[amsat-bb] Satellites and Solar (a)

[Edward R Cole]

I have been thinking about adding solar.  Of course up here in the 
sub-arctic winter nights are long and summer nights short, so seven 
months of the year solar provides quite a bit.  Doing co-generation 
with the utility definitely reduces your personal utility costs if 
you do not need battery banks.

I already have a standby gasoline generator (6500w Honda) for power 
outages.  Up here its quite normal to have five or so episodes 
lasting up to twelve hours/each per year.  Very nice to be able to 
push button for electric start and resume normal life when the power 
goes out.   I can even run my kilowatt amp if I desired.  We live in 
the country so have own well and septic so having backup power keeps 
everything running.  Heat is natural gas but furnace needs power for 
blower and ignition.

I inquired at the local power office when recently paying the bill 
and they support co-gen so all I need to is do my research and save 
some pennies.

BTW I installed solar panels at work before I retired so have a bit 
of background.  Solar insolation on a cloudy day is only 70% down 
from a clear day.

If enough private solar power were built it probably would offset 
building some of the utility infrastructure in the future.  That 
might even lower the utilities' cost.  Up here one utility installed 
several large windchargers out on a island which has reliable 
sustained wind which is supplementing the grid (25Mw I 
believe).  There is ample hydro power so solar might depend on the 
small private sector to build?

73, Ed - KL7UW
Nikiski, AK BP40iq

Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2016 17:31:21 -0400
From: <jmfranke at cox.net>
To: amsat-bb at amsat.org, Robert Bruninga <bruninga at usna.edu>
Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Satellites and Solar (a)
Message-ID: <20160408173121.S6MF2.63087.imail at fed1rmwml301>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

And the price of commercial electricity will go up because the power 
companies will still have to support the infrastructure to supply the 
full load at night or during cloudy weather yet have it sitting idle 
when as they say "The Sun is shining."

John  WA4WDL

----snipped the rest of the long thread that everyone has already read - right/


73, Ed - KL7UW
http://www.kl7uw.com
     "Kits made by KL7UW"
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