Green Renewable Energy

[RedHand88]

A Green Councillor tweeted recently about a new system being installed. Then ignored genuine questions on cost.
When he did engage his angle was that it's not the point. It needs to be done, etc
No sense of reality. If they are serious they need to be seriously helping people with up front costs. Like I'm talking massive grants.

These people pay €6 for a Latté. They have no notion of the cost of things.

[Look-Up!]

Understood J70 but big scale is something different. We'll never see ordinary Joe's with a small nuclear reactor in the back garden.

I was more interested in how ordinary people can get in on the act in a small way and cover a bulk of their owns needs. And if anyone on here has much experience with what's out there, how they got on financially or where they see it going. What's it like in the states where you are? Everyone on grid or people trying to get into producing their own?

Did some preliminary investigations into solar, looked like it would cost circa 8k net of grants, calculated payback (based on current unit prices) at under 5 years. That included a small battery. I'm due a physical inspection at some point as I think my roof might have a few issues! 
Biggest drawback is that most energy produced during the months it is least needed and vice versa. That said the calculations showed that only one 2 month period would see me in a position to sell back to grid and even then it wouldn't be much.
I don't have a heat pump system which would probably make it a better option and it looks like electricity prices will drop significantly which will change the payback calculation too, still, the panels are good for 20 yrs apparently.
It's a serious option for me, but I haven't committed just yet.

From my looking around the returns are modest enough but if you can afford the install, it's probably good in the long run.

General cost of installation (5.6KW) looks about 9k give or take. There's a limit to inverter size, max is rated 6KW, so in theory this would support 15 x 400W panels but in reality I think you can install up to 22 (they don't recommend going over 9KW theoretical input for this inverter). For Ireland they seem to average the yearly generated power 850 times the hourly rating, so a 6KW-9KW system would produce 5100-7650 units per year.

It's DC output from panels, they usually install in two strings to inverter, East/West or North/South. Apparently though, a dodgy panel (faulty/shaded/dirty) can drag down other panels in string. There's also the option to install mini inverters on panels and send AC direct from panels. This is apparently more efficient and you can monitor performance of individual panels better. 400W panel cost about 200 euro, mini inverter about 120 euro. 1 panel per year should produce 340 units of electricity.

Batteries are a big cost and capacity very modest. 1300 euro for one with storage for 3 usable units, 2 grand for next one up with storage for 5 usable units. So a daily optimising or black out fail safe solution at best. Solartricity.ie seems a good company, they do a Q&A online, will quote and recommend fitters, or you can just pick up a DIY kit or individual components.

Wind turbines are another option but very little info seems to be out there on how they actually work out. A 5KW turbine looks to work out a bit cheaper than solar rated equivalent plus you'd imagine wind blows a lot more year round and at night but looks like that hourly rating is for 40km/hr wind and once wind drops the o/p from the turbine drops exponentially. You can also have too much wind plus there's the noise issue and possibly a lot more maintenance works. But still, you'd imagine it should produce much more units of electricity over the course of a year. 

[fearsiuil]

Join the Irish PV & battery systems owners group on Facebook. Very informative.