Solar PV - Save Money & Shrink Carbon Footprint

[Fat Charlie]

Hawaii has huge supply difficulties by being a series of islands, and nearness to China can't solve that. Is it really all that much more expensive for a container ship to get to LA than it is to get to Honolulu? Any added expenses will be more than made up for by the fact that they'll unload the entire ship in LA.

Stopping in Hawaii means all the usual port crap and then having to continue elsewhere to unload the rest of the ship- while Hawaii cargo needs to be loaded onto at least one more ship to get to its final island.

[freebeard]

I was thinking exactly that, more as a joke. But you make a compelling case.

[matt36415]

Just a heads up to another country... in Australia, I pay 31c / KWh and $1.50 per day supply charge. This means solar is pretty worthwhile. I have 6.6kw of panels with a 5kw inverter. There are rules about how much we can feed back to the grid as about half the houses near me have them so a 5kw inverter is the maximum allowed. On a sunny day it will make a bit over 40KW/h and I get 22c for each KW fed back to the grid.

[freebeard]

Do you do solar hot water? Or use photovoltaic power to heat water and/or space?

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Do you do solar hot water? Or use photovoltaic power to heat water and/or space?

What would be cool is a coolant loop attached to the backside of the solar panels that transfer heat from the array to hot water storage. PV efficiency goes up as temperature goes down. Kills 2 stones with 1 bird.