All nuclear reactors to restart by this winter

[SueEllen]

Medium term I'm looking to buy a wind turbine. I've decided to use the money I get from fossil fuel drilling and refining to fund it.

[vetran]

Any reference to generators reminds me of a well known national newspapers' BCP and DR plan.

They had two identical servers in an emergency server room all running on a generator in case of main grid power outtage, a robust and very practical well thought out BCP, until ... when I was testing.... and not fully understanding why the servers had gone down too and the lights had gone out in the BCP bunker.

I discovered the generators were plugged into the mains! So 15 minutes after 'stimulating' a full power loss the back up servers and server room also faded into the darkness.

Failing to change old diesel (gets gummy) , failing to secure it(surprising how diesel evaporates when it doesn't have a padlock on it), the demand growing and the generators or switchgear being undersized, switchgear being changed without testing.Plenty of units not connected to the UPS even when the sockets were colour coded.

Seen em all. One has to laugh.

[minsky1]

Tesla Powerwall 2 ... it's the future. Surely.

Although prices including installation have doubled since I last looked.

[mattster]

A generator can be a viable alternative if you have a steady demand.
For most home owners that is not the case, you'll want to boil the kettle, or cook something, which will cause a big increase in your demand. During the day the requirements will be enough to run a computer or two. In the evening, add in the lights. Don't forget your fridge/freezer/iron/central heating/hot water.

But yes, if you set up a separate circuit for the steady demand stuff, you could run that efficiently on a suitable generator.

My thoughts on a generator are more along the lines of get a solid solar array (maybe 10kw?) and a big battery (> 10kwh I guess), but have a generator on hand to charge the battery if the solar fails, for whatever reason, or usage spikes. Then pull the plug on gas and electric so I don't have to pay the standing charges..

[minsky1]

My thoughts on a generator are more along the lines of get a solid solar array (maybe 10kw?) and a big battery (> 10kwh I guess), but have a generator on hand to charge the battery if the solar fails, for whatever reason, or usage spikes. Then pull the plug on gas and electric so I don't have to pay the standing charges..

That's what a Tesla Powerwall system gives you .....

http://cuberoot-energy.co.uk/images/...Experience.mp4

[WTFH]

My thoughts on a generator are more along the lines of get a solid solar array (maybe 10kw?) and a big battery (> 10kwh I guess), but have a generator on hand to charge the battery if the solar fails, for whatever reason, or usage spikes. Then pull the plug on gas and electric so I don't have to pay the standing charges..

Daisy chain a few of these:
https://www.zerohomebills.com/produc...attery-module/

More flexibility than the model T.

[mattster]

Daisy chain a few of these:
https://www.zerohomebills.com/produc...attery-module/

More flexibility than the model T.

Less than half the price of the Tesla, so looks good in that respect (although Tesla only quote a full installed price).
Another point is that once we all move to EVs, we'll have 20-30+kwh of storage sitting in the drive. Obviously you can divert any excess energy into that, rather than get whatever pitiful feed-in tariff is on offer, but also I believe there are ways to use the car as a battery for the home electrics as well - or even to function as part of a distributed grid.
Even if it ended up costing me more (certainly in the short term) I'd love to get off grid and stick a couple of fingers at the energy companies. No doubt they'll bring in legislation to try and stop us soon, as I think they have done in Aus and US.

[WTFH]

Less than half the price of the Tesla, so looks good in that respect (although Tesla only quote a full installed price).
Another point is that once we all move to EVs, we'll have 20-30+kwh of storage sitting in the drive. Obviously you can divert any excess energy into that, rather than get whatever pitiful feed-in tariff is on offer, but also I believe there are ways to use the car as a battery for the home electrics as well - or even to function as part of a distributed grid.
Even if it ended up costing me more (certainly in the short term) I'd love to get off grid and stick a couple of fingers at the energy companies. No doubt they'll bring in legislation to try and stop us soon, as I think they have done in Aus and US.

The first place you divert energy is into your hot water tank (if you have one). Heating water takes a lot of energy, and a well-insulated tank will store the hot water for several hours, so once your batteries are full, heat the water.
Feed in tariffs are pretty much a joke these days, unless you got a government grant and feed in guarantee a few years ago, you've got no chance of getting anything worthwhile back.
The Tesla wall is a nice design, but like most designs, it's form over function at a price.

[mattster]

The first place you divert energy is into your hot water tank (if you have one). Heating water takes a lot of energy, and a well-insulated tank will store the hot water for several hours, so once your batteries are full, heat the water.
Feed in tariffs are pretty much a joke these days, unless you got a government grant and feed in guarantee a few years ago, you've got no chance of getting anything worthwhile back.
The Tesla wall is a nice design, but like most designs, it's form over function at a price.

Yeah I guess, depending on how much hot water you use. The long and short of it is that between hot water tanks, house batteries and perhaps car batteries there should be no need to feed energy back into the grid, and every kwh harvested can be used. Come to that, I'd rather mine dogecoin with my excess than give it back to SSE. Time to pull the lever on some panels I think - I've got massive south facing roof space. The only thing putting me off is that I really need a new roof soon so wonder how stupid it would be to put panels on it before that job is undertaken?

[tazdevil]

The only thing putting me off is that I really need a new roof soon so wonder how stupid it would be to put panels on it before that job is undertaken?

As the panels will be up there for 20+ years and need a good anchor it'd be really stupid to install the panels before sorting the roof

Also get an inverter with a passive heat sink and install it in a cool place such as a garage as the ones with fans chew quite a lot of electricity