Even at the correct and higher 14.4 kWh/day it will not make an appreciable difference to the world, most of which is outside the southwest deserts anyway. On the scale of the energy cost to make, install and maintain the panels, this would be fad for the rich if the rest of the U.S. tax- and rate-payers did not cover the better part of the investment. Why do you think you pay 0.24 $/kWh - almost twice the going rate? A part of it goes for all those panel subsidies. We in CT would soon pay more yet if the panels proliferate here.
This trend sounds to me as follows: First we have to make electricity expensive (aka CA) and than renewables will pay for themselves. The higher rates will, of course, make the panels or wind mills also more expensive, so the rates must go higher yet. And so on. I guess, that is the ultimate goal of some - make it so expensive so as to revert back to the pre-industrial age. Remember the solar panel analysis in Austin TX - a 150 $/W home-owners investment if without other people's involuntary contribution and still with the utility having provided "free" wires, ...... ----- Original Message ----- From: Harry Wyeth To: jak...@snet.net ; USMA Disc Sent: 09 Sep 21, Monday 05:05 Subject: Solar panels (maybe off topic a tad....) But 600 W (rounded off) of consumption, 24/7, is 8.64 kWh per day, or 259 weekly. At California rates of $0.24 per kWh (which many people pay at only the third of five tiers of rates) that is $62 per month. Or $745 per year. With tax credits and rebates, it doesn't take that long to amortize one's net investment. Also, 14933 kWh from two sets of panels over three years seems pretty puny. With one set of 20 panels we generated 4400 kWh in one year--but I realize that this is not Connecticut either. This won't change the world, but it saves money and if everyone did it, it would make a worthwhile change. HARRY WYETH Stan Jakuba wrote: Jim: Interesting hobby you have, collecting all that weather info.Your conclusion of: average insolation 165.02 W/m2 (10 min average) has not persuaded your relatives? I suspect, they have relatives in this town then. The insolation here is 160W/m². Some time ago I published this observation: <West Hartford's solar panels installed on two highschool roofs produced 14,933 kWh of electricity in about three years. This means that the panels generated average power of 570 W, enough to keep almost six 100 W lightbulbs lit.> Amazingly, the flood of disapproving responses ignored, all of them, the basic fact that powering six lighbulbs for 3 yeas is not going to make any difference to anybody, not even the schools, nor the U.S., nor will it impoverish the sellers of "foreign oil." Impossible people to deal with. I guess it is a religion with them. Do not take our faith away with just plain facts. Well, not all of them are idealists. Many entrepreneurs I know are in it because "someone will spend the budget anyway" a budget approved by ignorant politicians. "So why not me." Stan