PV: RE: Who's really using pv

[Eric Warren <ewarren@sover.net>]

Hi there,

    This thread, and Dave's last comments brings up one of the biggest
reasons I am staying committed to remaining off the grid.  My wife and I
moved into a small cabin in Vermont's Green Mountains about 8 years ago
which was equipped with a small PV system.  Grid power is about a
half-a-mile away and about $35,000 to bring in.  When that cabin burned
down and we built the house we live in now, the decision to remain off
the grid was easy - we were committed to the idea and the way of life,
and it was far more costly to bring in the grid than to install the
modest sized system we have now.
    Being deep in the woods in Vermont - solar access is minimal at best
(our site slopes steeply, slightly north of west, though our roofline is
right below a large plateau).  With 400 watts on the roof, our generator
generally doesn't go on for about half the year (most years...last year
was different).  About 3 months out of the year we are pretty strictly
generator powered, and the other 3 is mixed.  Of course, we are pretty
thrifty with our electric use and all of our heating and cooling is done
with wood or propane.
    The environmental cost per watt of the power we use, I think, is
still higher than I'd like to see it:  Our generator is very inefficient
and stinky, and then there are the T50 batteries that we are recycling
after less than 5 years of use.  Our system is in the midst of a major
upgrade (we are building three more houses on the property and a central
power station with good solar access to serve all of them), and I hope
our new 30kw diesel generator and large capacity battery chargers, along
with a little economy of scale feeding 4 houses will make us more
effiecient.  Our "land co-op" did talk about the option of bringing in
power now that it would definately be cheaper than building a $60,000
system (including cost of building to house it all, which will also be
used for other things), but we have remained committed to being off the
grid regardless of minor cost differences. (looking over 20 years, I
figure the cost per kwh of our system to about $.40 while grid power,
with installation cost, would cost us about $.35 per kwh - these numbers
are based on 20 kwh/day which is more than our 4 households will
probably use, but it's hard to say...).
    Living off the grid has many perks which we considered in making our
decision to stay that way:  Environmental benefit of cleaner power;
reducing ugly power lines from the landscape; and, a big one in the
mountains of Vermont, no power outages (except those we cause
ourselves).  While these are all convincing arguments for staying off
the grid, one of the biggest for me is the fact that living this way has
made us much more conscious of the power we consume.  We are constantly
looking at that Tri-Metric meter by our front door to see where we are
at with our power.  Right now, in the middle of winter, with two
households using the system (one of these households consists of a
single parent with half-time kids and is a small, temporary set-up)
which is still in our house, and while we have all been home sick a lot
running power all day, we are using about 2000-2500 kwh/day.  That is
without skimping on much.  Mostly, our conservation constists of turning
stuff off when we are not using it, hooking up ghost loads to power
strips that get turned off when not in use, and making sure to mostly
use the lights with compact flouresents in them.  Of course, we don't
have the refrigerator usage that others have (we have a small propane
fridge), or any heating use, but the system does pump our water, and run
some power tools.
    My point here is that as Dave pointed out, the technology employed
in delivering electric power to our houses is only part of the story.
The benefits in PV to me are not just in the actual technology, but in
this byproduct of their use, which could be acheived through simple
metering and conscious effort.

-Eric Warren
Ripton, Vermont

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