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Post by solargeek1 on Feb 26, 2014 7:50:51 GMT -7
"CWI said: How much space can you devote to blocking those panels from view? I.E. we know it's 100 feet long, but how many feet in front of it all to the nearest obstruction? Any potential for side viewing/rear viewing?" The height specified (arrays), was 14 feet. The goal was to mask/hide the array. In your local I would have been inclined to create a fake hill. A berm surrounding the array starting 50 feet out rising to 15 feet at its edge. It would give a slope grade of 30 degrees at a ratio of 3:10. Properly landscaped, it would appear from any direction on the ground as a hill due to restricted viewing angle. There is nothing to be done for viewing from the air and still save use of the array. If I had to do it today, it would be physically roof tiles on a 'chicken coup' building or other such structures. The secondary benefit of that is infrared masking. The emissivity ratio of pv cells runs in the neighborhood of .85-.9 (as determined by a grey body Stefano-BoltzMann law) depending on physical material they are built from. Which btw, the glass faced models range up to .98. What that means is it would take a very significant heat source for an IR camera to pick up anything. Probably over thinking it, but there it is. Altho this berm might work on other property, recall we have a 2 acre pond the length of our cleared space (about 5.5-7 acres with some too far from well to really work for much). Also, the need to face due south. Pond runs true E-W. SOOOO, house and panels face pond the whole way and the slope to the pond drops 75' from the house/panel height. The run to the drop off is less than 30' at panels so could not berm without shading the lowest panels much of day. The other point of the "roof tiles" --we needed a 10KW system. Those could work for a smaller system. The amount of roof space to achieve that was larger than our house and pole barn roofs combined. We have massive roofs but you can only use the south side:) And again, we have snow load and frigid temps. (Today is -8 with wind chill at -27 at 8:45 am. High is 7 with rest of week same or lower) Cannot clear snow from roof line, and altho TJ suggested they would start to melt, our 6 year experience with them on our last roof taught us otherwise at our locations. We lost most of Dec. - mid February all 6 years in the last place. Not to belabor this for all but having the experts (we had 3 different solar groups advise us) come evaluate your property, proposed house, proposed ground placement and all of your systems is the way to go. ON THE OTHER HAND THE REAL HUGE SUCCESS STORY FOR US IS THE AGGESSIVE PASSIVE SOLAR HEAT GAIN FROM OUR SOUTH WINDOWS! We hold at 73-76F on every sunny day from October through March. Then in summer absolutely not a ray of sunshine comes in. All due to engineering the roof line correctly. So easy, cost about $500 total for the architect to work with the solar guys. Cheap and no kidding, no wood stove or heat on till around 9 pm on every winter sunny day. |
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Post by marc on Feb 26, 2014 8:01:03 GMT -7
pathwinder14, Yes, certainly - our overall dependance on cheap fuel and reliable electric power is scary. And yes, with a little prep work many of us can sustain life with the grid down for awhile. I have a customer who lives on an upper floor of an apartment in Philadelphia. He has been testing his power availability with his portable solar system propped up on his little balcony in a way that makes it very unlikely to be noticed from the outside. I don't have numbers, but he told me that he's getting enough in winter to recharge his portable ham gear, provide some lighting and run a small 8 cu ft special 12v refrigerator. With proper care in this type of application in his climate, a battery life of 7-12 years can easily be achieved. Hopefully the grid would be back up before then........ He cobbled the system together himself with zero experience, and kept it totally modular so that he can load it it into his SUV quickly. He used this chart for the refrigerator - then added a bit more solar for additional capacity. SunDanzer Refrigerator and Freezer sizingMy point? Since it is doable by thinking outside of "normal" parameters, why not have a little electricity available via solar? Yes - just like the Bug-In or Bug-Out discussion - it depends on a whole lot of variables! Marc |
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Post by angelhelp on Feb 26, 2014 8:18:46 GMT -7
That would sure be handy (what Marc's customer did)! I'd love to try it but wouldn't know where/how to begin. Solar power is on my to-learn list, given the fact that our house is... ahem... "unimproved" electrically from when it was built. Ceorlmann and Mrs. C. have discovered the joys of a 30amp setup, complete with fuses.  |
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Post by pathwinder14 on Feb 27, 2014 8:24:29 GMT -7
pathwinder14, Yes, certainly - our overall dependance on cheap fuel and reliable electric power is scary. And yes, with a little prep work many of us can sustain life with the grid down for awhile. I have a customer who lives on an upper floor of an apartment in Philadelphia. He has been testing his power availability with his portable solar system propped up on his little balcony in a way that makes it very unlikely to be noticed from the outside. I don't have numbers, but he told me that he's getting enough in winter to recharge his portable ham gear, provide some lighting and run a small 8 cu ft special 12v refrigerator. With proper care in this type of application in his climate, a battery life of 7-12 years can easily be achieved. Hopefully the grid would be back up before then........ He cobbled the system together himself with zero experience, and kept it totally modular so that he can load it it into his SUV quickly. He used this chart for the refrigerator - then added a bit more solar for additional capacity. SunDanzer Refrigerator and Freezer sizingMy point? Since it is doable by thinking outside of "normal" parameters, why not have a little electricity available via solar? Yes - just like the Bug-In or Bug-Out discussion - it depends on a whole lot of variables! Marc O.K. I must admit; that is pretty frikin sweet! |
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Post by westtexas on Apr 15, 2014 7:02:17 GMT -7
Just throwing this out there, specifically at SolarGeek, suppose there's a high spot on your property, you could build a barn-type of structure and engineer it to look dilapidated and abandoned, intentionally missing most of the roof but leave the trusses in place with no metal sheeting to cover the structure. you could then suspend solar panels from the trusses themselves just below the level of the sidewalls. Maybe even rig up a pulley system to raise and lower them as needed. This would also provide plenty of storage area underneath for battery banks or electrical appliances. Best part is that you could, and should, build the whole thing with repurposed material. Old barn tin, weathered wood beams, etc. and wrap that all around a good solid welded metal pipe structure.
And TJ, we're looking at buying our dream place and I'm strongly considering having a windmill installed to augment the existing well, and to support a limited amount of livestock; how feasible would it be to rig up an electric genny, like an alternator in a car, to a windmill? Not looking to power the entire house but maybe a good deep cycle battery or two and power a 12v fridge or something?
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Post by solargeek1 on Apr 15, 2014 8:29:04 GMT -7
Just throwing this out there, specifically at SolarGeek, suppose there's a high spot on your property, you could build a barn-type of structure and engineer it to look dilapidated and abandoned, intentionally missing most of the roof but leave the trusses in place with no metal sheeting to cover the structure. you could then suspend solar panels from the trusses themselves just below the level of the sidewalls. Maybe even rig up a pulley system to raise and lower them as needed. This would also provide plenty of storage area underneath for battery banks or electrical appliances. Best part is that you could, and should, build the whole thing with repurposed material. Old barn tin, weathered wood beams, etc. and wrap that all around a good solid welded metal pipe structure. WT, although we already have our 10KW system in place, couple of thoughts on your idea. Don't think it would be workable for me. 1. Any shading, even from a truss ,turns off the panels. Panels are often linked together in 4 set so that would shut down too many as the sun travels around during the day. So all trees would have to be taken down - hence site would be very visible even far away. 2. Pretty labor intensive to go work a pulley system each day on a fairly remote site (50 acres here and highest spot is too close to house so would have to use other 25 acre away high spot). IN snow, which is hip deep all over our place, would be impossible. 3. Can't run the lines that far. THIS IS THE DEATH KNELL. You lose elelctricity for every foot you are away from the panels. So for most places you can't place them far away. We let it go 100' on the side of the house to give it partial blockage from the street but sized the units to compensate for that loss. TJ and Marc can comment even better on this. SO great way to hide a generator but not so workable for solar. Thanks for the ideas tho! To really hide our panels from all but invited visitors and satellites, we had planted 5'-6' fast growing pines last fall behind our pole barn. They will block casual highway traffic from viewing. We made our pole barn deliberately plain. So is our house. People always walk in and go "no way" -reminds me of Dr.WHO and the reaction to the TARDIS - "smaller on the outside, larger on the inside". (For any WHO-VIANS here) |
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Post by cajunlady87 on Mar 15, 2015 15:09:44 GMT -7
Thanks cwi, it won't hurt to bump this one too.
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Post by woodyz on Mar 16, 2015 23:39:39 GMT -7
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Post by wy21lmb on Mar 17, 2015 20:09:19 GMT -7
I live in cattle country, any time I leave town I see old wind powered water wells that have been converted to solar power. I know no details but solar powered water wells for livestock apparently is an off-the-shelf technology.
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Post by mud on Mar 18, 2015 17:39:48 GMT -7
how about a different perspective than electricity and oil? Like making your own oils by rendering fats or extracting from other sources?
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