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Saturday, December 23rd, 2006Saturday, December 23rd, 2006

Solar Power Panels

by Shawn @ 8:45 pm · filed under Home Automation, House Stuff

Well, I decided a long time ago that it would be neat to put a big solar voltaic system at my new place and try to generate 100% of the electricity needed for the house (and servers and everything else I use since I work from home).

So I ended up going with a system that will be able to generate 42.8kW of power (35.7kW will be the "practical" rating for it), which consists of 252 panels (each panel can general 170 watts of power). The idea is to generate more electricity than you need during the day (running the SDG&E meter backwards), then draw on it at night.

I hope the system has some sort of SNMP probing ability... would be cool to pull up a graph of power output over time.

17 Responses to “Solar Power Panels”

  1. Todd W Says:
    December 23rd, 2006 at 9:12 pm

    Sweet my new place will have a bigass array of panels too :)

    You should get solar hot water panels too, and an on-demand hot water heater for backup ;)

  2. Mark Says:
    December 23rd, 2006 at 11:04 pm

    If you really want to be cool, filter the water runoff from the roof and store it for watering the grass / etc.

    And install a (few) wind turbines.

  3. Shawn Says:
    December 23rd, 2006 at 11:10 pm

    HOA won’t allow turbines. :)

    And yeah… solar water for the pool too…

  4. monks Says:
    December 24th, 2006 at 6:37 am

    although its a good idea…i don’t think Rancho gets enough rain fall (about 9 inches a year) to water your 3 hole golf course. maybe you can invite us all over to pee on the lawn instead?

  5. Bulbboy Says:
    December 24th, 2006 at 4:37 pm

    Very cool stuff Shawn.

    Is this what Santa brought you?

    Wishing you a very merry (energy saving) Christmas!

  6. Attack Gypsy Says:
    December 25th, 2006 at 9:43 am

    Shawn, I’ve done some work with solar panels. it was a long time ago, but…

    SDG&E will just throw a ratcheting meter on you. Which means you’ll be giving them free electricity, and still paying for what you use at night.

    And yes, they CAN do it. Federal law lets them. They got that passed 30 years ago, when solar was just starting to be looked at.

  7. Shawn Says:
    December 25th, 2006 at 11:17 am

    Actually, by law SDG&E is required to allow net metering (net usage after you give electricity back) for a rolling 12 month period. They don’t pay you if you give more than you use, but excess you send to them rolls forward to your next bill for 12 months…

    http://www.sdge.com/business/net_metering.shtml

  8. Attack Gypsy Says:
    December 25th, 2006 at 9:48 pm

    Really, must be different out there then.

  9. Bongoman Says:
    December 27th, 2006 at 4:44 pm

    Lucky you! In Sweden, they put a meter after the array and then you must pay energy-tax, CO2-tax and sales-tax based on the output of the array. If you sell the power to the grid, you must pay income-tax on the earnings.

    If your neighbour, the strong guy, helps you with the mounting, you must pay tax as if he was paid in full, even if you give him a steak and a beer as payment.

    The government still wonders why people don’t use solar power on their houses!

    In UK, you have to pay a fuel-tax if you run your car on old cooking grease. That is exempt from tax here until 2008. N efforts is done to make this permanent. Not yet at least.

    Anyone want to move here?

  10. Mike Says:
    December 27th, 2006 at 5:14 pm

    You might also want to stick in a heat exchanger so your not wasting juice heating the place.
    Concentrated Solar Power Generation using Mirrors is also good.

  11. Hone Says:
    December 27th, 2006 at 7:22 pm

    Seems like worldwide theres a lot of great laws that really encourage alternative environmentally friendly energy.

    awesome anyway shawn.

  12. “As Seen On TV” Says:
    January 7th, 2007 at 3:30 pm

    […] I like the “As Seen On TV” products that use some kind of alternative energy like the Auto Cool Solar Powered Car Fan. […]

  13. JBV Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 6:31 pm

    Howdy from the Program Manager reviewing your project for SGIP incentive. I was curious who would be installing this size system on their house so I did a search and ended up here.

    Nice work.

  14. Shawn Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 9:05 pm

    I’m nice… please approve me. :)

  15. Solar Panels Blog » Solar Power Panels Says:
    January 22nd, 2007 at 2:45 pm

    […] Original post by Shawn Hogan Fan Club […]

  16. Solar Power Energy: An Alternative To Fossil Fuels | Says:
    January 22nd, 2007 at 4:23 pm

    […] Solar Power PanelsWell, I decided a long time ago that it would be neat to put a big solar voltaic . to generate 42.8kW of power (35.7kW will be the “practical” rating for it), which consists of 252 panels (each panel can general 170 watts of power). . […]

  17. jake Says:
    January 23rd, 2007 at 10:26 am

    In the future explain how they work, and have 1-3 graphs

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