


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## rhetoric (Nov 18, 2007)

Hey!  It's not too often you get an email from an entire country.  Someday when it's "big sun" instead of big oil, Australia is going to be the Saudi Arabia of SoPEC.


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## WILDSOURDOUGH (Nov 18, 2007)

Solar is not too practical here in New Hampshire...
The panels are expensive
The sun is low and moving around alot in the fall, winter and spring
so would require tracking panels- more expense- long,long,long payback.
Wind a little more practicial here.


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## jjbaer (Nov 21, 2007)

Wildsourdough said:
			
		

> Solar is not too practical here in New Hampshire...
> The panels are expensive
> The sun is low and moving around alot in the fall, winter and spring
> so would require tracking panels- more expense- long,long,long payback.
> Wind a little more practicial here.



That's the problem with solar:  it's dilute and todays solar panels at approx 12% or so efficiency don't help.........as efficiency improves and prices drop, it will pick-up quickly.....


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## TMonter (Nov 21, 2007)

Solar isn't economically practical on about any home. Average savings on electricity with solar panels is around $600 a year and the average install is 25k+.

It would take 41.6 years to pay off solar panels at that rate.

If you instead invested the 25k at 5% interest for 42 years, the future value of that money is almost 200k.

Invest in good mutual funds at 12% a year and that's 3.4 Million bucks.

Solar panels need to be below 5k to be truly economically viable.


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## Rhone (Nov 21, 2007)

Or, go for solar hot water.  

Cast already mentioned electric solar is not practical being only around 12% efficient.  But solar hot water is a way to go being around 75-80%, in cloudy & rainy New England one only needs an extra panel vs. a place like Colorado which usually adds about 10% - 15% more to the cost.  I'm still hoping I can find the financials to do the solar but who knows now, got a new roof, beefed up the supports in the roof in preparation for them, now wife is talking about moving.  Going to be a sad day if it happens.  Especially to let go of my Hearthstone Clydesdale.


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## velvetfoot (Nov 23, 2007)

It's hard enough to find a new house you both agree on, but it'd be nice if it was oriented and sited where solar could be added.  Alas, mine isn't.


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## TMonter (Nov 23, 2007)

Solar hot water would be a great idea but I haven't investigated the price of evacuated tubes in recent years. I know about 10 years ago they were pretty expensive. What's a reasonably sized panel of them cost these days?


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## saichele (Nov 24, 2007)

This might sound crazy, but a guy at work has a solar hot air system - same idea, but really cheap parts.  1 panel of plexi, mounted to a 2x4 box with a piece of exterior plywood and a heavy black poly tarp stretched across it.  then a 4" intake from the house and a 4" out to the house, and run it with a $20 Radioshack fan.  His happens to be thermostatically controlled, so there's a damper and a stat for the fan.  It's central Michigan, so it's only good about 4-6 hrs a day, but the it kicks out massive heat during those hrs.  And maybe $200 in materials.  I'm sure you could do something similar, probably better, with some soft copper, a pump, and a control valve.  If you're in a new construction or serious remodel mode, you'd hook up something like that to your radiant floor system and get the whole works up to temp in the afternoon.  probably be good enough to get to the end of the day.

Solar electric is a bust.

Steve


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## JohnnyBravo (Nov 24, 2007)

just h talked to my installer,, and he was telling me about one install he just finished. 300 solar tubes on one house. heats the house, the domestic hot water and the driveway so no more shoveling. i know that the payback seems high right now. but at the price of natural gas 5 years ago i never thought i would pay off a wood stove install. there are a lot of off grid houses around here, i know of one in the city, you can't even tell.


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## saichele (Nov 24, 2007)

JohnnyBravo said:
			
		

> just h talked to my installer,, and he was telling me about one install he just finished. 300 solar tubes on one house. heats the house, the domestic hot water and the driveway so no more shoveling. i know that the payback seems high right now. but at the price of natural gas 5 years ago i never thought i would pay off a wood stove install. there are a lot of off grid houses around here, i know of one in the city, you can't even tell.



Except for the nice clean ice-free driveways...

Steve


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## eba1225 (Nov 29, 2007)

Solar Electric is close to becoming cost effective.  A co. in California has come up with a design and will start production in 2008.

Company is Nano Solar    

http://www.nanosolar.com

Their design has a cost of .30/watt vs the current designs of $4.00/watt.


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## colsmith (Nov 30, 2007)

Back on Oct. 5th and 6th we went around our area and looked at all the solar installations on local businesses and homes.  What with the taz breaks and the $.22/kWh the electric company pays them for their renewable energy electricity, pretty all of them had calculated their break-even time being from 8-10 years.  (Most people who do the solar/wind power things are smart if not downright nerdy and hence calculate that sort of thing.)  That is in Wisconsin and included people with tracking solar panels and so on, although most were just roof mounted.   Note that solar panels are more efficient when it is cold, so still do a great job in the winter this far north.

Although if you took a lot of money and let it sit untouched in some account it would grow to be a lot, most people are not able to leave their money alone that well. ;-)  Also, then you can't gloat at the energy company so much.  Or feel good about doing something useful to help the planet wean itself off oil.


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## MountainStoveGuy (Dec 1, 2007)

ROI's are going to vary lots and lots across the country. With Colorado's heavy rebates, the payback period is getting near the 10 year mark. Not bad considering its doing something useful for the enviroment.  A 10kW system here is running around 23k after reabates. IF they didnt exist, the same system would cost 75k. Even in this market, systems are out of range finacially for most folks. Our core cliental is engineers and physicans, with a close third being school teachers. Imagine that!


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## Rhone (Dec 3, 2007)

TMonter said:
			
		

> Solar hot water would be a great idea but I haven't investigated the price of evacuated tubes in recent years. I know about 10 years ago they were pretty expensive. What's a reasonably sized panel of them cost these days?



Well, you don't want the evacuated tubes if you can avoid it but depends on your application.  The seals on them break frequently, they're only spec'd to last 20 years (flat panels are 35+).  They often cost 1.5-2x more.  They advertise they're "more btu's/sq ft surface area", they are by about 5% BUT they're 1/3rd the surface area of a flat panel.  I calculated you need 30 evacuated tubes to get the same amount of energy of a single 4x8 flat panel even calculating in their 5% more efficiency.  They advertise you get a little more energy in the early morning & later evening than flat panel and don't mention they collect less energy at noon.  Well, morning and evening sunlight has about 1/3rd to 1/4th the energy compared to noon so who cares about collecting during those times focus on noon which the flat panel's surface area kicks *ss when it matters most.  Evacuated tubes advertise they can still heat when it's cloudy out.  Well, they can heat a cup of water when it's cloudy but that's about it there just isn't enough solar energy when overcast to consider it.  Lastly, because evac tubes don't allow any heat to escape when they get covered with snow/ice it DOESN'T melt.  You can go days or weeks with them covered.  Flat panels, since they allow a little to escape they will melt when covered with snow and rid themselves.  I think evac tubes in almost all aspects inferior but they do look cool and they will heat water to higher temps so say if you have forced hot water baseboards that require 150F+ water then I'd consider evac tubes.  But, for radiant floor heating or domestic hot water definetely flat panels.  

As for cost, here's a flat panel domestic hot water system kit 
http://www.radiantsolar.com/domesticHW.html

It doesn't make too big a difference where you live.  You'd adjust the above by making it 3 panels instead of 2 adding about $675 to the cost.


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