Micro-inverters

A micro inverter is included or connected to each module or panel. Even if there is shading on a module, it will not disproportionately reduce the amount of an entire array.  But because there is an inverter on each module, you need to consider the costs which may run a little higher than modules without inverters.  The latest that I’ve heard is that micro inverters accept DC from two solar panels.  That may reduce equipment costs and must be considered when choosing what type of modules you use on your home or business.   The electric power from several micro-inverters is combined and fed into an existing electrical grid. If one module or inverter fails, it will not take the entire string offline.

Keep in mind the temperature where you live.  In Louisiana, the temperatures get up into the high 90’s.  Just think how hot it gets on your roof.  It could well get over 150 degrees. Some modules are black in color and absorb more heat. I don’t trust having individual units that have electronics on your roof with high temperatures.  Heat is a big problem with electronics.  That’s why they designed heat-sinks on inverters to help air itself and cool it off.  It has a blower come on when it gets too hot.

Heat is a big factor for electronics on a roof.  Another installer that installed a unit similar to this with the software told me that if the Edge had a problem it would not affect the whole string.  But with one module, it would abandon that module and go to the other modules.  That’s OK but you are losing that module anyway.  You’ll know which one it is by the computer software.  The warranty is good on the Enphase but when you have a problem, the installer needs to get back up on that hot roof to replace one of the inverters.

I like Enphase. These units have good warranty but I don’t particularly like them for roof installations because of the heat.  Some installers are placing the modules close to the roof.  They position the L-bracket and place the module directly on top of that and that’s it.  The L-bracket is about an inch from the roof and then the module is another 1 ½ inches or so.  That means that there is not air space underneath the modules to cool the heat that is penetrating the modules, especially when homeowners want black modules.

The biggest advantage is that there is a racking system build for Enphase.  They position and place the racking with the module on top in a very short amount of time. They can go down the line, connect it to the disconnect and Bam! It’s in.

Does this make sense?  Are you ready to install your solar powered system? Next week, I will talk about string inverters. I will tell you which inverter I personally use and recommend.

Net metering has been described as selling power back to your local utility power.  When you sell you excess back to your power company, you are turning your meter backwards. Actually, power companies have switched to digital meters and they don’t really “spin” anymore.  Your power company will buy back your excess power.  They have to because it is a law here in the US, according to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, under Section 1251.  But they don’t have to buy it back at the same rate that they sell it to you.

An important point to remember is that these systems can produce while you are not home.  The sun is still shinning on your home while you go grocery shopping or go to work.  So, it is still producing.  Once your system is set up, you have very little to do but watch your meter go backwards.

These are special meters.  They are called smart meters.  They record what you produce.

The inverter in your system plays an important role for safety.  The inverter will sense that there is not voltage so it will turn off automatically to keep a lineman from getting electrocuted while working on the lines down your street.  That’s build into your inverter.

Invest in your future with alternative energy system.  No matter which one you chose – solar, wind, geothermal – you are helping our environment while saving you money. Does your state accept net metering?

Earth Day was started back in 1970 as a means of drawing attention to our planet and protecting our environment.  It is a challenge for the environmental community.  Be a part of cleaning up our environment for generations to come.  This year we are celebrating Earth Day on Sunday April 22, 2012.

“Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. “It was a gamble,” Gaylord recalled, “but it worked.”

What will you be doing to promote Earth Day this year?

There are many ideas available to all, adults and kids, to celebrate Earth Day.  The basic idea is to just get involved and do something.  Here are just a few:

• Look up the history of Earth Day      and learn the facts
• Volunteer to clean up a park or river
• Plan an Earth Day party
• Watch a “green” movie.  Dora and Diego have joined in the fun      and have made a DVD to promote and get kids involved.
• Go for a walk and observe the plant and animal life
• Plant a tree
• Save energy in your home

There are lots of ideas you can create to show the next generation about our environment. It is important to remember about our environment where we all live.

Don’t trash our environment. Remember to reduce, reuse, and recycle. What is Earth Day to you?

Lumens have been around for over 5 year now.  The brightness of a light used to be according to the wattage.  But now, we use the term lumens to determine how bright a light can be. Other than incandescent, wattage doesn’t mean anything to CFL or florescent.  You can get the same amount of lumens and half the amount of wattage.  I know because I tested that.  It was half the amount of wattage, actually a little less than half.  So, I am really disappointed with the CFL.  I will probably in the future test the LED to make sure their output and the amount of power they use is a lot less or the same then what is said on the packaging.  What they advertise and what is really true are two different things.

I always thought that there was an agency or government recommendation on how you can advertise a product and that it could not be advertise falsely.  I don’t understand how they can get away with false advertising.  I guess it’s because most of the companies are in China.  There is not much Americans can do about it but you need to hear the truth.  The truth is that CFL are not as efficient as they say on their packaging.  I compared lumens to wattage myself.  According to the CFL packaging, that particular bulb puts out the same lumens at 14 watts as it does at 60 watts.  But I know that is not true.

Things have changed.  If you had a bulb that is 60 watts, you knew how bright that 60 watt was.  A standard for the industry many years ago was the socket inside the fixture itself was rated for more than 60 watts.  They were rated for 100 watts.  These days, most sockets within a fixture are rated for a 60 watt bulb and no more.  The heat difference has changed.  The sockets are not made as well made with aluminum shells inside the socket instead of copper shells which makes the bulbs harder to screw in place.  Aluminum (bulb) screwed into aluminum (fixture) does not screw well.

So when you buy a bulb, you need to look at the lumens or the amount of output and not at the wattage.  They’ll say that their bulb is equal comparison to 60 watts.  They might tell you that a particular bulb puts out 100 lumens (or more) for 14 watts comparably to a 60 watt light bulb.  They (sometimes) give you a comparison chart on the packaging.

The manufacturers are doing away with light bulbs advertised as wattage.  In the future, you will be looking at lumens when you go to purchase a bulb.  So you’ll need to understand this.  It’s reminds me of trying to change to the metric system.  The industry won’t let you call it a light bulb anymore:  they call them lamps.  They are called lamps because they are filled with gas.  It is not a light bulb anymore.  You won’t walk into a home improvement center and ask for a 60 watt light bulb.  You’ll ask for a lamp with 400 lumens. How bright are your bulbs?

I compared an incandescent bulb to a CFL. I tested a 60 watt to a 60 watt. The savings were .22 or 2/10th of one amp.  It is a savings but it is not a considerable difference.  It was not what I thought it would be.  I thought it would be more like a difference of 1/3 that would in turn save you quite a bit.  I thought it might save you 50%. But it didn’t turn out to be that. If an incandescent bulb is .53 amps, then you should have .25 or so in a CFL.  When I tested and measured the difference, it was .25 which is a 50% savings.

I also tested 100 watt CFL.  A 100 watt light bulb is 1.2 amps.  A 100 watt CFL is 1.50 amps. So it is actually higher in the wattage. Maybe the manufacture mislabeled their package. But it turns out that CFL’s were not what I thought they were or as they are advertised to be.

If they are not as advertised to be, then why is the government pushing them to all Americans to purchase?  Even the Energy Star website admits to only a $6.00 a year savings when switching to CFL bulbs. The government is pushing them because they believe them to be energy savers and longevity lasting so you are not changing light bulbs every week.  I do agree about that.  I do not change CFL light bulbs as often as I did incandescent.

Incandescent bulbs do not have any longevity of time.  When I placed an incandescent in a fixture, some homeowners were complaining that there must be something wrong with the light bulbs or the socket or the fixture.  I would explain to them that they needed better light bulbs.  I often referred homeowners to an electrical supply house to purchase heavy duty bulbs. The other bulbs they purchased at their grocery store didn’t last the 2000 hours as stated on their packaging.  They were lasting 100 hours and going out. It wasn’t significance as to how long they lasted. I would even check the polarity on the socket to make sure is was correct.

Look at your packaging.  The one I tested was an Eco Smart from Home Depot.  Their packaging states 14 watts for a 50 watt bulb at 385 lumens.  That means it is only supposed to consume 14 watts of electricity. But when I tested it, I measured it to consume 25 watts. In other words, it consumes almost double of what it says on the package.  So this packaging is misleading.

I tested these bulbs with 3 different meters to make sure my tests were accurate. I tested it with a Fluke and a Klein meter.  I series it with amperage rather than just a clamp on which can be a little leery so I series a circuit through a lamp and the amperage came up showing 20.  You multiply that times the voltage and you get the wattage, or 25 watts.  It does half the amount of wattage of an incandescent yet almost twice as much as the package advertises. It is better but it is still not as advertised. The packaging on the CFL did not line up with their own wattage of what they were actually using.

Longevity is probably one of the main reasons that the CFLs have become popular.  But as far as the savings, I can’t see it.  Is there such a thing as an efficient light bulb?  My next step is to get an LED and see what kind of amperage it puts out on this level.

A generator can be installed at your home once a professional has assessed the needs of the homeowner.  You need to consider a home standby generator.

The code for 2011 stated that arc fault breakers are code. They are required for almost everything with a few exceptions.  Here are some of the exceptions:

•  Interior GFI
•  Receptacle that runs a motor
• Receptacle for central air conditioner in your attic
• Kitchen counter-tops
• 240 volt receptacles
• Independent equipment on a separate circuit

For example, independent equipment would be your dishwasher or stove.  They don’t have to be arc faulted.  They are dedicated outlets to dedicated equipment

Everything in your house has to be arc fault breaker.  Because of that, you as homeowners are paying more to install a receptacle.  Tamper resistant receptacles increased from $.50 to $1.50 each.  That may not sound like much but you would be surprised if you would count the number of receptacles you have in your house.  You can easily have at least 200 devices in your home.

In one panel I recently installed, I spent $1300 more for arc fault breakers.  It does costs me (as an electrician) more because I install independent circuits within new homes. Some electricians use 3 or 4 bedrooms on one circuit.  There are limitations that limit the number of bedrooms or rooms on an arc fault breaker. I prefer extra ordinary wiring to benefit the homeowner and save him money and problems down the road.

NEC requires many codes within a new home.  For instance, all the lights in a bathroom need to be on arc fault.  But if the receptacles are GFI operated, then they don’t have to be arc fault.  Receptacles in the rest of your house need to be arc fault (with exceptions listed above). Many receptacle installations that used to be simple and cheaper are now required that the electrician install arc faulted.  Before, it was just the bedrooms.  Now it’s almost everything in the house (with those exceptions listed above).

The exterior receptacles are GRI protected.  These receptacles do not have to be arc fault but they need to be weather tight, tamper resistant, GFI – which doubles the costs.  The receptacles located in your garage must be GFI.  That’s really ignorant.  I think code changed for the worst in that respect because of having an individual circuit for motor equipment.  Many times homeowners place a refrigerator or freezer in a garage.  Did you know that a GFI receptacle and a refrigerator don’t get along?  I have not found a GFI in my lifetime that hasn’t tripped a refrigerator because of the harmonics in a refrigerator. A GFI does not like refrigerators.  Homeowners have lost food because the GFI tripped and turned off their refrigerator without the homeowner knowing for some time.

These are some of the reasons costs for electrical wiring can increase tremendously on a job. It may not be the fault of the electrician but the National Electric Code (NEC) that changes to bring safety especially for children in your home.

A track racking device is attached to an installed solar powered system. This tracking device follows the sun during daylight hours. A stationary system is permanently in place during the peak hours where you live. Most states receive 5 hours of peak sunlight daily. With a tracking system, you increase the number of hours of sunlight by following the sun as it rotates around the Earth. You could get up to 7 or 8 hours depending upon where you live.

This video shows a tracking solar powered system that I recently added. This system used to get approximately 30 KW a day. Now that it has a tracking device, it has produced as much as 42 KW in one day. And we haven’t hit peak summer hours yet.

Is it better to have more modules on your system or a tracking device?  Do you have enough area (or land) to install more modules?  That might factor into your decision.   What’s keeping you from going solar?

Home Standby Generator

This is one of my most popular articles that I wrote several years ago.   With storm season approaching, this article is still useful today.

There are questions you need to ask before you buy a generator. How do I know what size to buy? How do I know if I buy one too big? Or if I buy one too small? There are questions that need to be answered before you purchase a generator.

Some factors you need to consider are as follows:

Size of generator to fit the load Time of Use Gas availability

Natural gas has the best advantage for a generator. If you don’t have natural gas, you can pursue propane. This propane tank can be buried in the ground so it is out of your visual site. You can get up to 1000 gallon tank that could last up to two weeks depending upon the size of the generator and usage.

Most power outages occur between five to seven days. Hurricane Katrina was an exception. Most people were out of power for at least one month, most longer. Keep that in mind before purchasing a generator.

If you purchase a generator too small, you won’t be able to run your central air conditioning. If you purchase one too big, you will be burning excess fuel for no reason. You may be over sizing yourself. Your fuel consumption will be higher than it needs to be.

A customer called last week to get a quote on a large generator he thought he needed. I gave him what he asked for but I suggested that I come out to his home to see exactly what his needs were. He may not need that large a generator for his house. Remember a larger generator will burn too much fuel and cost you money.

Before purchasing a generator, I suggest you consult and expert. This expert should be someone trained in the area to give you the most efficient generator you can possibly get. Your electrician will take load calculations on your house. Sizing is important. Don’t size yourself. Leave that to the experts! They may save you money.

And now I invite you to join me in learning energy saving tips you can do yourself to decrease your electric bill at http://www.energyconsultantblog.com

Costs

Are they expensive? Yes.  The return on investment is not there.  A hybrid runs on duel fuel of battery and gasoline. It runs primarily on battery but when the batteries get low, they will switch to gas.  I saw one site that listed hybrids ranging from $40,000 to $60,000.  You can buy 2 or 3 trucks for that but you won’t get the mileage.  Since it’s a hybrid – both gas and battery for fuel, it works on both worlds and gets good mileage.

By changing to a hybrid vehicle, it will help erase some of your gasoline bill while helping the environment.  If you spend $300 to $400 a month (or more) on fuel, multiply $400 a month times 12 months, that’s $4800 a year on fuel.  It would take several years to pay off the Volt.  By that time, the car may be shot.  You won’t erase your entire gasoline bill – because you use both battery and gasoline – but it will help reduce it. I think purchasing a hybrid is a good thing but it’s too long for a payback.  I know the technology is available but the ROI, return on investment, is not there.  If you spend $40,000 to $50,000 you may not be able to get that back within 5 years or longer.

Batteries

The batteries in a hybrid car need to be plugged in to recharge.  So, you are using your house electrical power to recharge your batteries in your car.  You probably use 15 amps over a period of 3 to 8 hours. I know you can use solar to recharge.  It depends how far you drive during the day whether you would need to recharge them every night.

Do batteries need to go completely dead before recharging?  No, the batteries will deplete to 80% of their discharge rate before it will automatically change to gasoline fuel.  Most batteries even though they say they don’t have memory, they do – even lithium ion batteries.  They are very good but I’ve recharged some that do have a memory.  Some people say they will forget and have no memory but you must run them 100% down before recharging.  I have power tools that can run for 10 minutes before needing to be recharged.  Then, I have some tools that can run for hours before needing a charge.  I know it has to do with the rate of discharge on the lithium ion.  Even though they say they don’t have a memory, in my case, they do.

Return On Investment

I am for electric cars but the ROI is not there.  Should people hold off on purchasing them?  I’m not one to kill the gas industry because it is a lifeline.  I am not against the gas industry.  But I am against the gas industry making record profits on hard working people.  If fuel was cheaper, we could be driving our big gas guzzlers and SUVs.  But the gas industry is making it more difficult for small businesses especially in a time where they can’t hold on in this economy.  The gas companies say it’s due to government industry standards.  But they knew about the standards years ago.  In fact, they know when government is changing the rules and regulations because they have lobbyist they try to block them.

Solar has come a long way.  The electric cars use too much energy too fast so it has to be recharged quickly.  We use too much power in too short a period of time.  We want to drive 60 or 70 miles an hour on a highway everywhere we go.  In order to get up to that speed and keep the energy going, it uses a lot of power.  In order for you to get the recommended MPG on a vehicle, it would depend upon your driving speed.  So a gasoline car for the dollar is still worth the money right now, unless they improve on the electric cars. And I’m hoping they will!  Do you have an electric car?  Tell me what you think of it and how it has helped your life.