The economics still aren't there for solar in most situations unless PG&E
has a high minimium monthly bill. The place to same money here in Sandpoint
is on sewer and water. The connection fees are high and the minimium bill
is about $40. One well and one leach field could serve numerous hangers.

Mike
MU-2


"RST Engineering" wrote in message
.. .
After much thought and ponderance, I've come to the conclusion that to
electrify the hangar using Pacific Gas & Electricity (PG&E -- Pigs, Goats,
and Elephants) isn't clever. By the time you get them to hang a meter
($5k), trench from the power pole to the end of the row of hangars,
conduit romex to 35 hangars at a cost somewhere around $50k ($1500 per
hangar), and then pay the monthly electric bill, you could buy a hell of a
wind/solar system and perch it on the (flat) hangar roof.

Before I flail about gathering data, has anybody on these ngs actually
installed a design whereby a hefty solar panel charges a hefty battery to
run a hefty inverter? It doesn't have to be absolutely "clean" sinewave
power as all we are running are fluorescent shop lights (about 400 watts
worth), every now and again a small compressor, a small drill press, a
small grinder, but none of these last few at the same time.

My hit on it is that a 2 kW inverter would be more than enough to handle
the AC side of it, and a bank of 12 volt truck batteries would work for
the DC side of it, but there are the problems of parallelling large
batteries, how to combine the outputs of solar cells and wind generators,
and a reasonable source for all this stuff.

There are issues around protecting the solar cells from hail, which we do
get from time to time, battery acidic gases inside a hangar where a very
expensive lump of aluminum is sitting for months on end, sizing the solar
cell and wind generators, and other considerations along these lines.

Comments appreciated.


Jim