any one seen $1 a watt solar panels?

[nechaus]

im looking for $1 or $2 per watt solar panels, does anyone know where to get them this cheap?

[yopappamon]

Everbright solar has some for about $1 per watt. Shipping might hurt to AU. I think they are in California.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/110887348701?ss ... 4117wt_954

[Arlo1]

Just build it your self http://www.ebay.ca/itm/1KW-3x6-Solar-Ce ... 2a1f8973fa

[ohzee]

I've been looking for some cheap solar panels myself. Starting to read up on the stuff now just so many sources.
Is the US hitting China with tariff's yet on importing these ?

[yopappamon]

Just build it your self http://www.ebay.ca/itm/1KW-3x6-Solar-Ce ... 2a1f8973fa

Check it out, but when I was looking in to it it was cheaper to buy assembled than to buy all the pieces and parts.

[shn1k3rs]

http://www.wholesalesolar.com/ has decent prices on Chinese panels 2.11 per watt for single panels. Under a dollar per watt if you buy a pallet

[heathyoung]

Easy, your search-fu is off...

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... 188wt_1186

[whatever]

if you go to aliexpress.com
type in solar cells
I've spent alot of time searching for cheap high efficiency solar cells,
monocrystalline cells you can find 156*156mm size with no load output of 7amps for about $2aud each and some cheap shipping rates from china,
I'll let you do your own searching but they are there.

[nechaus]

nah iv done the whole solar panel building b4,

it was the shittest thing iv ever made in my life, ages ago i got heaps of polycrystaline cells.. 4 watt per cell, .5 volt, 8amps
unless you want to make a tiny panel, doing large diy panels is 100% a waste of money.


WOW $900 for 900 watts

NO WAY, i dont believe this,im gonna contact the guy and check out his history
for ages, they have been $4 plus per watt even more at places like jaycar.. $10 per watt lol

[nechaus]

Since im renting a house now,
IV been thinking for a long time to buy a cheap trailer and put some solar panels on it, park the trailer and basically build up the trailer so i can fold out the panels out to get maximum sun light.


I could use either PB or cheap lifep04 maybe like 5kwb of lithium, 10 kwh of pb gonna be heavy with the panels and base frame... I think i could use those a123 20ah packs with some pretty cheap 24 volt bms that has input charge rate of atleast 2kw, and output of 5kw or more...

Ideally id use this trailer to go camping with, and then the rest of the time, it could be running a few appliances.

My electric bill per 3 months is like 600-900 for me and my girlfriend.. its shocking, it use to be that price at my old house with 5 - 6 people.
with a 900 watt mini solar setup, id harvest close to 1450 kw per year, maybe more, mayb less.. Close to $600 in electricity from grid.

If i get the panels for $1 a watt, cheap bms or balanced charging solar regulator if their is such a thing, This could actually pay for it self in 3 or 4 years.
While reducing my ongoing bill by a small amount.

that's with no government rebate

The only crap thing, in 3 years i would most likely need to replace my batteries. unless i get 10 kwh of life or 20 kwh of pb..

that might last 6 years

[nechaus]

Can you get grid tie inverter that you simply plug into the normal power outlet ? ( small 1kw gridtie inverter)
or is it something that needs to be wired in more permanently and done by an electrician

[heathyoung]

Those chinese grid tie inverters are shit, there are the swei ones, but only 250W.

Legally, you must have it installed by a lecco - and your metering must be set up for export, and you need to have an agreement with your electricity provider.

Do it on the sly with a smart meter, and it will detect export - and you are in for a world of hurt...

[nechaus]

yeah stuff messing around with that,

I wonder if i could just simple run my fridge and a few other things off the solar panels directly through a normal inverter lol
It would cut out when cloud cover comes and work not so great..

Really seem to be stuck with batteries.

could get some gels, if i use close to 25% dod, low discharge and a shit load of batteries, it might last 10 years

That many batteries would crush the trailer, like 1000 ah @ 24 volts .. might not even fit in a small box trailer

[nechaus]

I can see its not going to be worth it..

I am going to have to wait until i buy a house which wont be for another 3 or 4 years.
Then i can just use go 100% off grid.

Soon ill be paying more than $4000 per year,
I Wonder how the price is going to increase in the next 4 years

My general energy usage is constantly increasing,

In the last week we have upgraded our juicer that gets used everyday more than once normally.
from 400 watts to 1200 watts
Iv been charging alot more batteries and doing it more often with bigger chargers, new tools, soon il have a 3d printer that's prob going to be on 247

next house i move to, it will have a big shed which means more power tools. cnc machine running when i eventually get one,

And then in the next few years im going to be making a small if not tiny electric car, that's prob going to have at least a 20kwh battery



I actually know a place i could move to that is on top of a mountain, The only problem its kinda far away, I could have a car that would run on gravity every morning when i need to go to work, but driving up a mountain every day is going to be an absolute bastard on an ebike, but a high power tiny electric car could do it with no problems.
i think the pie would need a break atleast 4 times with out pedaling its that high of a mountain.

The reason i say is because i could really harness a shitload of wind energy, I think it would be alot cheaper than pv even at $1 a watt...
I could have many wind generators running in different locations running at reasonably high voltage feeding current back to a mini power station that would run the house

[nechaus]

5 bike hub motors with pretty constant wind running at 2kw each would be a pretty decent harvest, id make as many as i could tho
Everytime iv been to this place, its always windy, I remember once it was so crazy it could push me on a normal bike on the flat at a reasonable speed with no pedaling

[Samd]

Ahem, some ES members in the Melbourne riding group may - or may not- be doing guerilla solar.
http://forums.energymatters.com.au/sola ... 57-20.html

New grid tie invertors are plug in, cheap, and safe.

Jaycar has dear panels - ebay ones I have bought to date are good.

[heathyoung]

And illegal - they bypass the RCD protection, and the anti-islanding isn't fast enough.

[Samd]

Are you quite sure? With thousands of these in play in the US and Asia they have to interrupt the power within 40ms.

Just how fast are your local firefighters?

[edcastrovalley]

yeah stuff messing around with that,

I wonder if i could just simple run my fridge and a few other things off the solar panels directly through a normal inverter lol
It would cut out when cloud cover comes and work not so great..

Really seem to be stuck with batteries.

could get some gels, if i use close to 25% dod, low discharge and a shit load of batteries, it might last 10 years

That many batteries would crush the trailer, like 1000 ah @ 24 volts .. might not even fit in a small box trailer

Nechaus, If you're going with a DC battery system you don't have to power up the largest appliance in your house as your first solar load. Instead go for those small 24/7 loads like a wireless router that would normally be powered up all the time. If you go with a 12 volt dc system you can use cell phones or laptops car adaptors. I use a small 300 watt pure sign wave inverter (non grid tied) to power several small items including a 2 watt led porch light, a doorbell transformer, etc.

I was able to cut my electric bill in half by displacing about 10 such items. All with 4 golf cart batteries, 2-125 watt solar panels and the 300 watt inverter. A small investment as far as solar goes. I've used this system since 2007 so I've recovered my investment long ago.

I'm curious, how much is a killowatt hour in Austrialia?

btw: They sell small DC powered refrigerators for off grid applications. Are you talking about powering one of these?

[nechaus]

one Kwh can be from as low as 20 ish cents to 40 cents depending on what company your with, how long you sign on with them for and what "energy plan you get"
its almost like signing up for a mobile phone plan


that sounds like a good idea actually, i think i might do that soon, i never really used my last solar panel mainly because it was a poor mans setup.

I think i might aim for 500 watts worth of solar panels and i have a few lead acid batteries around the place..
run a small inverter inside the house. see if i can run my desktop pc off it.
I dont know how much my pc uses but it has a big ass graphics card and a 700 watt power supply with 32 gb of ram


perhaps i should use it to charge my mobile devices instead. as well as ebikes

[nechaus]

I was thinking of using a small motor and make a 50-100 watt wind mill also

im going to try and make it out of plastic when i get my plastic printer.
use plastic gearing so it will be a pretty low watt generator but still fun as i could have a hand crank attachment with different gearing.

[nechaus]

I always think, 2 kwh a day is like 40 cents. but it will eventually add up, and prices wont get cheaper

[Kurt]

Price of electricity in Australia per unit KWh is expensive when compared to many other country's. like others say 20 Cents up to 40 ish cents KWh depending on your metering system and if your paying for peek off peek rates . My city house in Brisbane Australia we pay just over 20c KWh peek . I would say 98% or more our electricity is at that peek rate as the only thing connected to off peek is the booster for our solar hot water system and that's been switched of at the meter box over summer.

We do have a off grid house in the hills that's soon going to be our permanent place to live. its about 1hr drive north of the city . We power the house with 63kwh of led acid battery' that have a 15 year life and a large PV array . I did start a post in the alternative energy section earlier in the year I need to update it as there have been some changes and upgrades to some of the components.

link to thread
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=37088

The best thing you can do if your worried about your last electricity bill is go over your energy consumption of your home. How many KWH each day are you using (it should be listed on your bill) then find out systematically the breakdown of where the that energy is being consumed Without this data its hard to know what your needs are and how to make changes to improve the situation.

Trust me when you factor in replacement cost of battery's the grid it cheaper than off grid.We are doing it for the self sufficiency not to save money. The best thing you can do is invest in energy efficient appliances and habits. We consume under 1/2 the electricity in our off grid house than we do in our city house each day and they both have the same mod cons in fact the off grid house is almost three times the size and probable has more electrical gizmos but they were carefully picked for there efficacy.

Kurt

[Samd]

Yes, the overall process starts with reducing use, then generation, with storage the last stage.

The cheapest watt per dollar you can produce yourself is biogas - especially in a nice warm location like the one you are in!
It won't power your ebike. But it'll replace a lot of other technologies - starting with your barbecue.
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/

(Sorry for the threadjack Nechaus)

[Kurt]

I just read over your numbers

My electric bill per 3 months is like 600-900 for me and my girlfriend.. its shocking, it use to be that price at my old house with 5 - 6 people.

Ok so $600 - $900 every 90 days. Lets work on $750 thats in the middle of the two. At 20 cents KWh your consuming 3750kwh every 90 days or 41.6kw a day!!!!!!!! that's a lot of electricity. Actually that's roughly 3x the consumption of our city house in Brisbane (12kwh) and 6x the consumption of our off grid house on the sunshine coast (6kwh).

So there could be a few things . One you could be paying way more than 20c KWh or two your running say a Air conditioning unit all the time, perhaps have a swimming pool some kind of large load for a long period of time most days.

Kurt.