Sunworshipper wrote:
On Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:11:56 -0700, "Stu Fields"
wrote:


"chaniarts" wrote in message
...
Stu Fields wrote:
Having welding, machining, and ceramic equipment, our power bill
was getting out of hand. ( than $200/mo) We recently installed
30- 230w solar panels and now have watched our power meter go
backwards at rates up to 6sec/rev. In just a few days our panels
generated more than 200kwh and one of those days had cloud cover.
Oh and we used the solar installation to also create a car port.
It may take a few years to recover the cost, but just watching
that meter go backwards was worth quite a bit.

in may i put in a 7.5kw solar installation, just in time for the
main summer a/c season. last month's bill was $40, whereas same
month last year was $200.

the rebates covered 80%, payback is estimated at 4.5 years. panels
are guaranteed for 25 years. converter is guaranteed for 10 years.

you'll want to rinse them off occasionally. i do so about ever 3-4
weeks, as the dust builds up. cleaning will get me a 3-5% gain.

regards,
charlie
phx, az

Charlie:
Thanks for the info. We'll be watching closely the panel production
and checking for dust. Usually, we get an evening wind that will
probably keep it pretty clean. At least the wind brings most of the
loose dust around and in my garage door.

Stu


Question for both of you. If you had the option of putting those on a
tracker and having that in your yard and getting 40% more energy or
leave them static on the roof so that they are out of sight?

one of our design requirements was invisiblity from the street. if they
pivot, they'd have to be a lot higher and not shade any of the neighboring
panels as they moved. i've seen large fields of panels in spain that self
track, but they're ground mounted.