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Originally Posted by Texas Proud
Can you tell me how long 52kwh would last in a 'normal' situation? Also in a hot summer time?
I think that for the winter months I do not use that amount.... but in the summer I can be in the 1200 to 2000 range... air conditioning is a killer....
The interesting part is that if they do actually start to charge based on when you use electricity, then actually having someplace to easily store what you need when it is cheap and not pay the high price would be great.. I would cough up $2100 if I could cut my bills down by a big amount..
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I still haven't got all of that figured out since we built the house and solar system, but have not been able to move into it full time (Asian assignment with megacorp). It generates about 18,000kwh per year, about 2100kwh/mo in the summer and a lot less in the winter. We are grid-tied with battery back-up for key applications like the refer and freezer, striker for on demand propane water heaters, striker for propane stove, and a very few outlets for cf lighting. The pool uses a lot in the summer, but we designed the house well to keep it cool in the summer with a 10ft porch around the east, south, and west sides. In our area, it gets cool at night, so we turn on the whole house fan early in the morning until we reach equilibrium temp, then turn it off and shut the windows. It stays under 78F until after 4-5 pm most summer days, and the a/c only comes on then, unless we have a heat spell and it comes on between 230-300pm. We open the windows again after it cools off, around 8-9pm. That keeps the a/c use low. In winter the woodstove does most of the heating.
I'm guessing a bit here, but I think we would use about 50-55kwh/day in the summer, 30-40 spring a fall, and a little less in the winter. Again, this is only from the short 2-3 week winter stays, and 8-10 week summer stays, plus a stopover here and there to check on things.
So, narrowing it down further, if the grid were down for a several days or even several week period, the 52 kwh super cap would work (yes, given the right electronics and peripherals), and most days we could run all applications instead of just the critical loads. With just critical loads, in the summer, we could power ourselves and 2-3 neighbors. The sun charges it up, we draw it down. We would have to be a little careful in the winter as we do have extended periods of fog and cloud...but I think our lowest day of generation was still over11-12kwh.
R
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