Solar power anyone ?

[rmorey]

Right up until the grid isn't reliable anymore....then they are priceless.

Don't assume the NK or China or Russia don't have an EMP weapon floating overhead right now in a "communications" satellite waiting for a signal to drop over Kansas.

OR the sun won't spit out a Carrington Event class solar flare and reduce the grid to smoking ruins.

So...if the feds give you a rebate, and the state gives you a rebate, why on earth would someone put in a system that fails when the s**t hits the fan? Its cant be a money thing, because over half is rebated back to the consumer.....

 

[BrandonR]

So...if the feds give you a rebate, and the state gives you a rebate, why on earth would someone put in a system that fails when the s**t hits the fan? Its cant be a money thing, because over half is rebated back to the consumer.....

Because preparing for hypothetical scenarios that are so unlikely to happen over the lifespan of the system is counter-productive to the very real economic payback.

Here's a question for the doomsday'ers:
Do you want to be the only one with lights on in that situation? Think about the consequences before you answer.

 

[Biggreenavalanche]

Because preparing for hypothetical scenarios that are so unlikely to happen over the lifespan of the system is counter-productive to the very real economic payback.

Here's a question for the doomsday'ers:
Do you want to be the only one with lights on in that situation? Think about the consequences before you answer.

You mean the beacon in the night ? :shocked: not necessarily, but would be nice to keep the meat n such frozen and the water running and so on...in that situation would really have to pay close attention to OPSEC/COMSEC n such

Rich

 

[rmorey]

Because preparing for hypothetical scenarios that are so unlikely to happen over the lifespan of the system is counter-productive to the very real economic payback.

Here's a question for the doomsday'ers:
Do you want to be the only one with lights on in that situation? Think about the consequences before you answer.

I'm not suggesting that you should install a 30Kw, offgrid, 4 centralized inverters, 10 Charge Controllers, 48 batteries, blah, blah, blah. Just have a process that protects your investment when the fertilizer hits the ventilator.

In 1998, we had an ice storm in Eastern Ontario, Quebec and New England. Power was off in some areas for 3 - 4 weeks. People lost food in freezers, their pipes froze, and general mayhem for weeks after. No solar flares, no end of earth scenarios, just a couple of days of freezing rain in January. Battery backup would have been handy.

 

[TnAndy]

Because preparing for hypothetical scenarios that are so unlikely to happen over the lifespan of the system is counter-productive to the very real economic payback.

Here's a question for the doomsday'ers:
Do you want to be the only one with lights on in that situation? Think about the consequences before you answer.

You're assuming I plan to have lights on. I'm more interested in a freezer, washing machine, some power tools, and that type of thing.

Mid 90's, we had a snow storm that took out the line up the valley....it was two weeks before power was restored. Two weeks is a long time to listen to a generator, not to mention fuel.

 

[Beltman60]

and just finding gas pumps that were working you had to travel about 40 miles when we were out for 10 days

 

[dave1949]

We lived on a generator for about 2-1/2 months while our house was under construction. The generator provided the power for the build, so it was running all day for that, plus powering the camping trailer we were living in. It does get old dumping gas into the thing and listening to it. It was a great day when the power company, finally, connected us.

I am not sure how useful an "island of electricity" such as an off-grid system would be in an extended EMP event. For a couple weeks you could preserve what refrigerated and frozen items you have on hand, but the where would you get replacements? Trucks with computer controls would be knocked out, they won't be delivering, store's refrigeration units will be out, etc.

For that matter, without really good shielding, how will your off-grid system survive the EMP? Lots of component parts would be fried in those too.

A hand well pump, a stack of canned/preserved goods, and wood fire for cooking and heating are hard to beat.

 

[rmorey]

We lived on a generator for about 2-1/2 months while our house was under construction. The generator provided the power for the build, so it was running all day for that, plus powering the camping trailer we were living in. It does get old dumping gas into the thing and listening to it. It was a great day when the power company, finally, connected us.

I am not sure how useful an "island of electricity" such as an off-grid system would be in an extended EMP event. For a couple weeks you could preserve what refrigerated and frozen items you have on hand, but the where would you get replacements? Trucks with computer controls would be knocked out, they won't be delivering, store's refrigeration units will be out, etc.

For that matter, without really good shielding, how will your off-grid system survive the EMP? Lots of component parts would be fried in those too.

A hand well pump, a stack of canned/preserved goods, and wood fire for cooking and heating are hard to beat.

I'm not sure folks should worry about a major EMP event.

My earlier post (#81) referred to the fact that if the govt's are going to pay for 1/2 - 3/4 of my system, and knowing that a micro-based system doesn't provide power during a grid outage, then I would make sure my system had a backup strategy, such as TnAndy has.

 

[TnAndy]

Well, the thread is drifting away from solar power and into prepping ( my fault I guess ), but here ya go:

I am not sure how useful an "island of electricity" such as an off-grid system would be in an extended EMP event. For a couple weeks you could preserve what refrigerated and frozen items you have on hand, but the where would you get replacements? Trucks with computer controls would be knocked out, they won't be delivering, store's refrigeration units will be out, etc.

Our refrigeration is mainly for preserving what we grow here on the place....beef, pork, chicken, fish, in addition to things that preserve better frozen than canned, like strawberries. We're not all that dependent on what trucks deliver to the store. We do a lot of canning and root cellaring, and could do without any freezer, but some refrigeration is nice to have.

For that matter, without really good shielding, how will your off-grid system survive the EMP? Lots of component parts would be fried in those too.

I assume it would take out the electronic components, but hopefully not the panels. That's why I store a complete extra set of inverters, HUB (the brain that connects them together), and charge controllers in a shielded Faraday container. No plan is perfect, but I've tried to think ahead.

A hand well pump, a stack of canned/preserved goods, and wood fire for cooking and heating are hard to beat.

Yes....absolutely correct.

Which is why before the first solar panel ever went up, we have gravity fed spring water system, the "stack" (and it's WIDE and DEEP ), an auxiliary kitchen I built on the back of the garage with walk-in cooler ( we process our own meat here on the farm ) ( and another reason electric power is handy from time to time....let's one chill the meat when nature isn't co-operating ) that has the wood cook stove, and we've heated the house with wood for 30 years.

Pic of part of the AuxKitchen.....wood stove, pantry, walk-in cooler door.

(6'x6' walk-in, by the way, is powered by a 12,000 BTU Samsung window AC with a "Coolbot" controller...will take the room down to 33 degrees )

 

[dave1949]

TnAndy,

It sounds like you are well prepared! You have a lot of things in place that would be very useful.

I have no idea about EMP effects on panels.

As far as wandering off topic, I don't see a problem with discussing how solar power fits into disaster planning. That's just prudent.

I think my area's biggest/most likely threat of disaster, other than our wacky governor :laughing:, is probably a hurricane or tail-end of a strong hurricane blowing through. That could leave a lot of roads blocked and power outages. Ice storms can take down a lot of power lines too.

 

[techman]

EMP can cause significant problems. However the electronic device 1) must be on when the emp hits, 2) be designed in a manner that the effects of emp will cause damage and 3) not be in an enclosed or shielded area to be subject to the emp. Most old school stuff, like magnetos and battery-coil ignition will not be affected. Mostly solid state devices are affected. Any semiconductor device, like a diode or transistor, immediately conducts. In many circuits this causes simultaneous currents in multiple paths that were never intended. The result is overloads, excess current and/or voltage which causes destruction of part of the device. In ICs and microprocessors everything turns on internally and usually results in destructive currents. In the late 70's I worked on ground equipment for the Pershing missile. We had to design all of the electronics to be emp tolerant, meaning that the condition of everything conduction did not destroy the circuit. Also in those times it was found that the Russian MIG-29 had a lot of tube based electronics in it. It was determined that one of the primary reasons was the emp tolerance of tubes and tube circuits.

I would not worry too much about emp. A large solar flair can have a similar effect, not as powerful but covering a larger geographic area, and is more likely than a nuclear blast, and could cause quite a bit of havoc to our modern technological world.

paul

 

[dmccarty]

... Mostly solid state devices are affected. Any semiconductor device, like a diode or transistor, immediately conducts. In many circuits this causes simultaneous currents in multiple paths that were never intended. The result is overloads, excess current and/or voltage which causes destruction of part of the device. In ICs and microprocessors everything turns on internally and usually results in destructive currents.
...
paul

What I had read, is that EMP will destroy most of today's electrical devices, even if the devices are powered off. Is that not true?

My assumption is that the Enphase inverters would not survive an EMP hit because the device has built in networking back to a monitoring stations(hardware and software) which should mean a there is a microprocessor, ROM, and maybe RAM in the inverter. I did not think a microprocessor, RAM or ROM could handle EMP. It would be great if EMP did NOT affect those devices.

Later,
Dan

 

[dave1949]

Speaking of the grid and outages:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/u...ill-simulate-a-knockout-blow.html?src=me&_r=0

 

[atgreene]

Speaking of the grid and outages:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/u...ill-simulate-a-knockout-blow.html?src=me&_r=0

Much more likely to happen than some of the other terrorist activity that we have been prepping for. As always, once the horse is out we close the barn door and spend time bolting, nailing, screwing and shackling it shut while the back door is wide open (see TSA). My other thought is fire. If terrorists ever wanted to shut us down and destroy us, a half dozen wackos running around lighting everything they can on fire would overwhelm us so fast and destroy so much we'd be years recovering, all with a bic lighter.

Either way, solar is looking more and more reasonable. Wind has too many moving parts, my meager memories of physics in school includes: "If it moves it creates heat which is loss of energy" as well as "if it's mechanical it will break". With any luck over time the cost and longevity of panels will continue to improve.

 

[techman]

What I had read, is that EMP will destroy most of today's electrical devices, even if the devices are powered off. Is that not true?

My assumption is that the Enphase inverters would not survive an EMP hit because the device has built in networking back to a monitoring stations(hardware and software) which should mean a there is a microprocessor, ROM, and maybe RAM in the inverter. I did not think a microprocessor, RAM or ROM could handle EMP. It would be great if EMP did NOT affect those devices.

Later,
Dan

EMP may damage or destroy non-powered devices if your proximity to the source causes high enough induced voltages. If you were in that area, I would not worry about EMP, you will have other issues. Most EMP damage is as I had described. The other significant effect is that most programmable memory (flash, eproms, eeproms, etc) will be corrupted by EMP, making any associated device inoperable.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp.htm

paul

 

[dmccarty]

EMP may damage or destroy non-powered devices if your proximity to the source causes high enough induced voltages. If you were in that area, I would not worry about EMP, you will have other issues. Most EMP damage is as I had described. The other significant effect is that most programmable memory (flash, eproms, eeproms, etc) will be corrupted by EMP, making any associated device inoperable.

Nuclear Weapon EMP Effects

paul

I am not really concerned with nuke EMP but a solar based EMP event.

Later,
Dan

 

[techman]

I am not really concerned with nuke EMP but a solar based EMP event.

Later,
Dan

I agree, it is a much bigger threat. We are now entering SolarMax - anything is possible !

paul

 

[ultrarunner]

Read a study on EMP that did various tests... wish I could find it.

Anyway... old diesels and even some gasoline vehicles like a Model T Ford did the best as compared to all newer vehicles.

I guess the Amish life with oil, steam and candles would hardly notice?

 

[dave1949]

Read a study on EMP that did various tests... wish I could find it.

Anyway... old diesels and even some gasoline vehicles like a Model T Ford did the best as compared to all newer vehicles.

I guess the Amish life with oil, steam and candles would hardly notice?

The Amish are running day spas now? Who knew?

 

[ultrarunner]

I didn't... still see a few that travel by train in my area...