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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (144408)	9/17/2010 1:07:17 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 540820

How long? California has a Million Solar Roof plan. US has a 10 Million Solar Roof plan? How long to do that? How long to replace a fleet of 225 M cars with EVs? U.S. Has 100,000 Grid-Tied PV Systems - Happy Valentines Day! July 2010 update at end of blog According to this, Cal has 72,575...a long lway from 1M. renewableenergyworld.com But, the good news is, they perform better than expected... Blast from the Past: - Reader’s DIY - By Martin Holladay Oct/Nov 2010 (#139) pp. 36 In 1980, after living without electricity for five years in the woods of Vermont, I bought my first PV module. Responding to an ad in a back-to-the-land magazine, I sent a check to Joel Davidson, an urban refugee who was facilitating a bulk purchase of PV modules. From his off-grid acreage in Pettigrew, Arkansas, Davidson was selling 33-watt Arco Solar modules (model 16-2000) for $275 each. That was more than three decades ago, and I was curious about how 30 years in the Vermont sun and snow would impact a module’s performance. So to mark the anniversary of my first PV module, I decided to climb up on my roof and bring it down for testing. The module was designed to charge a 12 V battery at a maximum voltage of about 16 V. When new, the 33 W module produced 2 A in full sunlight. So, how did the old module measure up? Better than Factory Specs I decided to test the module by connecting it directly (with no battery) to two different 12 V loads: a 35 W incandescent light, and a blower rated at 4.5 A (about 54 W). I ran the test in my backyard, on a sunny day at 11:30 a.m. The outdoor temperature was about 50°F. The old PV module easily powered up the light; my Fluke multimeter showed that under a full load of 2.015 amps, the module’s voltage was an impressive 14.93 volts. Next, I hooked up the 54 W blower directly to the module. Almost immediately, the blower started spinning at a fast clip. According to the Fluke, the blower was drawing 2.5 A from the module—more current than would be expected from the factory specs. I described my test to Raju Yenamandra, the North American head of sales and marketing for SolarWorld, the current owner of the old Arco Solar factory in California. “That’s unbelievable,” said Yenamandra. “Your module is still performing to factory specifications— or perhaps a little better. We usually tell people to anticipate a performance degradation of 0.27% per year.” Yenamandra informed me that my module—serial number 256387—was manufactured in 1979, during the very early years of Arco’s PV manufacturing history. Joel Davidson, the PV dealer who sold me the Arco from Arkansas, now lives in California. When I called him, he said, “Your test results don’t surprise me. Solar modules are the most reliable electricity generation source in the known universe. A PV cell is a rock that makes electricity. Unless something corrodes the electrical contacts, it will still keep working.” Davidson was happy to reminisce about the early days of PV. “I was selling to a range of people: back-to-the-land hippies, right-wing extremists and survivalists, engineers, hobbyists, and Christian missionaries on their way to Africa,” said Davidson. Good for a Few More Decades My old module shows no signs of browning, electrical corrosion, or water intrusion. Since I bought my first module three decades ago, PV manufacturers have made many improvements. While my old Arco panel has simple electrical lugs on the back side for wiring, newer modules have sturdier junction boxes. Manufacturers have also improved encapsulation and the lamination materials. It certainly looks as if it’s ready to perform for another decade—or two, or three. —Martin Holladay, homepower.com

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (144408)	9/17/2010 1:42:08 PM
From: Mary Cluney	Respond to of 540820

<<<Therein lies the problem. How much time do you think that will take, and do we have the raw resources to get there?>>> 30 years ago, a lot of my doctors did not even have a fax machine in their office. Today, every grandmother that I know have had at least 3 or 4 PCs. The computer paradigm is an harbinger of scale and rates of change to come - we don't know - but we know the direction.

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (144408)	9/17/2010 1:57:43 PM
From: Steve Lokness	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 540820

Well, my new one saves me 3 KWH/day. Even better, I get paid 8 cents for each of those KW. So that saves you about 90 bucks a year? 900 bucks in 10 years? Do I have that right? Throw in a little incentive from the electric company and a little incentive having the unit made in America and...............