Solar Power?

[grassfarmer]

As 15444 says you've got to think of a different way to do it. What kind of trough uses a 2000 watt heater? Is it a concrete one?
I got a quote for a solar system for 150 cows, 15 foot lift from a wet well. Anti vortex system from Sundog Solar. They were only using a 175 watt panel and $700 of batteries. The whole package including 30' cribbing, submersible pump, panels, batteries, self draining trough, motion eye sensor, wiring etc was @$5000.

I prefer frostfree nosepumps. No solar panels, no wires, no water heaters. Just a cow powered winter watering solution.

We also put in an energy efficient waterer in another location - it takes a 500 watt heater but if you build enclosed boxes around them with a curtained hole for them to stick their heads in and drink it uses very little power.

[Jay-mo]

Solar panels (photovoltaic) are not even worth talking about for heating purposes.
I can't remember exactly but I think they are only 10-15% efficient.
Passive solar heating through efficient design of a building is a great way to take a good bite out of your heating bill. However it still doesn't help you much for the other 20 hours of the day on Dec 27th when the sun is down.
Going off the grid in our climate looks to be a ways off unless you're burning wood. That's carbon neutral right??

[STR1]

Mustardman

I agree there is allot of talk around climate change and renewable energy...........but I rarely hear about reducing energy waste! I think that would be the first place to start?
We were much more energy conscience when I was a kid on the farm, I remember Dad ranting about lights left on that weren't being used!! Back then he remembered what it was like to not have power and he really valued it!!

[grassfarmer]

STR1, Maybe my Scottish upbringing but we never lost the thrift habit. I always thought farmers were natural recyclers but I can't believe the wastage that goes on nowadays though. I pick up some stuff every time I'm at the landfill - corrugated roofing sheets, rigid foam insulation, lumber, steel - some of it is new, often offcuts from tradesmen working on jobs. Does nobody ever think of setting leftovers aside for future use anymore? I've been able to do a lot of repair/construction jobs around the farm with these free materials.

[15444]

GF, you can save a lot of money by sourcing a unit through Kelln. SunDog prices are ridiculous.
I priced them all before I started buying Kelln units.

[dmlfarmer]

Costs of solar falling rapidly. Announcement from this summer "NV Energy, a Berkshire Hathaway-owned utility company, has signed a PPA to purchase electricity from the 100 MW Playa Solar 2 power plant at a stunningly low price of $0.0387/kWh!" (http://cleantechnica.com/2015/07/10/price-solar-hits-record-low/) Some of the comments on here remind me of my grandfather telling me how some neighbors said tractors would never replace horses. Same short sightedness.

[greybeard]

Canada produce's 55% of our electrical generation capacity from hydro.
US produces 7% of theirs.
27% of ours comes from fossil fuel.
That puts us at #187 on the list of countries in the world.
The counties below us are mostly all hydro or nuke.
We export 10% of what we produce.
US has a 31% import tax on Chinese panels.
Even in the most favorable locations large scale solar only produces 1/2 capacity in Dec/Jan.
Lots of proposed hydro within 200 miles of me.
Puts local boys to work.
Guess where all the solar subsidies will go?

[LEP]

Dmlfarmer, if we can get solar at that price sign me up. But my experience has been Ontario at 80 cents per kW.

Also anything I have read is that solar at current prices takes 30 years to break even.

That said we should all conserve until it hurts. I bought LED bulbs for the entire house and am putting them in my shop. Bulbs for the house were $1400. Not sure what the payback is on this but it is something.

I agree GF people should recycle everything possible. I always enjoy making something from nothing. Our local dump doesn't allow scavenging. Ridiculous in my opinion. I don't have time to do it but several in our community used to and I thought go for it.

[Hamloc]

Grassfarmer I have 4 heated waterers which consume a total of 2000 watts of electricity. We are not blessed with high producing water wells, so I have 2 wells which pump into a 1200 gallon cistern in a small insulated building which uses a thermostatically controlled 1500 watt baseboard heater to keep from freezing. Then it is pumped from there to the waterers. The point I was trying to make was I was amazed at the cost to build a solar system to run 4 waterers. I think it is very obvious what the new carbon taxes the government is planning to impose on us will be spent on,subsidizing solar and wind power to make them look affordable. Dml I hope you are right but the sun still doesn't shine 24 hrs a day where I live and my brother in law has been an electrician for over 30 years so is very knowledgeable and has no reason to give me incorrect pricing on solar panels.

[LEP]

Dmlfarmer when I went to your link and looked around it still looks like solar has a ways to go before it is anywhere close to viable.

I agree we should implement all viable renewable options, but the reality is if power rates go to .25 or .30 kw there won't be anything but half empty houses in Canada.

Manufacturing in Ontario currently pays .05 and can barely make a go of it.

[LEP]

Just thought of another thing, even small scale diesel generation is far cheaper than solar. I think it comes in at .14 to .15 /kw.

Wouldn't that be good for the environment to have 15or 20,000 of those in a city the size of Saskatoon or Regina.

[oneoff]

Just sa another example of a solar system not capable of producing much power.

Apparently when there is hoar frost; or even a light dusting of snow; solar panels can be almost totally covered by a layer that probably affects their output significantly.

At least thats what it looked like today; on the roof of a home almost completely covered by a solar array.

[oneoff]

Now for a suggestion that would produce some real power; using energy sources vented directly to the atmosphere and/or burned obscenely though oil site flare stacks.

I am told that there still remains the first individual or company to sign up for less than 100 KVA generating capacity under SaskPower programs that pay 10.2 cents per kilowatt hour generated into the grid.

As an example; the meager amount of about 5 cubic feet per minute of raw gas will generate in the order of 25 kilowatt hours of electricity......

and also produce about the same amount of waste heat energy blown out of the radiator

And
Another 25 KWH all ready to extract somehow from the exhaust gas stream.

Now think green house heating; or enough heat to warm thousands of square feet of enclosed....but even largely uninsulated building are.

Now I'll bet bucket can grasp this situation; but not so sure about the rest who might even dare read this heresy

Call me a Bitcher if you want; it might well be taken as a compliment.