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Hi John and All,

Things have changed.? ? Prices for solar, used EV batteries are cheaper than Trojans/kwh and while Trojans are rated that, getting even 9kwh would be hard and more not good for them.

As for your situation which is also mine in an old oak forest I originally bought to hide from the summer sun and it did do that fairly well, it limited from using either solar or

?wind effectively.

The solution in your area is an RE fueled generator, preferably a water cooled/marine? diesel, an Onan would work used as CHP.? ? Fuel can be 5 micron filtered veg oil or B100.?

I do completely agree on a? DC generator to directly fast charge the batteries which greatly cuts run time, fuel? and doesn't make too much heat.

The other part is load reduction as no reason to use much power for fridge, freezer by switching to 2 chest freezers, one at 38F using 20% of normal ones.? I bought them at Lowes for just $129 each.

And mine only run 20% of the time in the Florida summer.

A/C and heating are the only real loads.

For most that can get solar it is the way to go with battery and CHP.? Though in the north wind may be better or both.

Your prices are rather high as one can buy panels, inverter for $600/kw well shopped at Raybro, etc and do it themselves or hire an electrician to do what people can't is under $1/wt plus battery.

New inverters now can control lithium battery voltage limits, solar at very low prices, $.20/wt.??

Buying a full lithium used EV battery pack is cheaper and I prefer the Volt as so far doesn't require a BMS, just upper and lower voltage limits

.? I use Deka/East Penn instead of Trojans. Just as good but 40% less well shopped.? ?Remember battery prices argue for 40% off list or no deal as they get 60% off usually..

Though when you bought they they were cheaper before they jacked the price.

With such a system sized to demand one doesn't need to even hook up to the grid other than overbuild and sell power in places that works.

As a sailor I also have a full set of 12vdc pots, pans, laptop, TV , blanket,? internet, fridge/freezer and run the A/C off the 2kw pure sine inverter and my 12vdc lead battery system made up of recycled batteries from an EV I supplied Volt modules to, keeping the good ones.

Here in Tampa just the 12vdc electric blanket and clothes? heating needs.

And my EVs recharge them or I throw up some solar panels in one of the few spots the sun gets through at that time of the yr as it moves a lot.

And I have a ethanol fueled? 160cc Honda gocart motor hotrodded to 8kwh as a backup. And as a REx for my EVs for unlimited range.?

So lots of cost effective solutions without the need for FFs and EVs should be part of the system.

Jerry Dycus

On Monday, March 22, 2021, 09:22:12 PM PDT, NeonJohn <jgd@...> wrote:

On 3/22/21 10:40 PM, Tom Rymes wrote:
>
>
>> On Mar 22, 2021, at 9:13 PM, NeonJohn <jgd@...> wrote:
>>
>>> On 3/22/21 5:46 PM, Barton Fisher wrote:
>>> I've actually thought of doing this. Maybe incorporate into the charging / home solar system.
>>
>> I have a 10kVA auto start/transfer propane whole house generator and 2 months' worth of propane.? i installed the system which cost $5,000. Seems a lot more easy and sensible than wasting all that money on marginally functional solar.? Solar is irrelevant for me anyway because my house is fully under a canopy of trees in the forest.
>>
>
> I find your comment interesting, but the only part that makes sense is the part where solar make little sense for you because of tree cover. In that case, the generator is the better choice.
>
> For most, or at least many, people, though, it would make much more sense to put that $5,000 towards a solar system with battery backup, providing much of the benefit of your generator, but also with the added benefit of cost savings every month. Sure, it makes more sense in Phoenix than in Halifax, but solar seems like a better choice to me in most cases.

let's do an analysis for using a C-car battery for emergency power.
There are 220 amp-hours * 50 volts (6.25 volts * 8) = 11k kWh.

Before I installed the generator, I had a 1500 watt 48 volt UPS.? To use
nuclear plant terms, I divided my house into Vital Bus (refrigeration,
one CFL in each room and computer equipment) and Balance of Plant,
unimportant things that lost power when the utility failed.? I used 220
AH Trojan 6 volt wet cells.

The load on the UPS with the refrigeration running (modern refrigeration
is designed to run about 90% of the time as an energy saving measure), a
CFL on only in the occupied rooms and my computer equipment totaled
about 750 watts.? So I had 11 kwh / 0.750 watts = about 15 hours of
emergency power.

I researched solar on NREL, contemplating cutting the trees shading my
cabin.? At my latitude (SE TN) It would have taken over $20,000 in solar
panels to replace the power used when the sun didn't shine each day in
the summer-time.? In the winter, solar would have been hopeless, as
we're under almost constant overcast.

With this setup I could NOT run my AC, a vital accessory in Green Cove.
? This area is knows as America's Little Rain Forest.? The humidity
remains near 100% most of the summer and the temperature averages around
85 degrees in the daytime but has reached 100 deg.? AC is simply not an
option.

To charge the batteries as fast as possible, I bought a cheap 10kVA
generator and redesigned it with a PM field and rewound the stator to
produce 60 volts peak at 100 amps.? My very best friend (who died last
Thanksgiving) owned Jerry's Electric Motor Service shop and I had the
run of the place.

I controlled output voltage by varying the engine speed using a medium
sized RC model servo and a board that I designed and programmed.? It did
a full 3 stage charge profile.

Unlike the crap batteries places like Sam's sells and many C-car owners
use because of the price, the Trojans would reach approximately 80% of
full charge while still in the bulk phase (100 amp charge rate).? They
would reach the float stage in about 2.5 hours.? In contrast, the Sam's
and similar ilk consumer batteries fell out of bulk (constant current)
and moved to absorption ( constant voltage) at about 40% of full charge.
? This because of the high internal resistance.

As soon as I could afford them, I added a second string of Trojans in
parallel with the first set to extend my capacity beyond 24 hours.

The second revision of my board measured battery voltage and
auto-cranked the charger when the batteries were about 80% depleted.

Since the primary power feed to our village is 25 miles long up a rough
mountain right of way, outages are typically multi-day affairs.? After 2
summers with no AC during outages, I bought the 10kVA auto-start whole
house generator.? When the power goes out, the generator computer waits
10 seconds to make sure it's an outage and not a switching transient,
cranks the engine, lets it warm for 5 second and throws the transfer switch.

The old system still exists, the Trojans replaced with a 600 AH 48 volt
fork lift battery.? It keeps the vital bus up during the 15 second
transfer and keeps the bus up if the generator fails to start, something
that happened once when the solenoid choke stuck shut.

My "cordless battery charger" cost me about a $grand and the Generac
about $5k, another $5k had I not done the installation.? So for about
$6k plus the cost of the batteries, I have a 100% available, highly
reliable emergency power system that will carry me up to 2 months of the
power being down.

In the infamous Blizzard of '93, 2.5 ft of snow fell overnight in April.
? This is a trout fishing destination and the season was in full swing.
? The all-electric motel (about 75 rooms) was sold out.? The power was
off for 9 days? and the sole road closed for 12 while they removed over
200 trees from across the access road.

The motel owner was too cheap to provide alternative heat such as
propane so everyone froze.? The people who built the motel built a large
apartment with a fireplace to live in.? Several men went out and
(illegally) cut trees from Forest Service land and everyone from the
motel crowded into that one room with the fireplace.? Meanwhile
everything here was normal.? I allowed people to come here a few at a
time to warm up and shower if desired.

A National Guard Helo dropped in a couple of pallets of MREs, mostly
eaten cold because the packaged chemical warmer was designed for a
desert environment.? I'm not a prepper but I keep a month's supply of
food on hand for the two of us.? Several times I cooked them hot stew,
chili and so on, on an electric range.

I would have been in a similarly excellent position had I been in Texas
recently.? Texas is too independent to wheel power (wheeling is moving
excess capacity to areas undergoing a shortfall) through the state so
only two tiny interties (about 1GVA) exist, one on either side of the
state.? This blizzard demonstrated yet again the utter folly of relying
on so-called "renewables" for base load.? Texas almost lost the state
grid about 15 years ago when the wind suddenly stopped blowing for a few
hours.? They saved the state only by virtue of having maintained many of
their gas turbines and gas fired steam plants in cold standby (ready to
start in seconds to hours) until the wind started blowing again.? Many
of those plants have since been demolished which is why the blizzard
shut down the state.


John