House & Home I'm too stingy with my Solar

I have a T33 port but I don't use it as it's only active between 11pm and 3am or something stupid like that, anytime we use the hot water it's during the day which will be mostly off the Solar but my point is I have solar hot water (2 reservoirs on the roof) so I am not sure why my electricity use goes nuts when we use the hot water, in my mind it should be a small usage increase as it fires up the pump to push the water through the solar reservoirs.

This is true and our Battery solution has trained us into specific habits which make use our power when the Solar is at it's best, this in itself will be lowering our footprint as we are using less grid power than when we used to use the dryer and dishwasher at night.

 

These greenie warriors give me the *****.

Our street is not connected to sewerage.

So, our previous house had a concrete septic tank and a gravel pit.

When we demolished that house and built a new one, we weren’t allowed to install a septic tank as it wasn’t ‘environmentally friendly’. We assume the construction of the tank using concrete?

So, we had to install our own effluent plant. This is constructed from harden plastic, requires chlorine tablets and consumes electricity (from a coal-fired power station) to run the system 24/7 for the next x years (whether we are home or not).

How is this new setup more environmentally friendly than a concrete tank?

 

Property Leaders Commit to Net Zero Future

 

My neighbour and parents are the same (though not a pensioner). Their quarterly bill is $2,000.
Just paid mine at $311.

Neither of us have solar. And we don't run the AC 24/7.

 

Not if everyone did the same - and don't know why I should feed it back into the grid for 6c, only to have to buy it back for 60c later in the evening.

I also have solar hot water, bio-cycle septic and a 120,000l water tank. Personally I think all four items (solar power, solar hot water, bio septic to water the garden and large water tank for internal use) should be compulsory on new builds, rather than tempting buyers with things like stone benchtops.

I do have to chuckle at how you city folk are only allowed to flush your loo with tank water ... we use ours for everything, including drinking, and it tastes amazing. Don't tell the teen about the frogs in the tank tho

 

Adding solar panels harnesses the sun's energy and lowers the demand on fossil fuels. The best case for the environment is if everyone put up solar panels.

Adding batteries simply contains energy in a certain location. The grid sees no difference between a street of houses with solar panels, and a street of houses with both panels + batteries. However energy was used to create those batteries and there will be an environmental impact once those batteries need to be disposed of.

edit: actually the grid will see a difference in the pattern of electricity usage from that street, but not in the overall usage amount.

One advantage of batteries is that it stops a whole street from suddenly feeding back large amounts of electricity during Summer midday, where everyone's feed-in is maxing out all of their phases and the equipment simply can't cope. With batteries, the grid wouldn't see as many huge power draw and feed-in spikes. We will have a very good problem on our hands once solar panel usage reaches those levels.

 

That's why it needs to be stored onsite - or within the community itself - would solve the issue of massive wires and pole infrastructure. Something they are doing in many small Indian villages - installing renewable energy so they don't have to be connected to a massive grid

 

A balance of solar panels and batteries (that distribute power to the community) is the dream. Microgrids I think they're called? @Dan Donoghue would know

 

I still don't see a problem with manufacturing a battery and later disposing of it - recycling the materials it is made from, more like it. It is one item which saves fifteen to twenty years of fossil fuel use. Give and take.

*disclaimer: I have no idea whether batteries are produced in some Medieval third world peasant village and pollution from the factory has poisoned the local water supply. That would be a problem. In that case the factory can be relocated.

 

AFAIK manufacture of the batteries occurs in Tesla's Gigafactory which aims to be carbon neutral. The more old batteries can be recycled the better, however each battery made is still going to have a non-zero footprint.

A battery does not save any amount of fossil fuel use. It simply stores energy for later consumption. Unlike solar panels, they do not harness otherwise wasted resources to generate electricity.

 

Most of the Cobalt used is from African mines with sub standard working conditions and child labor. I know this and I still purchased my battery, people still purchase Tesla cars and people still purchase mobile phones. You can't get too wrapped up in where things come from because ultimately any country with more relaxed rules and regulation will exploit people in the production of products. I don't "like" that its this way but it just is. 'Worst possible form of child labour' to mine cobalt for phone batteries

Yeah I haven't done too much research into this but from my own personal perspective I have long said I would much rather be able to donate my excess electricity to some worthy recipient as opposed to being paid a pittance for it.

If i could give it to my folks as they are retired or donate it to less fortunate people ie shelters run by volunteers then I would but that's just not an option.

 

That doesn't make sense - a battery saves the fossil fuel that would otherwise be consumed if it wasn't stored within

 

But where did the battery's stored energy come from in the first place?

If the energy came from fossil fuels (e.g. grid), then you are using x kWh from fossil fuels.
If the energy came from green sources (solar, wind), then you are using 0 kWh from fossil fuels.

However there is no situation where the existence of a battery "saves" fossil fuel usage (that would be a negative amount of fossil fuel used.) Batteries do not create energy, they just store it.

 

I believe what @chylld is saying is: If I store my power or send it to the grid it is still offsetting the fossil fuel energy production because it has been captured from green sources, the only impact of me storing it is I use it instead of someone else which impacts my back pocket and the power companies bottom line.

Weather I have a battery or not I am still producing the same amount of green power regardless of who uses it.

In reality if I had spent the Battery money on another 2 Solar systems to take me to 15kW I would have had a much better impact on the planet and most likely build up enough credit to not worry about the power we consume at night without a battery.

 

But then there wouldn't be the geek factor and also the backup capability

 

I thought a battery would only store the power on my roof produced by the sun. Are you guys telling us that they somehow suck up energy from the grid (fossil fuel power) and store that too?

If I dont have a battery, then my appliances at night time would be run by the grid. I understand that if I get a battery, then the power I use at night would come from stored solar? Any grid power would be fed to us directly only after the battery runs out.

 

Absolutely. Maybe in a few years when costs come down I can scale it out further but I want to build a second story on my house before all that

 

Correct, It stores your solar for use when the sun goes down.

I have heard that some people get a battery without even having solar, they fill the battery at off peak times then use the battery during peak times to offset those costs.

Personally I don't think the numbers stack of for this method but the ones I heard about were in the UK and the cost of utilities is a lot higher over there.

Edit: I just googled and it's only 12p per kWh, I remember it being crazy expensive when I was a kid. We used to have a winter death toll of pensioners who couldn't afford to heat their homes.

 

Even if your battery is configured to only charge from solar (they are often configured to charge off the grid as well) it doesn't change the fact that you are still producing the same amount of green power; a battery just changes who uses it and when.

 

Just noticed a new feature, if the PW detects a storm it charges up to 100% to give us maximum backup in case of an outage