Anybody Use Solar Panels Here In Fairfax

[Henry]

I was wondering if anybody here in Fairfax has solar panels and what their experience has been with them?  I am told there is a fairly quick payback if you use them for hot water, but would be interested in a persons actual experience with them.

[cedarman]

On the alternative home energy issue, is anyone aware of any restrictions against wind turbines for personal use if they do not exceed the town height restrictions of 35 ft?

[special ED]

henry I have extentive knowlage of solar panels ,and no they are not a fast payback actually you will not get a pay back on them .the equipment is very costly and the area we live in does not get enough sun to use it very much ,according to the weather service we get only 60 good days of solar effectiveness a year ,so whatever you save in those 60 days will be lost to your backup expense,that is why cord wood is your best investment ,pellets work out to be good at current prices if the price of fuel oil is above 2.40 a gallon with btu content ,geothermal for this region is stupid,you have to drill too far down to reach the level of good heat transfer ,although it is good for air conditioning but for heating forget it ,electric is the only thing that is 100 percent efficent with no flue gases ,but producing electricty costly ,wind generation is the best for home use for that application but the enviro natzi`s are to blame for restrictions on tower hieghts you need at least 100 feet to get any usefull gain

[gpdvt]

found this estimator online..kind of slow to load. Not sure how accurate it is either but for whats it's worth.. http://estimator.solar-estimate.org/index.php?verifycookie=1&page=rightforme&subpage=

[Henry]

Thanks Ed,  At my age, definitely not a good prospect for solar.

[Mike Raburn]

This ALGORE energy is VERY silly.

I HATE to admit this. but Pres. Barrack Hussein, nailed it....so I heard, Nuke is the future.
It pains me to agree.

If they can make it safe and put it on our GRID......I am allll for it.
Kills our OIL...... But we have Natural Gas, at least I do!
Pull my finger,,,,,,,,,,

[trussell]

GroSolar was going to install (and I'm just going from memory so my numbers may be off a bit) a 2,000 watt solar array in my yard for around $7,000 last fall (GMCR would have helped subsidize it).  This was going to be a battery-less installation and feed the grid when I wasn't using the electricity I was generating.

Green Mtn Power would pay a certain amount above the prevailing electric rate as a rebate to their customers, I think it was 6 cents (For instance, they will credit you 18 cents/kW if your're paying them 12 cents for the power you normally use), but CVPS doesn't do this.  From what I remember it was going to take me over 20 years to realize any gain- and the projected life of the array was 20-25 years.

I figured it would take me 4 arrays, or 10,000 watts to make my average electric bill neutral and that was going to cost $28,000.  And because I only pay about $70/month for electricity right now I couldn't justify it.  I still think it would be cool to have my own array- regardless of cost- but found better uses for that money.  I'm sure I'll do it eventually though.

When they claim an attractive return on investment, the proponents are referring to all the factors- reduced electricity bill, the income generated from selling back to the grid, increased property value (supposedly), and I know there were other things they factored in.

now passive HOT WATER- that's another thing entirely.  I work with several people that have it installed and use it as supplemental heating and they claim it works tremendously well- but then again two of them have engineering backgrounds and built their homes specifically to utilize it.

(Wow- a post from Trevor that has substance!  Take THAT Mike!)

[Henry]

Thanks Trevor - Really appreciate your post because that is the type of thing I was interested in hearing about.

[Mike Raburn]

T-Man is growing dope off of the grid.

Take nothing from what he posted!

MOTHER OF GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!