On Jul 15, 6:36*am, "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.

When I was designing wind and solar in the early 1980's the lament
was, "If only solar would come down from $100/ Watt, things would be
possible."
That was when in the Northwest, retail power cost 1 cent/ kw-hr.

The problem with wind in the Northwest is that we get 6mph wind all
the time, except for 24 hours per year of 50 mph wind.
What would be better is 15 mph wind all the time.

The trouble with solar heat was that it is dark, cloudy, and 40
degrees all winter.

The only things that really paid were solar lighting and super
insulation.