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reynante
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sunpowerport.com
harnessing the power of the sun
The Sun Power Port:

Ideal for camping or emergency power outages, the
Sun Power Port is a portable generator that when used
to its full potential will pay for itself in less than two years.
In one day of full sunshine, the solar panel easily charges
the 12 volt (standard automobile) battery. An inverter
changes the DC current to AC. From there the electrical energy
is easily accessible to most standard 110 volt small
appliances used in North America.

On a full charge, without the sun, the battery has enough
power to run and charge a laptop computer for about three
hours, a 19" television for over an hour or a twenty watt
light for about ten hours. Next time the power goes out, read
in silence, listen to music, surf the Internet while the Sun Power
Port provides a clean energy source.
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reynantevargas
http://www.sunpowerport.com/

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Originally Posted By: reynante
... while the Sun Power Port provides a clean energy source...
The carbon footprint of every device could be roughly expressed by its price. $695.00 cost of solar panel device has a carbon footprint corresponding over 46 kWh for 15 USD/kWh (DOE price at the U.S. in April 2009), i.e. 63 days of permanent operation, i.e. at least 200 days of real operation (for ~8 hours of direct sunlight per day).

Just after 3/4 year of daily operation your device becomes "clean" source of energy. In real case (20 vaccation days per year) the pay-off period becomes prolonged to more then ten years...

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at the below web site you can get solar pannels for as low as $1.37 per watt.

you could get a pallet of 25 (60 watt 48 volt) pannels with a combined wattage of 1500 watts for $2000.00

http://www.affordable-solar.com/solar-panel-pallet-kaneka-60-watt-solar-panel.htm

1500 watts x 8 (hours) x 63 (days) = 756 kWh

to put it in simpler form thats $90.00 USD in electric bill savings every 63 days with a electricity rate of 12 cents per kWh.

or apx $540.00 USD per year , so in 4 years they are paid for and then you pocket the $540.00 every year from then on.




3/4 inch of dust build up on the moon in 4.527 billion years,LOL and QM is fantasy science.
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I am not sure if this constitutes spamming or not. I will let it stand and see what Kate and Mike think.

Amaranth


If you don't care for reality, just wait a while; another will be along shortly. --A Rose

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SPAM ?

http://spam.abuse.net/overview/whatisspam.shtml

there are thousands of instances of spam on this forum.

most are found in the link of the signature line that
links to a web site.

such as the signature line of the starting thread in this thread.

all links are not spam however , as some links point to further relative data or comparison data that helps the readers more clearly understand the topic.

my post and link was to clarify to the readers that solar power does not require 10 years to repay the initial cost , if the initial cost is lower per watt.

as the starting poster of this thread has found a great power supply for campers , yet the per watt cost of this unit is way above the cost of a home power supply when using solar cells that are purchased for $1.34 a watt.

not the D.O.E estimated $15.00 a watt.

the D.O.E does not really want people to save money on energy , not large quantities of it.
they protect the fuel tax income that is part of their job it seems.
they mostly just advertise that they want people to become more energy efficient.

that is why they do not fund anything that would save energy and that is why they always give the funding dollars they get to large corporations that will also protect that tax income by not saving any energy.


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Hopefully there is not as much spam on this forum as you suggest Paul.
Too much spam is a definate spoiler on a Science Forum.
I must admit that some times it might be difficult to separate Company names from the new and unique ideas
that companys have come up with, and wish to market.
Reynante talking about a Solar panel powered electric generator is not new, since the idea has been common knowledge for twenty years, and of little scientific interest.
But it is Reynantes first post, and I am sure it wont be his last. As he is very welcome to these pages.

The point being...that anyone can write about any scientific idea, pseudo-real, made up, or not...but once you write in a companys name that they are using strictly for advertising purposes...then it is generally considered spam, in this forum.
Remember one can get lots of thoughts and extra ideas from reading SAGG's Front Page.
In my opinion it is very under used, regarding discussions.


.

.
"You will never find a real Human being - Even in a mirror." ....Mike Kremer.


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The exact same wording as this message appears on a number of different fora along with the same link. I'm not sure what you call that except for spam.

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Originally Posted By: paul

my post and link was to clarify to the readers that solar power does not require 10 years to repay the initial cost , if the initial cost is lower per watt.


If it really pays for itself in 4 years then anybody planning on staying in the same house for that long should use them!

But I think your calculations were a little optimistic. Little-no power on cloudy days, and probably not getting the advertised power output unless it's facing the sun, which it won't be for 8 hours.

And without batteries, you have to use that power in the middle of the day or it's wasted. What's consuming 1500 watts all day while you're at work? Forgot to turn the oven off? wink

With batteries that introduces a whole new ongoing cost of replacement, as well as power loss through charge/discharge inefficiency.

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kallog

Quote:
And without batteries, you have to use that power in the middle of the day or it's wasted. What's consuming 1500 watts all day while you're at work? Forgot to turn the oven off?


you dont need batteries any longer , you get a one way meter that your power company supplies and installs.

you connect your solar power system directly to the grid and the power company buys your power for apx 18 cents per kWh.

when you use their electricity they deduct the power your system generated previously then any amount over that is charged on your electric bill.

there is no need to buy and replace batteries.

there is no need to buy a inverter.

all you need to buy is the solar power pannels and a converter to convert the solar pannel power from DC to AC.


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Oh I'm a bit behind the times. I always wondered when people would start doing that! Amazing!

I wonder then why it hasn't taken off? Maybe people just don't know about the opportunity? Or can't be bothered having things installed?

I also wonder why people don't just generate power commercially with PV panels. Surely there's more to the cost that makes it uneconomical. Maybe the land area it would consume?

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Kallog

Quote:
I also wonder why people don't just generate power commercially with PV panels. Surely there's more to the cost that makes it uneconomical. Maybe the land area it would consume?


naturally its not something that is widely advertised
due to its corporate impacts.

But with this type of distributed power system the power companies could eventually be relieved from the expense of building and maintenance of centrally located power plants except for those that would be required durring cloudy days and durring nights.

there is also a national security benefit at play here as the ability to attack the centrally located power plants would be easier to accomplish than the ability to attack all the solar pannels on peoples houses.

There are companies that are taking advantage of this one way metering and selling power to the grid as a commercial non corporate entity. however the amounts of electricity that they can sell to the grid is limited to 100 kWh at the .18 cents per kWh and those that sell above 100 kWh can only recieve apx 4-5 cents per kWh.

even so these systems can provide an enormous relief of
CO2 emmissions that would normaly be in play in our environment.

these systems can use any alternative sustainable energy source.

be it wind , solar pannels , solar collectors , bio fuels,
people pedalling generator bikes etc... LOL












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Wait a minute, things aren't really adding up.

Small producers can get a much higher price than large ones? What kind of market is that? A government subsidized one perhaps?

I just saw that America has something called Renewable Energy Credits, which people have used for this purpose. Instead of selling power they're selling credits which power companies have to collect enough of to meet regulations.


As an aside, pedal power isn't generally good for the environment. Pedal power means food power, and typical food has a higher carbon footprint than petrol. That's on top of the human body having poorer efficiency than a generator. It may actually be better to ride a motorbike than pedal a bicycle.

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Kallog

the below link is to a actual electricity company bill where the customer uses net metering , he uses a total of
1,568 kWh for the month and is charged $124.68 @ .08 cents
per kWh for his usage.
his solar pannel system sent 187 kWh to the power company
durring the month and he was credited $32.54 @ .174 cents per kWh.

his final cost was $103.70

judging from his credit amount of 187 kWh's he only has a
750 - 1000 watt system.

750 watts x 8 hours x 31 days = 186,000 watt hours
or 186 kWh

http://www.gasolar.org/uploads/exampleofgeorgiapowercredit.gif

Recovering the cost of these credits is accomplished through block purchases of green energy through the power company , where environmentally driven consumers or corporations wishing to present to the public their environmental consiousness purchase thousands even millions of these green watts of electricity.

and yes most states offer several incentives to consumers to purchase solar pannels and wind turbines and a large variety of green products.

in fact the federal government has a tax credit for home owners that will pay for 30% of the entire installation cost.

below is a link to info on tax credits

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=tax_credits.tx_index





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Yea he's selling it for more than he's buying it. So this isn't really a sustainable scheme, and won't work on a much larger scale. He's basically being payed for doing something for the environment rather than for the value of the power he's producing.

That 10 year payback period you mentioned before, and which I've heard elsewhere too, is probably for selling power of any sort, which would be safe from changes in public opinion about renewable energy, safe from oversupply of that product, and applicable to other states and countries.

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Kallog

Quote:
That 10 year payback period you mentioned before, and which I've heard elsewhere too, is probably for selling power of any sort, which would be safe from changes in public opinion about renewable energy, safe from oversupply of that product, and applicable to other states and countries.


I believe I said in 4 years the system would pay for itself.

I was wrong.

its more like 2.6 years !!!

then its money in your pocket to buy other products with.

suppose I bought a 6 kW system and installed it on my roof top.

and instead of paying the DOE estimate of $15.00 per watt
I only pay $1.37 per watt as shown in the above link.

my initial investment for the 6 kW pannels is $8220.00

assumming that I get 8 hours a day of 6 kW for everyday of each year.

6 kW x 8 hours x 365 days = 17,520 kWh's per year.

the electric company credits me for 3,153.60 each year.

$8,220.00 / 3,153.60 = 2.60 years

after the initial 2.6 years for the remaining 23.4 years of the 25 year lifetime of the pannels I would be getting FREE ENERGY LOL.


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OK. But again, it's subsidised by the government, so sure you can do it, and that's great. But in doing so you're taking money that could have been spent on something else, say healthcare, road safety or my personal favourite, nuclear fusion (not fission).

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Kallog

the example system I refferenced that cost $8220.00
didnt include any of the available government tax credits.

the $0.18 cents per kWh credit is not a government subsidy.

the power companies charge more for green energy as shown in the below link where consumers can purchase green energy blocks of 100 kWh to support environmentaly friendly power generation such as solar power.

https://customerservice.southerncompany.com/corporate/green_residential_signup.asp

in the example of a actual electrcity bill posted above if the consumer purchased a 100 kWh block for every 100 kWh he used durring the month he could purchase 15 blocks
because he used 1564 kWh that month.

the purchase would cost him either $3.50 or $4.50 per 100 kWh block depending on the plan he chooses.

he would pay either $52.50 or $67.50 extra on his bill.






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OK it's not a government subsidy, it's paid for by consumers. I see some power companies choose to offer a premium green service, but others may simply charge everybody more. Wikipedia says half of American states have renewable energy quotas, that means power companies will want to buy it at an artificially high price regardless of whether consumers want it.

If more renewable power was generated, the premium prices would fall and further growth would be stopped.

Well what I keep trying to get at is we can't just cover the planet with solar panels because it would cost more than coal, oil, gas or nuclear.

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Kallog

Quote:
what I keep trying to get at is we can't just cover the planet with solar panels because it would cost more than coal, oil, gas or nuclear.


the U.S. consumes apx 1.3 trillion kWh per year.

the amount of land required to power the U.S. solely by solar power pannels is an area of
apx 62.5 miles x 62.5 mies or 3905 sq miles.

each of the above $1.37 per watt solar pannels have the dimentions of 40 inch x 40 inch or 11.11 sq ft each pannel.

it would require 2.509 million pannels to cover 1 sq mile.

9.7 billion pannels to cover the entire 3905 sq mile area.

the pannels cost $82.20 each.
the cost of enought pannels to solely power the U.S.
using solar power pannels would be only 805 billion dollars.

-----------------

that doesnt seem like much when you are dealing with anual trillion dollar budgets does it.

this would supply apx 587 billion watts when the sun is shinning.
or 587 million kW when the sun is shinning and
for every hour the sun shines it would produce
587 million kWh's


total est U.S. electricity consumption is 1,300,000,000,000 kWh a year

1.3 trillion kWh's a year
/ 365 days
3.5 billion kWh's a day
/ 6 hours a day
593 million kWh's a hour @ 6 hours sunshine a day.


its not exact but its pretty close thats not much land at all when you think about it , and the money it would cost
is also extremely low compared to the return on the investment.

of course no power company will ever build a single solar power instalation this large and besides I think that
putting solar pannels on the roofs of houses would be the best way to utilize this energy source.

thats a anual return of 156 billion dollars
for 25 years totaling 3.9 trillion if sold at the national average of $0.12 cents per kWh.



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It's not really meaningful to compare production cost to retail price, that ignores all the other costs and markups along the way. Here I'm crudely comparing $/kWh for your solar idea to nuclear, which is pretty expensive.

1.3 trillion kWh/year = 140GW

Solar, assuming power can be stored/sold elsewhere to ignore nighttime:
Setup cost, 140GW of solar panels: $5700/kW
Setup cost, other: ?
fuel: 0
other ongoing costs: ?
Cost over 25 years: 5700/kW / (25*365*24)
= $0.026 /kWh

Nuclear:
Setup cost: $2000-5000 / kW (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_o..._cost_estimates)
fuel 0.0071 $/kWh (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html)
other ongoing costs: ?
Cost over 25 years: $4000/kW / (25*365*24) + fuel = $0.018/kWh + $0.0071/kWh
= $0.025/kWh

So they end up about the same, but for solar I ignored labour, land, maintenance, etc. For nuclear I ignored maintenance. That means this result is inconclusive, but certainly doesn't show any clear advantage of solar. For solar PV there's also the impossibility of storing power overnight and adjusting generation to match variations in demand, so it can never be the major power source.

Someone else has done it properly for Australia, this shows solar PV as the MOST EXPENSIVE of many existing power sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_co...fferent_sources


If you're generating power at twice cost of your competitors, and selling it at the same price in a competitive market, you're bound to fail.

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