Comments on: Do you have an off-grid home in a cloudy, rainy climate? Would solar panels be worth it?

By: An Oregon Nut

An Oregon Nut — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:00:13 +0000

There are a lot of off-grid houses in Oregon, and many sell their power back during the sunny days to balance the rest of the time. Just do a search on green houses in Oregon to find some of the projects listed. There are also cob houses in Coquille that are quite interesting. But at present. it costs more to get these off grid houses built than they recover. Most folks just starting out can't afford to do it.

I'm looking for ways and colaborators to take an existing house and pull it off the grid – affordably. Have lots of ideas, but little free time to play with doing them. Would love to share ideas.

By: asker

asker — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:00:13 +0000

You can use batteries to store access energy during the time when you have enough sunlight. And I guess the idea is not necessarily to take yourself off-grid completely. You could sell you access energy through the grid, and then you could get the energy off the grid when your panels are not producing enough (which, of course, is not something you can do right now).

By: Ed

Ed — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:00:13 +0000

You will have a hard time making enough electricity to be off the grid and satisfy your needs. I live alone in a sunny area east of San Francisco, and am thrifty with use of electricity. My 6 kw system barely covers my electrical usage. I do heat with electricity, but still have a gas water heater.

Being off the grid is not necessarily a good thing. One has to have batteries to supply power when the system is not generating enough to keep up with the load. Batteries are expensive, and have to be replaced occasionally. Because of the inefficiencies in charging and discharging, they consume some power themselves.

Being on the grid in California, I can dump power into the grid when I am making more than I am using, and take it back when i am using more than I am making.

Before making any solar decisions, study as much as you can. Decisions are more or less permanent, and mistakes can be costly.