Duration : 0:3:25

Technorati Tags: alternative, bella, energy, panels, Solar, solardave, wattage

SolarDave: Do you ever do small projects like solar power fountain pumps?

Daimon Vilppu: Not too much, I am more than willing to help people with stuff like that but a lot of times they are going to do that on their own.

If I hear something like that I usually tell them go to a certain web site and get it themselves, that is an easy one to go to online go find yourself a setup a kit, you can buy kits for stuff like that.

SolarDave: Do you have any favorite web sites?

Daimon Vilppu: The first one that pops to my head is Gaiam but there is a bunch of other bigger web sites.

SolarDave: Is it Gaiam.com?

Daimon Vilppu: RealGoods, same company they bought out Jade’s Mountian a while ago.

Duration : 0:0:52

Technorati Tags: Fountains, Installation, power, Solar, solardave

Tony Boniface: For on grid – no. Because of the fact of net metering, it is not that important when you produce the power to when you use it.

Off grid is a different story, because now you are relying on that power to be produce when you need it, generally winter is the worse case scenario generally if you are doing an off grid solar system if you design the system so it carries an average load that means the panels will be producing over in the summer and under producing in the winter.

If you design the system so it is producing most of the power in the winter it will be termendously over producing in the summer. So it is a deminishing return there. With an off gird system you are going to need a generator any way. So it is better to design the system some where in between fall and spring seasons and incur a little over production in the summer and a little deficite in the winter and let the generator make that up unless cost is not an issue and you just size for winter.

Duration : 0:1:10

Technorati Tags: alternative, dave, Design, energy, panels, Solar, solardave

Cary Hayes: Your friend’s system at 4KW, which means 4 thousand watts of DC power, that system with a good rule for thumb for every one kilo watt of power will produces about 125 kilo watt hours per month in Colorado, face some direction south and a good pitch angle.

His initial capital outlay will be repaying some where around 10 to 15 years. Now the payback on a solar system comes down to a variety of factors but the number one factor is electricity rates.

The electricity rates right now in Colorado for what Xcel charges is about 9.5 cents per kilo watt hour, what Xcel charges…

SolarDave: That is pretty cheap.

Cary Hayes: Some of the cheapest in the country. Compared to California, Hawaii, east coast, Chicago, from a nationwide perspective it is really cheap.

Xcel has asked for a 15% rate increase this summer that was just announced a few weeks ago, and we look back at the Xcel rates over the last 20 or 30 years, Xcel has raised rates 4.25% to 4.5% each year over the last say 30 years.

Historical average increases for this country are around 5.5% increase per year. So slightly more than inflation.

What we are starting to see in Xcel territory and other electricity vendors out there is the rise in cost of electricity. Rates are going up faster than the historic norm’s have been for a variety of reasons, increase energy costs across the board cost of gas, oil, coal.

It is fair to make the assumption that the costs are going to go up, it is a question of how fast. As the go up the payback on the solar system starts condensing. So if you are offsetting 9.5 cent kilo watt power today, rates go up 15% this year, 13% the following year, 5 years from now the cost might be 15 cents per kilo watt hour. Now you are offsetting 15 cents a kilo watt hour, which means you are saving that much more, which means you payback gets condensed.

So I think it is fair assumption to say in Colorado that a residential solar system will have a ten year payback. That is probably what we will end up with when we are all said and done.

Duration : 0:3:3

Technorati Tags: panels, payback, Solar, solardave

Dan Yechout: Namaste Solar primarily installs from three manufacturers; SunPower, Sharp and Kyocera. Your Sunpower panel and your Sanyo are you two high efficiency high end panels, so must power per square foot but also the most cost per watt as well. Those panels are very popular when you have very limited roof space and you want to maximize how much power you get on your roof.

Sunpower also has the nice added benefit of an all black ascetic that you don’t get with any other panels and that is really popular with homeowners.

Then your Sharp and Kyocera panels are your low efficiency but lower cost panels so those can really make sense when you have a lot of roof space in order to fit the solar system.

SolarDave: So which one has the most bank for the buck? Sharp or the Kyocera?

Dan Yechout: They are actually quite comparable, Sharp has their own racking system now, which is called SRS aestecally is nice because black frame system which sits low to the roof but sometimes you do not get the flexiblity with that system because of the low profile and because it is a frame you need to have some margin of roof space around the system to work so you end up losing a little bit of real estate with that system that you can’t go over attic vents and those kinds of things.

Where as with a panel like Kyocera can be used with standard 3rd party mounting systems such as Unirack or ProSolar and those tend to be pretty flexible and can often clear some roof obstructions and go right to the ridge of the roof or gutter of the roof.

Duration : 0:1:40

Technorati Tags: dan, kyocera, namaste, panel, sharp, solardave, solars, sunpower, yechout