2 ms·

I guess that my phrasing of "any residential house" is a bit unfortunate, and that 'the majority of all residential houses' would have been better, but that doe

by roel_v 12y ago

I guess that my phrasing of "any residential house" is a bit unfortunate, and that 'the majority of all residential houses' would have been better, but that doesn't take away from the fact that with one extra of these units + 10k Wp of solar panels, you could power your AC's with power to spare to be stored in the battery pack, which you can then use to power the AC at night. Many people use AC's as a counterpoint to 2kW battery packs, whereas actually it's one of the more appropriate cases to use solar panels combined with (relatively) cheap local storage for nighttime consumption! How much is your power bill in summer? Must be $300+, going on 500 during the hottest months? At that rate, you'll make back the $20k + $10k that 10k Wp + 2 of these batteries would cost you in what, 5 to 7 years? Add financing costs and you'll be at breakeven in 10 years, not counting possible government grants.

msandford 12y ago
> How much is your power bill in summer? Must be $300+, going on 500 during the hottest months? At that rate, you'll make back the $20k + $10k that 10k Wp + 2 of these batteries would cost you in what, 5 to 7 years? No, here in Houston we've got "deregulated" power in a completely reasonable way. One company owns the lines and handles recording the meters. They charge about $0.015/kWh for this. Then there are about 100 companies that offer electricity in a multitude of different ways. I'm paying $0.08/kWh delivered to my "door" so my worst months are only $150 or so. Your idea is a nice one, except that I would need more panels and at least 2x the batteries/inverters. If I need 3kW CONSTANT to run the AC then 3kW PEAK doesn't do me any good. > but that doesn't take away from the fact that with one extra of these units + 10k Wp of solar panels, you could power your AC's with power to spare to be stored in the battery pack Not really. Look I know Tesla is awesome, and solar is awesome. I'm interested in both. But the economics really aren't here yet in Houston because of how cheap power is, because there's not a state owned utility screwing us bigtime. Houston has a lot of problems to be sure but power prices aren't one of them. tl;dr Houston isn't California.

by roel_v 12y ago

msandford 12y ago

> How much is your power bill in summer? Must be $300+, going on 500 during the hottest months? At that rate, you'll make back the $20k + $10k that 10k Wp + 2 of these batteries would cost you in what, 5 to 7 years? No, here in Houston we've got "deregulated" power in a completely reasonable way. One company owns the lines and handles recording the meters. They charge about $0.015/kWh for this. Then there are about 100 companies that offer electricity in a multitude of different ways. I'm paying $0.08/kWh delivered to my "door" so my worst months are only $150 or so. Your idea is a nice one, except that I would need more panels and at least 2x the batteries/inverters. If I need 3kW CONSTANT to run the AC then 3kW PEAK doesn't do me any good. > but that doesn't take away from the fact that with one extra of these units + 10k Wp of solar panels, you could power your AC's with power to spare to be stored in the battery pack Not really. Look I know Tesla is awesome, and solar is awesome. I'm interested in both. But the economics really aren't here yet in Houston because of how cheap power is, because there's not a state owned utility screwing us bigtime. Houston has a lot of problems to be sure but power prices aren't one of them. tl;dr Houston isn't California.