PV Gap

Betty Said:

What is the price to fuel a car on solar power?

We Answered:

It's solar - nothing. The issue is not the price of the fuel, it's the cost of building the car, the cost of the technology, which has to be passed to the consumer. So they have to build something that can function on solar energy and that is affordable to the general public. It's going to be some time.

Virginia Said:

Does anyone know of any reasonably priced solar powered landscape lighting that DOES NOT use batteries?

We Answered:

no, thats how solar works you use the sun to charge batt, then use the power at night, I have a set of 12 that i got thru Harbor freight 3 yrs ago there still working,
they were around $20

Clinton Said:

Any good sources of wind power or solar power generators at a good price? How about efficient generators?

We Answered:

In my experience, any solar power panels or windmills that generate power worth buying are pretty expensive.

However, I built a windmill myself a couple of weeks ago to try to save money on electricity.

I was able to build it in one Saturday afternoon and I got everything I needed from the hardware store for less than $150.

Now it is powering a couple of lamps and a TV. I am expecting huge savings on my next power bill.

Here are the plans I used:

http://energyfromhome.com/link.html

Maureen Said:

what is the price to fuel a car on solar power?

We Answered:

This site gives you some of the prices of solar panel or systems out there.
the cost of the charge would depend on how many batteries the car has, however a 5 watt solar panel will charge a 12v battery in 8 to 12 hours.

http://www.google.com/products?q=solar+p…

Becky Said:

If you could have a solar powered system for the same price as reg power, would you?

We Answered:

Well, I looked at the site and will make the assumption that the company is prepared to wait a long time for a pay back.

One negative concern would be the $500 fee upfront for a 5kW unit.

Second negative, if you normally use 2000kWH a month and generate 1000 of that, you will still pay 1000kWH to the elec utility and 1000 kWH to this company. Therefore, initially, there would be no economic incentive to do this.

A positive thing would be that later, since the contracted rate you paid to them would not change, you would eventually begin to save money as your utility began increasing its rates over the next 5-25 years. The difference would be that you would never see the full effect of savings as you would when your own installed system finally reached the point of saving its initial construction cost. Basically, if you installed your own system that paid itself back in 15 years, all savings after that would be yours to keep.

Another positive would be no maintenance and repair costs, assuming this business model is viable for the long run.

So, overall, you would have to plug in the numbers for doing nothing, installing your own, or buying into this system.

With the concerns I have, I would want to evaluate other systems already installed and operating before I would feel comfortable with this model. Also, since all your eggs would be in this basket, I would want to see how they performed over the next few years.

Last, since I have seen scams in the utility market before, I would want an independent way to verify that their system was actually generating the power that they were claiming. Otherwise, that would really skew the results.

I hope that doesn't seem too negative. I respect the idea that they are apparently trying a creative way to make money using PV and making it attractive to the end user. If you are prepared for the potential problems, then you may be able to go for it.