ClemSparks wrote: You rarely get to sell it back at "the going rate," though. You probably know this but you sell it back at something more akin to a "wholesale rate."
Federal law requires that the electric company pays you "the going rate." If you pay 30 cents a kWh, they have to pay you 30 cents a kWh. The problem is though that it has to be a modified sine wave of satisfactory resolution for it to make it back on the grid. You can't just run a photoelectric panel to a plain old inverter.
Appleseed wrote: Vermont? You NEED to be looking at Idaho.
Or Eastern Oregon, land is getting dirt cheap out here.
The people, not the land. Think Unabomber and tinfoil hats.
the property taxes in the south and southwest 'burbs of Chicago are killers too.
i never thought to do this plan though. I used to watch that guy on TV that drove the electric car and was always putting in windmills and recycling stuff.
Have you pursued the microhydro yet? Any links/ leads/ ideas?
I am currently working on 2 related projects- We are doing large scale efficiency testing on both gasoline and advanced diesel technologies. This testing will involve 2 separate 50K gensets running continuously at full load for 2-3 years or more. The customer is paying for everything, and doesn't care what happens to the power generated. So, of course, we are installing a system to backfeed the grid, so I'm learning the ropes.
Additionally, I have a remote cabin in the mountains of North GA with a pond, dam, and stream running through it. I've considered micro-hydro backfeeding the grid as a very reasonable option.
So please, keep me in the loop.
curtis73 wrote:ClemSparks wrote: You rarely get to sell it back at "the going rate," though. You probably know this but you sell it back at something more akin to a "wholesale rate."Federal law requires that the electric company pays you "the going rate." If you pay 30 cents a kWh, they have to pay you 30 cents a kWh. The problem is though that it has to be a modified sine wave of satisfactory resolution for it to make it back on the grid. You can't just run a photoelectric panel to a plain old inverter.
Curtis is correct. Old rules didn't require this, current ones do. Small scale electric generators get paid the going rate.
However, local power companies and building officials have no obligation whatsoever to make it easy on you when you go to hook up. Can be VERY expensive, with a LOT of red tape, and LARGE time delays.
SVreX wrote: Have you pursued the microhydro yet? Any links/ leads/ ideas? I am currently working on 2 related projects- We are doing large scale efficiency testing on both gasoline and advanced diesel technologies. This testing will involve 2 separate 50K gensets running continuously at full load for 2-3 years or more. The customer is paying for everything, and doesn't care what happens to the power generated. So, of course, we are installing a system to backfeed the grid, so I'm learning the ropes. Additionally, I have a remote cabin in the mountains of North GA with a pond, dam, and stream running through it. I've considered micro-hydro backfeeding the grid as a very reasonable option. So please, keep me in the loop.
I am in the very early stages. I cannot buy anything until this house sells. Fortunately because I had been expecting an economic slowdown, I began reducing my debt over 2 years ago and have almost full equity in my house, and have no other bills other than the normal tax/util/etc. To be honest, I haven't even thought about selling power back, so thats something to think about as well. I have a few links in a post above.
Selling power back to the grid is, IMHO, possibly the best deal going for micro-hydro.
The cost of battery storage, step down/ step up transformers, etc. makes direct AC or DC (with battery storage) prohibitively expensive. The stream runs all night (unlike the sun, or the wind), and can therefore generate some level of power continuously.
You sell to the grid at night and during low usage times, and buy back when you need it.
It's perfect for me- I use the cabin only a couple of days a month. The stream won't generate huge quantities of power, but it will be steady. So, I can trickle feed the grid for 27 days a month, then buy back for only 3 days.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/10/22/tiny.houses/index.html
somewhat slightly off-topic, but a 100ft house sure is minimalist, unfortunately even in d.c. a lot that size would be expensive 
http://www.greenmountainpower.com/solar_GMP.html If I read this correctly, they pay EXTRA for solar generated power..
It may say that (I didn't read the details), but that won't offset the increased installation cost of the solar array, battery backup, etc.
I don't know about Vermont, but here in SC you can get the land qualified as agricultural if it is over 10 acres. The taxes are zip. You have to call it a tree farm or hay field or something. You may want to check into planting sugar maples and get into the maple surple business. its going for $60 a gallon now.
I would love to do what you are doing. But the old ball and chain wouldn't go for it.
Oh yea, the US Army Corps of Engineers may have something to say about trying to dam up a stream enough to get head for a hydro plant. And with hydro, its all about the head.
Some time back, this came up (IIRC the Queen Dork started the thread) and the payback for solar was very low and in some cases could actually cost you money (compared with grid power) even with the gov't subsidies and selling power back.
The Army Corps of Engineers gets involved any time it's a 'navigable waterway'. They stretched that definition over the 1980s to include free standing ponds and what we down here call pocosins (small self contained wetlands), then the Supreme Court got into it and said basically the water has to be moving and empty into a river to be considered navigable. So even a very small stream can fall under their control even if it's on private land.
Your tax dollars at work. 
Jensenman wrote: Some time back, this came up (IIRC the Queen Dork started the thread) and the payback for solar was very low and in some cases could actually cost you money (compared with grid power) even with the gov't subsidies and selling power back.
I'm quite interested in solar, given that we live in the good ol' Sunshine State. Does anyone have any (at least somewhat) independent assessments of the payback on solar? I'd be willing to consider taking the leap if there is truly a reasonable payback.
Gainesville just rolled out a new feed in tariff program, evidently quite like the German system, but set a ceiling on the amount of soalr power they'd be willing to pay that for. It filled up with pledged systems within a matter of DAYS.
You have to call it a tree farm or hay field or something.
There's a similar deal in GA. Pretty sure it's 15 acres here. A local real estate agent told us about it, and told us he was shocked how few people knew about it.
Has anyone heard anything new about ultra capacitors lately? That's where the future lies. What ever happened to that manufacturing plant they were building near Austin? I guess we'll have to wait for the military to get every capacitor they'll ever want before we start getting any.
Dunno about ultra capacitors. I've been looking into micro hydro on the sites mentioned and a few others I Googled, it seems most of the setups described are used to charge a bank of batteries and then an inverter is used to get 110V. That's terribly inefficient (a lot of heat loss), plus when the batteries are charged it seems you have to shunt the power to a bank of capacitors or bulbs or etc to prevent boiling the batteries. So at one point you are generating electricity which does you ~zip~ good. It makes more sense (to me) to build something which directly generates 110 V AC.
I don't know why their shunting the extra power, but whatever. Yes, batteries in general are very poor thermodynamically, plus the losses getting it back to 110V AC. Capacitors would be almost unitary efficiency as soon as we can get them. I hear the feds are building a rail gun ship and/or some type of beam weapon ship. That's gonna take a bunch of ultra caps.
I looked at those sites too, and besides making your own generator being pretty cool, I think you'd be better off linking the thing to a standard automotive alternator with a voltage regulator, then feeding that to a proper charge controller for your battery bank, then have the inverter run off of that. Using just a 110V direct alternator (generator) off of the wheel would give you E36 M3 for surge.
That last little ice storm got me thinking. I have the HF inverter now. I need some storage batteries next. I looked online and the prices were sky high. 6V 200 Amp Hour (AH) for two bills each. Sam's has the same thing for $67 ea. Two of those would go a long way to keeping me in cold beer. Four would do better. Add a plastic truck cargo box with a few holes for vents to use as a storage box for the batteries, cables to wire them up, a charge controller, the inverter in a separate box to protect it from acid fumes, and I'd be good to go. Then comes the 8KW Honduh generator.
Very interesting site with good explanations. Also a cool 'floating turbine' setup.
http://www.hydro-turbines.com/
They have a good description of a 'grid tie' system where you can use your hydro plant for daily use and draw from the grid when you need it. No reason it couldn't go both ways. They mention the 'dump load' as well, it seems that if your hydro plant is producing more than you need the extra has to go somewhere regardless of whether it's AC or DC.
At least down here, there's no reason not to use a storage type solar heat system, basically it's steel tanks filled with water and antifreeze sealed inside a box with one clear side which faces south. The other three sides are lined with reflective material which concentrates the sunlight on the tanks. The tanks are painted black for max heat gain, you then use a small pump to run this hot water through a heat exchanger (basically a radiator) in your heat duct system. If the big part (tanks) is below the level of the house, thermosiphon can move the water with no pump. Or it can be used installed directly into a wall as a 'storage mass' system with air to air heating. That would take a HUGE load off of a mini hydro plant right there, particularly if used in conjunction with a thermal mass heat storage system (basically a big stone fireplace behind glass walls which are pointed south). Then all your electrical needs would be: keeping beer cold (#1 of course!) running the lights, TV, computer, coffeemaker etc and of course the plasma cutter, compressor and welder. 
My grandfather has some acreage out in the middle of nowhere that's powered exclusively by micro-hydro. He runs propane for the fridge, stove, etc, but the hydro power is enough for all the lights, tv (satellite), radio, etc.
Any specs?
Jensenman wrote: Dunno about ultra capacitors. I've been looking into micro hydro on the sites mentioned and a few others I Googled, it seems most of the setups described are used to charge a bank of batteries and then an inverter is used to get 110V. That's terribly inefficient (a lot of heat loss), plus when the batteries are charged it seems you have to shunt the power to a bank of capacitors or bulbs or etc to prevent boiling the batteries. So at one point you are generating electricity which does you ~zip~ good. It makes more sense (to me) to build something which directly generates 110 V AC.
I think the explanation is that direct AC generation which backfeeds the grid is technically not "off-grid". This concept offends true survivalists, or people who want to truly be "free".
Most internet sites dedicated to being "off-grid" are true hard cores.
Just doesn't make sense. When backfeeding is possible, it makes huge sense, and is significantly more economically feasible.
From what I gather, the 'dump load' could just as easily be fed back into the power grid as it would a resistor bank. You would still want a 'dump load' resistor or whatever in the event that the grid goes down. I'm still a bit hazy on the the reason for the 'dump load', it seems that when generating the power if it doesn't have somewhere to go it damages the generator. I'm still studying the reasons for it. EDIT: It appears the main reason for the 'dump load' is to smooth out power spikes. In the event that the gennie spins too fast, the excess power is bled off to the dump load to maintain the Hz frequency of the power, i.e. keeping it at 60 cycles.
The 'low head' turbines on that page I referenced capable of powering a whole house were actually very reasonably priced, IMHO. For instance a 3kW system is $5250.00 and there are larger ones available, or they can be 'stacked'. Of course they don't include the penstock, dam, etc. I see no reason a system big enough for an average house couldn't be 'grassroots built' for about $50-$75K. Assuming, of course, that you already have a piece of property with a stream capable of powering the thing.
why dam? i'd make a beautiful huge water wheel, I've been contemplating this same thing, and looking for property in TX that has a stream.
Jensenman wrote: The 'low head' turbines on that page I referenced capable of powering a whole house were actually very reasonably priced, IMHO. For instance a 3kW system is $5250.00 and there are larger ones available, or they can be 'stacked'. Of course they don't include the penstock, dam, etc. I see no reason a system big enough for an average house couldn't be 'grassroots built' for about $50-$75K. Assuming, of course, that you already have a piece of property with a stream capable of powering the thing.
OK, I'm confused.
The average US home uses between 1kW-hour and 2 kW-hours per hour. 5kW-hour should be about sufficient for (well managed) peak loads.
Your 3kW system is $5250, but you are suggesting $50-$75K for a "grassroots" system. HUH? Why would you need 10-15 times the amount that can be generated for $5250? Why would you spend the ENTIRE cost of a house for a "grassroots" electrical system? Did you add a digit???
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