quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
Mike I operate 12 solar powered camps and lodges. Better consider the maintenance and replacement costs into your calculations.

The problem with the grid is not so much the national grid as it is with the local grid. A few 40 amp services here and there isn't a big deal but 50 - 40 amp services within a small footprint becomes an impossibly expensive task so better hope that your solar system can support/argument the difference.

When you factor all that is just to own an electric vehicle, the costs become stupidly expensive.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
OPUS1, can you explain your post a little bit for me? My neighbor has a Chevy volt which she charges from her condo every night. If beretta uses his shingles to charge his battery pack, and then charges his Tesla from that it doesn't seem that he would need any special circuitry. Or, are you talking about commercial charging stations?
Peter.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
Does the $100K include the battery? The price of doubles does seem to have tanked, presumably due to the cost of DG hunts in Africa. I sold two of mine last year.
Peter.

quote:

Originally posted by Beretta682E:

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
Mike I operate 12 solar powered camps and lodges. Better consider the maintenance and replacement costs into your calculations.

The problem with the grid is not so much the national grid as it is with the local grid. A few 40 amp services here and there isn't a big deal but 50 - 40 amp services within a small footprint becomes an impossibly expensive task so better hope that your solar system can support/argument the difference.

When you factor all that is just to own an electric vehicle, the costs become stupidly expensive.

You probably own cheap Chinese panels in Africa. Tesla panels are much better.

The grid things is irrelevant. It’s like getting a 220 dryer.

Tesla wants to sell the whole package - storage, roof tiles and car. That gets you off the grid.

One person in my hood is already off the grid.

By the time my roof needs replacement in 2025 I expect California to have mandated and standardized solar roof tiles.

At Costco today there was a solar panel sales guy.

SoftBank is open to invest 1 trillion in India for solar power.

The revolution is comming.

Mike

quote:

Originally posted by Beretta682E:

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
OPUS1, can you explain your post a little bit for me? My neighbor has a Chevy volt which she charges from her condo every night. If beretta uses his shingles to charge his battery pack, and then charges his Tesla from that it doesn't seem that he would need any special circuitry. Or, are you talking about commercial charging stations?
Peter.

I could literally charge my tesla from a 110 volt socket. It would take a while but if I did it every night for 8 hrs I would enough juice to drive 30 miles back and forth to my office every day.

The electrical grid is not collapsing because of electric cars. Electricity demand has collapsed as houses, factories and retail locations have become much more energy efficient.

Mike

quote:

China is the leader in solar.

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:

quote:

Originally posted by Beretta682E:

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
Mike I operate 12 solar powered camps and lodges. Better consider the maintenance and replacement costs into your calculations.

The problem with the grid is not so much the national grid as it is with the local grid. A few 40 amp services here and there isn't a big deal but 50 - 40 amp services within a small footprint becomes an impossibly expensive task so better hope that your solar system can support/argument the difference.

When you factor all that is just to own an electric vehicle, the costs become stupidly expensive.

You probably own cheap Chinese panels in Africa. Tesla panels are much better.

The grid things is irrelevant. It’s like getting a 220 dryer.

Tesla wants to sell the whole package - storage, roof tiles and car. That gets you off the grid.

One person in my hood is already off the grid.

By the time my roof needs replacement in 2025 I expect California to have mandated and standardized solar roof tiles.

At Costco today there was a solar panel sales guy.

SoftBank is open to invest 1 trillion in India for solar power.

The revolution is comming.

Mike

The revolution is coming... assuming you can afford it.

BTW - Chinese panels are some of the most efficient currently available. And I will take "currently available" over "proposed" any day of the week. I have yet to figure out how to generate electricity on a "proposed" solar panel.

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
On the battery side yes - Tesla, Panasonic, Pico, Audi, Mercedes, are all making the best storage batteries. But for panels power to price, China is still the leader. Their inverters are also amazingly efficient and durable.

We purchase solar panels, distribution panels, inverters, etc through Alibaba. Much of it is no name and comes off the same manufacturing lines as their top tier equipment but even less expensive. And for storage, we purchase Indian manufactured L-I batteries with 6 kVA diesel gens for supplemental power.

It is far cheaper to build off grid than on grid in Namibia. Then again, none of our camps are located anywhere near power lines so we have no choice. Solar/Gen is the only answer.

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:

quote:

Originally posted by Beretta682E:

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
OPUS1, can you explain your post a little bit for me? My neighbor has a Chevy volt which she charges from her condo every night. If beretta uses his shingles to charge his battery pack, and then charges his Tesla from that it doesn't seem that he would need any special circuitry. Or, are you talking about commercial charging stations?
Peter.

I could literally charge my tesla from a 110 volt socket. It would take a while but if I did it every night for 8 hrs I would enough juice to drive 30 miles back and forth to my office every day.

The electrical grid is not collapsing because of electric cars. Electricity demand has collapsed as houses, factories and retail locations have become much more energy efficient.

Mike

Mike you need a lesson on amperage vs voltage.

Case in point - Pacific Gas & Electric (which serves the San Francisco Bay Area) said it needs to raise rates and get Federal assistance (that would be tax dollars) to be able to update neighborhood grids for clusters of plug-in vehicles. There is not enough amperage in most neighborhood grids to support the amperage requirements for clusters of E-Cars users.

I do not know the specs on the proposed Tesla panels, but it takes more than a roof full to support 40 amps. There are still a lot of whatif's associated with the whole Tesla combined system. Not sure I want to be the guinea pig. But do blaze away...

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
Mike, the tariffs and transportation cost to bring US products into most African countries is ridiculous so that's a non-started.

Warranties from Chinese manufacturers are anywhere from 5 to 10 years depending on what you're purchasing. I would imagine it would be a mission to make a warranty claim from Namibia so not sure a warranty really matters to me. But fortunately we've had great experience with reliability and MTBF. Many of our systems have been in operation for three years without a hiccup.

At the end of the day, solar is measured by cost-to-output and then you factor in the failures and replacement costs. China is winning the solar race for a reason - acquisition cost and their equipment is very high quality. Others like Tesla might be competitive, however, they have a long way to go to prove themselves.

The good news is, there's a lot of new competition in solar and storage... well maybe not for Tesla but for the consumer it's good news.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
The "under the radar" efforts that China is making in the African continent is remarkable. They will have considerable influence there in the near future.
Peter