Harbor Freight 45 watt solar panel kits.

[nobody]

i look at the cost like this. at the moment i have $3500 in my solar panels and around the same in my gti.

i have cut my bill from over $300 a month down to $138 on this monthes bill. in a year and a half the panels are paid for. i could have went with a smaller gti and cut the price back on it, but i'm planning on a larger than normal system. the gti will be paid for in 2 years.

i'm doing the math on what everything cost verses what i no longer spend. in 3 1/2 years my system at the moment will be paid for.

i'm biulding it 4 panels a month for the next year. instead of one large investment at one time i will be spreading it out over a 5 year time frame.

if you watch who you get the panels from you'll come out like i have. my panels are rated 100 watts each, but are producing between 115-120 watts each. i'm working on a soaker system right now run by one 100 watt panel to keep the panels from over heating in the summer monthes. heat will drop my output roughly 150 watts. by keeping the panels cool with a soaker hose my power production stays at max. i'm getting the 1200 watts around 7 hours a day at the moment. the gti isn't 100% effiencant. i think it someplace around 95%. that is where i'm losing some of my power right now.

in the winter monthes i figure i will get 3.5 hours at max power, so i will have to up the amount of panels to get close to where i am in the summer. when summer rolls back around i will produce even more with twice the panels. the wind turbines will pick up in the fall,winter and spring becuase it gets rather windy here those times of year. last year with just 1 turbine i was amazed how it did. this year i will have 2 of them hooked up and running. i will grid tie them in as well. our average wind is 12mph. i use 9 very lite blades on a very lite hub on each. i have tried 3 and 6 blades. i have found the 9 very lite blades and hub start up in very low winds around 2mph. i've been getting 1000 watts out of the one turbine at around 9mph winds. i figure two will be great and if i deside to put up a 3rd or 4th at this home it'll only help me that much more. it's just the summer time wind turbines don't work well around here.

[nobody]

well i finished my grid tie system. i switched over the powercom usa solar king grid tie inverters. i have one 1500 watt gti and a 2000 watt grid tie. the 1500 watt grid tie will handle 1875 watts of input power and the 2000 watt model will handle 2500 watts input. they will put out the 1875 watts and 2500 watts if you go that large.

i finished the 100 watt panel bank with 18 panels. i got them from ebay. they are now $155 each on ebay. i'm very pleased with the 100 watt panel system. for the 2000 watt system i have twelve 200 watt panels i got new for $200 each. if i had it to do over again i would have been better off using 9 of them on the 1800 watt bank price wise.

in the winter i get about 4.5 hours of peak output from the banks of panels. i produce arund 19000 watts of power i feed back into the grid in the winter. in the warmer longer days of the summer we haven't been paying anything to the electric company. we get credits towards our bill. last month we got $89 worth of credits. as the days get longer and we get more peak power hours off the panels we'll get even larger amounts of credits. i got another permit to add another 2400 watts of panels and another solar king 2000 gti. i have everything in the garage now to put it in. i have 12 more panels, the gti, disconnect switches, 10 guage wiring, mounting brackets, everythin to finish the new system up. that should give me around 6600 watts total.

since prices have come down i have biult two 2400 watt systems for under $4000 each. our electric bill was running between $280-$350 a month. when you do the math each of the 2400 wat systems will pay themselves off in two years. so in 6 years the entire system is paid for. doing the math using the low end of our electric bill $280 for twelve monthes is $3360. i have around $3800 in each of the 2400 watt setups. it will take under 3 years for them to pay for themselves. the 1800 watt bank will take a little longer becuase the panels were higher when i started buying them, bu they have come down to $155 each on ebay now, and they are great panels. i have a average of $200 each in the 100 watt panels now since the price came down on them. i have $4850 in that back. i would have $3050 in the entire 1800 watt system if i had purchased nine of the 200 watt panels at $200 each. it would have paid for itself in under a year. i guess around 4 years and the entire system will be paid for and that doesn't include rate hikes by the power companies.

[havasu]

Congrats on finishing the job. Could you post up some pictures for us?