Tweet
Beginning your journey into alternate energy.
First and foremost I think it's important to begin with the END in mind. A hat tip to Stephen Covey for the phrase there ;)
Personally I think we should all begin any alternate energy (AE) projects with the final intent to produce all the power we need for our home. It may take a year, 5 years or 10 years but that should be the end goal.
Thinking along those lines, it's easy to understand why it's important to make good choices in gear. Usually the "cheap" alternate energy gear won't hold up for the long haul or won't integrate easily with other "real" alternate energy gear.
Over the long term, you'll realize that the $180. Harbor Freight solar panel kit wasn't the bargain you expected it to be. At roughly $4. a watt it wasn't "cheap" in the first place as their are many types of quality panels you can find for under that.
You'll also likely not get any or very little warranty from those panels. A warranty in solar panels typically means 20 years or more, not six months or 1 year if you "buy" the extended warranty.
About 5 years ago I started noticing a shortage of power with our system. This was odd because even when our system was only 1,680 watts (14 Kyocera 120 watt panels), we rarely had to run our generator unless it was a couple days of rain or occasionally in the winter.
Upon checking voltages at the panels, I found 3 that were only producing 9 volts. A call to Kyocera with the serial numbers confirmed what a friend told me. Kyocera had a bad batch in the late 90's and some of my panels were from that batch. The gal at Kyocera simply said "how many are malfunctioning?" My reply was 3. "How many total in the array." My reply was 14. "OK sir we are going to ship you 14 of the new 130 watt panels..." I interrupted her, "no ma'am, we only have THREE that are giving us a problem." She replied that it was Kyocera's policy that if 10% of an array malfunctioned that they would replace the whole array. Keep in mind this was about 7 years after we purchased them. They even shipped me the new panels (10 watts more per panel than the panels I had) before they sent call tags for the old panels.
Do you REALLY think Harbor Freight would match that kind of service? IME with them and $10. hammers that broke upon first use, I would have to say no.
I'd be also willing to be that you cannot STAND ON, KICK AND HIT WITH YOUR FIST the panels you get from Harbor Freight. Would the HF panels withstand a 220 lb. man standing on them? I know the Kyoceras will take all that abuse. Heck I've shown some of it on video on youtube!
So, with the end goal in mind, resolve yourself in your mind that your going to buy only quality equipment that is really designed for living off the grid.
Sure you can cobble together a solar system with the Harbor freight panels, a couple car batteries and a $99. "inverter" from walmart. And your going to get EXACTLY what you paid for it. And later the $600. or so dollars you put into that will be WORTHLESS.
You can rationalize that buying the cheap stuff will just be "for testing" "for trying out", etc. But eventually you will find that when it craps out, you will have no warranty recourse. When a small bit of hail knocks it out the nose ringed gal at the counter of HF will simply laugh at you.
Begin with the end in mind. Better to have one quality panel that four HF panels that won't make it over the long haul. On a cost per watt basis, you'd probably be better off also.
More coming soon, stay tuned.
Lowdown3
First and foremost I think it's important to begin with the END in mind. A hat tip to Stephen Covey for the phrase there ;)
Personally I think we should all begin any alternate energy (AE) projects with the final intent to produce all the power we need for our home. It may take a year, 5 years or 10 years but that should be the end goal.
Thinking along those lines, it's easy to understand why it's important to make good choices in gear. Usually the "cheap" alternate energy gear won't hold up for the long haul or won't integrate easily with other "real" alternate energy gear.
Over the long term, you'll realize that the $180. Harbor Freight solar panel kit wasn't the bargain you expected it to be. At roughly $4. a watt it wasn't "cheap" in the first place as their are many types of quality panels you can find for under that.
You'll also likely not get any or very little warranty from those panels. A warranty in solar panels typically means 20 years or more, not six months or 1 year if you "buy" the extended warranty.
About 5 years ago I started noticing a shortage of power with our system. This was odd because even when our system was only 1,680 watts (14 Kyocera 120 watt panels), we rarely had to run our generator unless it was a couple days of rain or occasionally in the winter.
Upon checking voltages at the panels, I found 3 that were only producing 9 volts. A call to Kyocera with the serial numbers confirmed what a friend told me. Kyocera had a bad batch in the late 90's and some of my panels were from that batch. The gal at Kyocera simply said "how many are malfunctioning?" My reply was 3. "How many total in the array." My reply was 14. "OK sir we are going to ship you 14 of the new 130 watt panels..." I interrupted her, "no ma'am, we only have THREE that are giving us a problem." She replied that it was Kyocera's policy that if 10% of an array malfunctioned that they would replace the whole array. Keep in mind this was about 7 years after we purchased them. They even shipped me the new panels (10 watts more per panel than the panels I had) before they sent call tags for the old panels.
Do you REALLY think Harbor Freight would match that kind of service? IME with them and $10. hammers that broke upon first use, I would have to say no.
I'd be also willing to be that you cannot STAND ON, KICK AND HIT WITH YOUR FIST the panels you get from Harbor Freight. Would the HF panels withstand a 220 lb. man standing on them? I know the Kyoceras will take all that abuse. Heck I've shown some of it on video on youtube!
So, with the end goal in mind, resolve yourself in your mind that your going to buy only quality equipment that is really designed for living off the grid.
Sure you can cobble together a solar system with the Harbor freight panels, a couple car batteries and a $99. "inverter" from walmart. And your going to get EXACTLY what you paid for it. And later the $600. or so dollars you put into that will be WORTHLESS.
You can rationalize that buying the cheap stuff will just be "for testing" "for trying out", etc. But eventually you will find that when it craps out, you will have no warranty recourse. When a small bit of hail knocks it out the nose ringed gal at the counter of HF will simply laugh at you.
Begin with the end in mind. Better to have one quality panel that four HF panels that won't make it over the long haul. On a cost per watt basis, you'd probably be better off also.
More coming soon, stay tuned.
Lowdown3
Attached Files
Comment