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kitestrings
Senior Member

Joined: 23/04/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 102
Posted: 10:53am 23 Apr 2014
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Howdy,

I guess I'm a newbie here. I've been a long-time lurker/reader, just never bothered to register. Sorry to not be more social. Enjoy your site.

I'm a regular on OP, Midnite and see some familiar sigs. Small world.

Brief into - Family and I off-grid since 1984/85. We've had a long running 1 kW Sencenbaugh (CA, US) turbine and a 3 kW solar array. Worked for many years on/in wind and energy related fields. Recently built a new 15' axial - well I should say recently completed, it's been a 2 1/2-year or more project.

Located in NEK of VT on a ridge between two utility-scale installations.

~kitestrings
 
norcold

Guru

Joined: 06/02/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 670
Posted: 02:47pm 23 Apr 2014
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Welcome kitestrings,
Very interested in your off-grid experiences. Am sure such long term experience has had plenty of ups and downs. Especially in the storage side of your system, batteries seem to be the main item that makes off-grid expensive, their capital costs and replacement are a major from my take. But your experience may differ from 30 years of use. Considering solar panels would be approaching 1/20 th of capital outlay now from when you first went off-grid.

Perhaps if you start a thread under solar or windmills or both, you could share your life time experience.
We come from the land downunder.
Vic
 
kitestrings
Senior Member

Joined: 23/04/2014
Location: United States
Posts: 102
Posted: 03:19am 24 Apr 2014
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Hi Vic,

Yes, so many changes when I look back. The efficiency, availability, durability and cost of the electronic components... and in particular PV panels/hardware has vastly improved. The batteries remain the hard nut to crack. Their cost, unfortunately makes/keeps off-grid impractical in many cases. Still there are some other benefits that are harder to quantify.

Thanks for the welcome mat. I'll try to post soon.

Regard, ~ks
 
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