Solar PV - Save Money & Shrink Carbon Footprint

[freebeard]

oil pan 4 — I was doing something else while i listened to it. Something about the inverter acting as a charger. I'd have to listen again.

Something about the inverter recognizing the number but not it's sign?

[oil pan 4]

You may have been listening to something on hybrid inverters or all in one units.
All in one units combine the battery charge controller and inverter and some have 120 or 240v generator power inputs also built in to charge on cloudy days.
The last few years has seen a lot of new hybrid inverters on the market.
Hybrid inverters have all kinds of features now. The most common application is they can connect to a battery bank and be grid tied at the same time. More advanced setups act as a whole home or nearly whole home UPS.
Some offer a grid tie only setting and you can go back later and add batteries, some have to have batteries from the get go. Others will allow you to only consume your solar power and will prevent power from back feeding on to the grid, say if your power company charges you an extra 20 or 30 dollars per month to have a co-gen or net-meter and only wants to pay 1 or 2 cents per kwh and you opt to keep your stupid smart meter.
If you keep your dumb/stupid smart meter they only know how to count up, any current flow is counted as consumption, so if you push solar power on to the grid the dumb smart meter reads it as consumption.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

You may have been listening to something on hybrid inverters or all in one units.

I was listening specifically to the video posted which speaks to what works and what doesn't, and what don't make no sense.

You might find it interesting?

[freebeard]

I wasn't trying to bring your thread to a halt. Tell us about:

I am looking at a rocket mass stove with a biochar maker, for backup heat.

[NeilBlanchard]

Rocket mass stoves are incredibly efficient - they can heat a building with 1/5th to 1/10th the wood that would be used by a typical wood stove. They are quite clean, as a result.

A biochar retort is similarly low-smoke and high efficiency, from intense heat. These also produce high quality charcoal, that can be used to sink carbon, and improve the soil.

[freebeard]

I might have said tell us what we don't know.

Where would it be integrated into the structure? Was there an existing chimney or has it been heat pump only?

[NeilBlanchard]

I am looking to use my existing brick chimney with a 7" stainless liner. I am leaning to what is easiest / possible. Masonry rocket mass stoves are tough to get permitted, I am led to understand.

I have been making batches of biochar in a 55 gallon barrel retort, which is great for getting rid of tree waste. The challenge with a retort inside the house is loading and unloading the pyrolysis chamber.

A workaround is to use metal containers to do the pyrolysis inside a good woodstove.

[Xist]

Paul Wheaton says that metal liners on heaters over four inches across on the inside are guaranteed to fail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLV6fQOPn_U&t=140s

[sendler]

The chimney is nowhere near the core of the stove and only runs at 150F.
.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoOcsq12UkE

.

[NeilBlanchard]

We have had our solar PV system running for 30 days now, and it produced 1,150hWh in that time! With our two electric cars (Bolt EV and e-Golf) and heat pump, and all other utilities except our cook stove and clothes dryer, that is about 56% of what we used.