Thanks gents

Great, thanks for all your thoughts.

I wanted to stay away from the battery bank thing, I have enough trouble
with keeping 4 or 5 deep cycles alive for more than 5 or 6 years. But I may
introduce them to a PV system.
But all my Deep Cycles are different sizes, so sure would like some of those
Tesla by Elon. I believe that person is developing a huge PV manufacturing
facility in Buffalo NY but I talked to SolarCity reps and they will not deal
with Canadian market.

My program is with Ontario Hydro and up north our local providers are shaky
and unreliable. In Ontario Canada the provincial govt is recently (last
decade or more) really screwed things up, they started a Gas Power Plant and
cancelled that after about a billion, they have had other programs that they
started and abruptly ended after loosing a few billion and now they are in a
50 year debt and trying to sell off to private (fire sale) and they are
offering this program to me for a 20 year contract. So I must install 40
panels on my roof and tie it all into the grid and they want 100% of it and
paying a pretty nice penny per KWh. But the initial investment by me is
substantial up front so if they pull out of the deal in one year then I have
a very big expensive inverters that are good for nothing. A lot of people in
Ontario Canada don't think that the local Ontary Hydro will be long for this
world, so we don't want to get stuck on this program and left hanging.

I can see them keeping me (and all home owners or cottage owners) as
providers because we aren't unionized and costing more to produce it than
selling it, I think they are trying to eliminate the nuclear (60% of our
power in Ontario) because it is costing too much debt. So their goal may be
to get all that can to provide it because I maintain the house structure and
panel system and no union or salary or coffee breaks. But they could cancel
that tomorrow leaving me a $30,000 system I can do nothing with.

I like what they are offering, it seems too good to be true.

I will take a chance, role the dice and jump in. For the program. Without
the program it isn't worth it at this time.

Thanks very much for all the food for thought, I will implement a small
charge controller and small battery bank system. I like your Diesel
Generator idea for if ever the power does go out, which it does. But it is
small to worry about. Thanks again for all the ideas.

For my primary reason for this system, I will buy the 40 panels and do you
folks have any reasons why you would select the Solaredge technology with
the new optimizers for efficiencies (about $3000.00) for their product, or
using Enphase microinverters (about $7000.00). Other than costs difference,
which would you folks prefer? Both become useless if the power grid goes
off, but both are looking pretty equal for efficiences and installation is
easy enough.

All the surfing and reading I see is everyone has installed the Solaredge
and it seems to have improved nicely, while the Enphase is the lastest and
not really had many years of use to compare, but they apparently to some are
the better device.

Do you folks have any comments on either of these devices?

Have good day, thanks







"Jeff Liebermann" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 20 Aug 2015 15:14:46 -0400, "Tom" wrote:

Can you comment on the fact that these Enphase converters need 240ac volts
(grid connection) to run? This means that if ever the power supplier
locally ever shuts down for more than a long period of time that these
Enphase units become useless. Around my neck of the woods we are getting
more and more power outages lasting longer and longer. These inverters
require being connected to the grid to function.

Yep, been there. Almost everyone that has a grid tied solar system
wants to know what it will take to make it run when the power is down.
Home Power Magazine had a nice article on the topic in the current
issue (168):
http://www.homepower.com/articles/solar-electricity/design-installation/adding-battery-backup-your-pv-system-ac-coupling
The magic buzzword for Googling is "AC-Coupled Battery Backup PV
System" (or something like that). Note that there are both DC and AC
coupled approaches to the problem, each with their own advantages and
problems.

Note that Elon Musk wants to do much the same thing but not to backup
your solar PV system. He wants to store excess power in a battery
bank, and return it during times of peak loads to save money using
time of use billing.
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/teslas-batteries-will-power-home/

I understand the safety requirement and it needing to do this to be
certified but it really limits the home owner (or cottage owner in my
case).

Yep. All of the stuff in the article is probably approved, but I
would be careful and check, especially with made in China hardware
purchased on eBay.

Have you ever worked on a system that was more practical?

More practical than what? I've done nothing with AC coupled backup
systems for grid tied PV systems, mostly because none of my customers
will tolerate the cost. It's often cheaper to just buy a big
generator and let it sit around until it's needed. Diesel seems to be
the favorite.

That qualified for
the grid program but was useful when detached from the grid? Seems to me
if
ever the power company decides to cancel the program you may be stuck with
40 inverters that are useless and are 200 dollars each.

You're mixing up a bunch of programs. First, your power company is
unlikely to pull the plug except for non-payment. It might decide to
cancel subsidies or refuse to offer net metering payments, as happens
in many states. In California, if the power is lost for extended
periods, there is some fixed amount that the power companies are
required to refund the customer on their next bill. That too might be
terminated. At this time, power generation and distribution is mostly
a "best effort" exercise, with little in the way of guarantees
covering extended outages.

If you're dependent on a sole source of power, such as utility *OR*
PV, then you'll have the same problem with outages. My best
suggestions is to have more than one source of power. Utility and PV
are the most common. There's also wind and micro-hydro generation.
Batteries don't generate electricity so they're not considered an
alternative power source. Once you have your power source in place,
then you can think about storage options.

Any comments are thankful,

If you wanted to be off the grid, then kindly plan your system for off
grid use. That mostly eliminates grid tied systems and always
requires batteries or other forms of energy storage (maybe flywheel).
Instead of micro-inverters, you're back to the big charger/controller
boxes, and banks of batteries.

Batteries are always a problem. They require constant care. They
tend to die rather quickly. They're expensive. They're big, ugly,
and dangerous. They're far too easy to kill. Before dealing with
batteries, make sure you know what you're getting into.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558