3 ms·

The middle of Nova Scotia is about same latitude as me, but you guys probably get waaaaay more snow and I am on the desert side of WA state. We get a ton of su

The middle of Nova Scotia is about same latitude as me, but you guys probably get waaaaay more snow and I am on the desert side of WA state. We get a ton of sunshine. How are you going to clear off the snow? I have 54 panels and it is a big chore to do it without scratching the panels, so I don't even try. Snow slides off like a metal roof, so you have that. Do you guys get more overcast days? If so your panels may behave more like my place on the west side of the Cascade mountains near Portland Oregon. Looking at production on that 2.2 kW system for this January, I see a non-snow low of 0.4 kWh with an average daily production of 1.6 kWh. Take a look at my January production, including some days with 0kWh production due to a dusting of snow: https://i.stack.imgur.com/9qw18.jpg https://i.stack.imgur.com/9qw18.jpg That system is 6 years old. So, IFF you get a system, your power storage needs to survive whatever is the longest run you can imagine (+50% ?) of days with overcast or snow coming down.

traverseda 7y ago
That program didn't exist last time I looked into it, I'll definitely be following up on it. I actually know some people who would be great candidates for small wind turbines under it, so I'll be mentioning it to them. Another challenge is that the solar is part of an RV, which makes permanent grid tie challenging, but I'm definitely considering just "donating" it when I can at this point.
- ldiracdelta 7y ago
  Unless you're sure that your donations on will be used on-premise immediately, then you will actually cost whoever is your host. (It may even have to be on the same 120V phase tap from the 240V coming off the street transformer, but I'm not sure.) Standard electric meters are not sensitive to power direction - power going into the residence or power going out. They only detect volume of power movement, but not direction. When you buy a grid-tie system, the power company has to come out and swap your power meter so that the new one will essentially run backwards if you happen to have net power going back into the grid. Anyways, fully solar systems are harder at our latitudes than if you live in California or closer to the equator without the strong winter demands. Maybe just fail-over to propane as needed. Power inverters need to be manufactured grid-tie style. They have a phase lock loop ( IIRC ) that ties into the phase of the grid and they need to not generate power if power is down on the grid in grid-mode, otherwise guys working on the lines can be electrocuted when they think they have turned off power lines. Also, if you're donating back, you need to be concerned about amperage on that circuit and it needs to be dedicated, in addition to following all your local power code. If you just so happen to generate 14Amps net and then a device on that same circuit consumes 28A, then the panel 15A breaker may not trip, but parts of your circuit have 28 Amps flowing: Load (28A) ^ <--- exceeding wire load | ratings | solar_current->---14A--->+<------14A--<--Breaker<--Panel ^ | Not tripping cause it only sees 14A

traverseda 7y ago

That program didn't exist last time I looked into it, I'll definitely be following up on it. I actually know some people who would be great candidates for small wind turbines under it, so I'll be mentioning it to them. Another challenge is that the solar is part of an RV, which makes permanent grid tie challenging, but I'm definitely considering just "donating" it when I can at this point.

ldiracdelta 7y ago
Unless you're sure that your donations on will be used on-premise immediately, then you will actually cost whoever is your host. (It may even have to be on the same 120V phase tap from the 240V coming off the street transformer, but I'm not sure.) Standard electric meters are not sensitive to power direction - power going into the residence or power going out. They only detect volume of power movement, but not direction. When you buy a grid-tie system, the power company has to come out and swap your power meter so that the new one will essentially run backwards if you happen to have net power going back into the grid. Anyways, fully solar systems are harder at our latitudes than if you live in California or closer to the equator without the strong winter demands. Maybe just fail-over to propane as needed. Power inverters need to be manufactured grid-tie style. They have a phase lock loop ( IIRC ) that ties into the phase of the grid and they need to not generate power if power is down on the grid in grid-mode, otherwise guys working on the lines can be electrocuted when they think they have turned off power lines. Also, if you're donating back, you need to be concerned about amperage on that circuit and it needs to be dedicated, in addition to following all your local power code. If you just so happen to generate 14Amps net and then a device on that same circuit consumes 28A, then the panel 15A breaker may not trip, but parts of your circuit have 28 Amps flowing: Load (28A) ^ <--- exceeding wire load | ratings | solar_current->---14A--->+<------14A--<--Breaker<--Panel ^ | Not tripping cause it only sees 14A