I’m curious as to what people are doing with their spare solar power.
I’m in the US and on NEM2. I already have batteries and discharge them when the rates are favorable.
But I still have a lot of leftover juice. My partner recently bought an EV but doesn’t drive much.
I set up a home lab and even bought a small bitcoin miner that turns on when electricity rates are favorable.
selling back to grid at market price 🙂
I’m interested in doing this. So when you wire it up, do they just know you’re giving it back to the grid (selling it) or do you need to contact them and tell them?
You must contact them else they will disconnect you pronto.
Not sure, I had an electrician do all of that 😁 not much room for mistakes there 😅 I did have to inform my power company, and switch to a supplier that would buy power.
I’ve been using it to build cellulose, sugars, and other organic compounds from CO2 and water. I get oxygen as a byproduct too which is neat.
I’d love to hear how you do that!
I believe that @cattywampas@lemmy.world is growing plants, the old-school solar route.
Ha ha got me right there, well done!
Thanks, I was imagining some kind of high tech lab setup.
It’s actually future tech alien magic that we humans cannot even begin to replicate in its efficiency and self-sustainability.
It’s pretty high tech. The greatest minds on earth is unable to recreate it from scratch.
You can set up a lab if you want. Grow something in a petridish.
What
I’m sure they’re talking about LED grow lights run by solar power.
Or maybe they just garden.
We can’t rule out that they may be a plant.
What about THC as a byproduct ? ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)
You don’t have to do the “sharing a secret” wink anymore when mentioning marijuana. It’s mostly mainstream now and the pre-legal cool factor is gone. I know it’s not legal everywhere but the gild fell off that lily a while ago.
If you’re saying power indoor growing, then yes I’d agree. Those lights use a lot of energy.
I just got my two 314 AH batteries and 10KW inverter yesterday, so I’m not at the “spare solar power” point yet, but a lot of people will have a second electric water heater (in “front” of the main one) that acts as a dump load and pre-heats the water before it gets to the main tank.
I’m looking at getting a Slate EV truck hopefully next year, so that will also charge from my installation.
Grid-tie and exporting surplus PV generation isn’t an option for me due to electric company shenanigans.
I suppose when I do get to the excess PV point, I might just buy additional batteries
If you have the space a hybrid water heater would help a lot. Electric water heaters with resistive elements are usually the biggest power draw.
I have a small closet that is outside where my water system components are at that makes hybrid a bad idea.
What i do is run my hot water tank when rates are favorable (evenings and weekends). I live alone so I’m easily able to micromanage when hot water is needed.
I’m not on solar yet, i want to but I’d need a long time to make it worthwhile vs my current bills and I have bigger priorities to throw money at for now.
Maybe in a solar scenario you could not power the hot water tank at all unless being charged by solar, letting it use more energy throughout the evening and able to take more energy during the day while solar is producing vs having it be topped up by the grid after use in the evenings.
I’m eventually going for a hybrid heat pump model but I mentioned a cheap electric resistive one as a preheater because it’s easy to use as a dump load
Not sure how this benefits much. A 2nd electric heater is a decent amount of wiring to deal with, extra breaker space on your panel, conduit, etc.
A bigger heater would have the same effect without the extra costs of install, plus the added benefit of less surface area to lose heat.
If you’re going through the effort of installing a 2nd water heater just buy a heat pump one.
Another method would be to set your temp higher during lower rates, and lower during higher rates. You’ll save a tad bit of electricity if you make use of that hotter water before it reaches the lower temp. I don’t think it’s enough savings to make a difference though.
Freeze water bottles/jugs so my fridge doesn’t need to run when there’s no sun. I’m completely off grid and only use solar.
I do that too. I’m on the grid but there’s so much solar that the grid regularly falls over.
Too hardcore for me.
Here (Canada), solar is hooked up to the hydro line and the hydro company buys any extra. Plus, there’s no need for big banks of batteries.
reading these replies hurts my soul so deeply that i haven’t gotten into solar yet.
i desperately want to, but don’t own a house! I’ve seen some regular trailers with panels mounted on; how viable is that? is it easy to tie in ‘temporary’ solar? could i just bypass the house’s electrical completely?
in the southeast US, what would one expect to need for a small house?
it must be tough for things like dryers and ovens.
beyond the savings and independence, how susceptible to transient voltage events are solar setups? will i still need to be scared every time i hear thunder off in the far distance?
apologies for the barrage of questions from a rando stranger!
If you’re in Utah you can make use of “balcony” solar.
If you’re not and you rent then you can still make use of solar but you can’t feed it back to the grid. You do need access to the sun though.
Something like an ecoflow solar generator can be placed between something that uses energy constantly like a refrigerator. Then run the solar cabling outside somehow to a solar panel. The solar will charge the battery up, and the fridge will draw from the device. Once the sun goes down it will drain the battery and then switch over to grid power.
You can even simply charge a small ecoflow off solar only and use it to charge your phone/laptop/tablet overnight.
I always see people saying oh it’s not worth it, solar won’t generate enough, it won’t work. I know it’s area-dependant but this comment gives me hope… I’d love to have a little eco flow to do things like charge phones or small batteries (if even that’s possible at 50/60°N in a flat… I have a window box and some ledges maybe I can put something small on).
This comment makes me hopeful it makes it sound like it’s not nuts to want to do this… Can you comment on what this general consensus of ‘there’s no point’? Obviously, you think it’s worth it! I’m hoping they’re just dooming
Some areas have cheap reliable energy. For example, areas fed by the Hoover dam.
Others have difficult regulations that don’t let you sell back to the grid, making the investment difficult.
In the US we have half of the voting population convinced that solar and other “clean” energy will leave them in the dark, even as their own fossil fuel utilities fail around them (Texas, Florida).
Just like we had to design gas stations every 50 miles apart, we’ll need to design around the disadvantages of solar. That might mean maintaining fossil fuel in a way that lets us have a diversified energy grid that’s resistant to the limitations of wind and solar.
The only hope I cling onto is that most of the voting population that dislikes clean energy will die soon due to their average higher age.
Very boring. I have 10kwh of battery in the basement, another 4 under my desk, and 77 and 30 parked in the garage.
Even then on sunny summer weeks everything is full around 11am. I use some to cool down the house for extra comfort and just export the rest to the grid, around 1.4MWh per year (out of 7.3MWh produced). At 8 cents per kWh it’s about 115 euros… not great but not bad either.
My homelab consumed about 1.1MWh last year.
I’m installing more solar this year, to have higher production in winter. Will result in even higher export in summer, probably.
It’s heating my back yard
More bitcoin mines.
Eh, well, some people I used to know just never bothered with stuff like that and almost always had a negative power bill which would be settled by the power company at the end of the month.
This is the best option. Don’t look at “free” solar power as an excuse to be wasteful - put it back in the grid and reduce your neighbors’ CO2 production.
Currently have an old 2.8kw system and I export back to the grid at 44c/kw (South Australia) which pays a lot back towards my overall electric prices. But I will be updating it soon to about a 16kw system, a 24-32kwh battery and hopefully an EV which does V2G. Should pay for itself within 7-8 years. Meanwhile, I’ll also be running my pool heatpump and all the appliances during the day.
I’ve got a serverrack on the attic, what is spare solar power? ;)
I’ve been considering getting a battery, but until I’m actually going to any meaningful surplus in power its not really worth the investment for me.
I’m from the EU and got 6 panels for a total of about 2kW on my roof, my house isn’t on a optimal angle though, so I’m not often tapping the max capacity.
I don’t know, my landlord does all that.
In the Netherlands you have to pay to feed the leftover juice to the grid, by the way…
May I ask which solar setup you have, and how much it cost?
Tesla, 2 batteries 7.5kw panels. I think it was $35k back in 2020?
Nothing exciting - I don’t have a battery system yet so all excess generation goes back to the grid for my neighbors.
Export to the grid, for every kWh I export during the day I can afford two kWh overnight.
I’m not trying to use up all spare solar but I am looking for how people make better uses of it.
I also have a diverter which heats up my hot water tank which saves on gas, especially in the summer.
