have you got your EARTHQUAKE preparedness kit?

remember, EQs dont give us the 2-5 days of warning. we live in an area where an EQ can really change how we live. and we are WAYYYYYYYY overdue for one of the 30 year EQs.

experts claim you need food and water for at least 72 hours.

i saw a week to a month is more like it.

now excuse me while i hit FRYs for some solar panels...

 

Go to Costco, get some huge packs of water, some canned food, and a generator.

 

Don't waste your money on solar panels. Unless you have enough money/room for a quite large array and an inverter.

 

"now excuse me while i hit FRYs for some solar panels..."
even if you have solar panels they dont function if the power goes out. I have solar pannels but im still on the grid. They dont let them make power if you are connected to the grid and the power goes out because they dont want electricity traveling through it if they are trying to fix downed wires. I guess you could get a big switch to make it so that you could be on your own private one if necessary.
The state gives you a big rebate on what you spend on the solar pannels.

 

You should be able to isolate from the grid. You would have to get some serious juice though. I you are interest in an array check here www.akeena.com

 

i do have plans to be "away" from the grid.

granted, i wont have enough juice to power the 38" hdtv with the 600 watt receiver.

but the basics. so a 50-100 watt panels, 2-4 deep cycle batteries connected to an inverter should be the basics.

plus a 3000 watt generator should be enough to maintain some sort of sanity.

 

Make sure your genni can run on alcohol, 'cause people are going to kill for gas soon.

 

let's hope it never comes to that...

 

One of my jobs used to be to review these installations and either approve or disapprove them. I was a power distribution engineer for PG&E.

Being "off grid" is easy, it only requires a switch. As long as your switch does not allow you to be on the grid and have your inverter supplying power at the same time, you don't need approval from PG&E. If you plan to synch your system with PG&E so that you can run both at the same them, then PG&E needs to be involved.

Now the advantage of being "on grid" and letting your inverter supply power is that then PG&E has to give you credit for all the power you produce - and for this expensive system, I would strongly suggest it.

A 3000 Watt Gen is 3 times bigger than normal draw - i.e. big enough for startup current draw.

Am I to understand that you have/plan fifty 100-watt panels? That is quite large for a residence.

Is that the most cost effective way? I am only asking because nearly all of the systems that I have approved use fewer but larger panels and most of them come out to be 1-3KW not 5KW. Be aware that your peak productions will probably only be around 800 watts for each 1000 watt panels.

BTW - a 5 KW system is enough to run both your stereo, air conditioner, your sound system and everything else in your house - except maybe things like a hot tub or swimming pool or server farm.

A typical home runs 1KW after startup current - that is when your AC compressor comes on or the refrigerator compressor comes on; electric motors have heavy current drain on startup. Heavy load motors have even higher startup current drain, such as compressors.

A warning about batteries - they have a typical life cycle of 5 years. I would strongly suggest getting the maintenance free gel cells and don't forget how much air space they require for ventilation. Don't buy too many batteries unless you really need them.

Talk to PG&E before you buy the inverter and grid switch. This will ensure that you get one that is approved. Salesmen will sell you things that PG&E doesn't or hasn't approved yet. IF that happens to you, you will be very unhappy because while these systems are expensive, around $10,000 / KW plus batteries, they can at least give you a little credit back.

 

ive spoken to akeena..
then wont sell you the $10,000 solar panel kit.

basically if you pay more than $30 a month in your regular electricity bills.. they tell you that you will need a 30,000-40,000 $$$$ solar rig to cover the costs..

 

Fortunately Akeena has competition:

http://www.sunlightandpower.com/index.html

http://www.powerlight.com/homes/index.shtml

And yeah if you want to go off grid, be prepared to spend $30G+ with any of these outfits, but having a smaller system can still be cost effective in that when you aren't home using power you are selling it to PG&E, and the more homes that have solar panels generating power during mid-day peak demands, the less chance there will be tat Cal Iso will be needing to inflict rolling blackouts on those hot summer days.

The whole centralized generation grid we have now is really quite stupid when one considers the benifits of a distributed generation grid, peak demand can be offset by solar generation during peak sun time, if less than 1/3 of the houses in the central valley put 1KW panels up we'd totally be set for those hot summer peak demands.

 

no... remember, all of this is for EMERGENCY or when SHTF type scenarios.

to me, off the grid means running power not from the plugs in the house.

i plan on just 50-100 watt panels. nothing major.

just enough to power 2-4 deep cycle batts sitting outside the home in a semi water resistant plastic containers.

and remember, this is just to run the basics.

the generator is to run a few hours a day, to keep the fridge in a semi cold state.

i know and have planned for scenarios like KATRINA where the home is red tagged and having to bug out. or have like a tent city outside the home.

HOPEFULLY and that is a big IF, that it never happens...

 

Here in the Bay area we have the Hayward Fault, the San Andreas Fault and numerous others that could snap at any time.

So I don't think it's a question of IF- it really is a matter of "when"

 

dude.... no need to remind me.

my office is less than half a mile away from the hayward fault.

my hope is that it BARELY breaks/slips, the next time...