Are photovoltaic cost justified?
Are solar water heaters cost justified?
Is a windmill on windy property cost justified?
More Pages:
- Solar Lights: What Is The Most Cost Effective Solar Energy System To Install? (5/13/2011)
- Solar Power: When Will Solar Power Cost Effective For Generating Electricity Comparing To Traditional Means? (5/6/2011)
- Solar Energy: How Much Does Solar Energy Cost In The UK? (4/24/2011)
- Solar Energy: How Much Would A Solar Energy Panel Cost To Install In A 3 Bedroom House (roughly)? (5/9/2011)
- Solar Producer: What Is The Cheapest Form Of Energy? Or Which As Lowest Production Cost And Cost To Consumers- Solar, Wind, Et (5/9/2011)
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Solar electric systems take from 12 to 20 years to pay for themselves depending on your location and what your local utility charges for electricity. Wind turbine systems for homes are one of the more cost effective forms of generating electricity from a renewable energy source if you have the right site.Wind power systems can take from 8 to 12 years, depending on the wind speed at your site. In order to get a better idea of what a system would cost you, you would have to do some homework. I would recommend checking out the University section of this site, [url http://learn.altestore.com [/url]
I hope this helps! Good luck!
yes they are all cost justified depending on how long you want to wait. it can take more than 10 years for solar systems to pay for themselves, but after that, its all free enegry / heat.
windmills CAN pay for themselvs quickly (less than 5 years) but it really depends on your location, for example, a windmill at the hamptons in New England near the ocean can provide 100% of the electricty for a household (but the average wind speeds are well over 20 mph in an area where this happens)
if you are thinking about putting renewable energy on your home or somwhere else, call a renewable energy company (most will give the location in question a free consultation where they can tell you about how long it will take for your technology to pay for its self and start giving you free power)
hope this helps
They can be. It will depend on too many variables to say which would be best for your situation. For example wind isn’t financially viable in my area because we only have a few months that I would get enough wind to generate electricity.
I can tell you the specs for my solar pv system. I got a 3.74 kwh/dc system, it cost $ 26K, my utility gave me a $ 10K rebate and I got a $ 2k fed tax credit (would have been $ 7800) this year. I am producing about 75% of my winter usage and 90% of my summer usage. I’m saving about $ 2K per year. I will break even in my 6th year, sooner if the rate increase they are proposing pass. I expect to save at least $ 50 over the life of the panels, that was estimating a 5% annual rate increase.
I recommend getting an estimate of cost, expected production and estimate of when you would break even to see if it makes sense for you.
From a mico-economic (personal) perspective conservation often holds the most pay back dollars. Photovoltaic systems in the lab are now around 40% efficient with projections up to around 60%. What you can currently buy is around 14% efficient. This does not mean the same thing as a fueled system where operating costs are the primary consideration, but it does have an impact on how much of a system you will have to buy. Photovoltaics are still dependent upon subsidies and tax credits.
Solar water heaters depend upon a different principal. Solar thermal collectors are from 60 to 80% efficient now. The vacuum tube collectors are effective in cloudy weather and in cold environments. There are several reasons for this. Getting heat from the sun goes back thousands of years and there were solar thermal panels and water heaters in California in the early part of the 20th century. So it is a much older technology. Also the inefficient part of the photovoltaic systems are partially because of reflected energy and energy that is transformed to heat. A solar hot water system to get around 80% of required domestic hot water has a pay back period of 2 to 3 years. After this the savings go in the bank. This makes solar hot water systems cost effective.
Other solar thermal applications would include more south facing windows and a solar room (greenhouse.)
Solar thermal is also being used on a large scale to produce electricity. Pilot plants have three main designs:
Power towers where heliostats reflect sunlight onto a target. This system seems to work well as a hybrid with a gas fired power plant to take over when needed.
A hyperbolic dish reflector eliminates the need for much of the moving hardware of the above needed to track the sun.
A trough collector system eliminates even more of the tracking hardware. There are several other options.1
But I haven’t seen any numbers that indicate that these facilities are competitive without the subsidies that nuclear, petrochemicals or coal receives There are advocates that propose to strip all subsidies but this would collapse the nuclear industry2 and who knows where the others would fall.
Wind energy is very close to par. I have seen some numbers around 6 cents per kwh with the goal being around 5 cents per kwh. Again not counting the “true cost of coal.” But the problem with any renewable source regardless of its efficiency or cost effectiveness is that it will only work with some kind of a back up system To the extent that this is “the grid” and someone can be producing when someone is not the cost of duplication will have to be compared to the cost of overbuilding and the increase in efficiency over the current systems production which is around 30%.
To the extent that we have to build more storage into our grid, be it batteries, flywheels, pumped hydro, CAES or something else, it will become more efficient but will also have a price tag associated with it. This is progress.3
But just where do you want to stop considering the financial issues? Solar would be a “domestic” product where, for the US both nuclear fuel and petrochemicals are imports. Protecting the foreign supplies is our very expensive military. India and China are huge nations that want more industrialization. This will be dependent upon energy. Will we use our military to make sure neither of these countries become industrialized? If competition makes our supplies dwindle our costly military may be of little help to us. The silent subsidy of our military may then be more of a liability than a benefit to our energy policy.
Coal fuels slightly less than 50% of our electrical grid. But there are costs in pollution from this activity that go beyond what we pay for each kwh of electricity. I lost a slate roof to acid rain. If I were to add the cost of replacing that roof to my electric bills it would appear that coal can be quite expensive. This is not to speak of health issues or their cost and associated suffering.4
The costs that many of you (not all, many) are finding is from companies that are marketing their “green” products at you..meaning that it is marked up somewhat, all polished up, and installed.
You have TONS of free energy existing all around your house now, every motor, every magnet.. do not forget steam, solar, the list goes on.
If your are technically/mechanically savvy enough you don’t have to wait 10 years for your solar project to pay off. So far, I think I have made a 150.00 investment and as of right now my husband’s entire work shed is run completely on solar power. We used the work shed as the prototype and were able to run the mini-fridge, an AC unit, all the power tools..etc, but it took quite a few hours (weeks of piddling around really) to discover all the other sources we already had.
The windmill thing is my next endeavor, being in Louisiana I fear might hold me down on that one.. haha… but I *most certainly* will not pay someone to come do it for me and charge me a fortune, we will manufacture it ourselves.
Check out this website, it was very helpful to me:
http://www.greenpowerscience.com
It all depends on what is important to you.
If you feel strongly about using non or low polluting energy generating forms then what is that worth to you?
You can spend thousands putting in a home solar or wind power systems and that’s great if you have the money.
What about trying to build your own?
You can get step by step how to do manuals on the web.
If you good DIY skills you are talking about a few hundred dollars
There are also some good youtube movies on this topic too.
Depends on where you live but for most some combination of wind and solar power works best.
Why pay a huge amount like $ 1000′s for utilization of solar or wind power when you can have the opportunity to build your own home made solar system for less than $ 50.