Balcony Solar: $1.74/watt direct plug-in solar(brightsaver.org) |
Balcony Solar: $1.74/watt direct plug-in solar(brightsaver.org) |
I miss how fast our German kettle heated water :-(
"We pass the savings onto you! [Just pay $29/year membership fee!]"
(Seriously, though. 180W? That's not a ton of "help" for a typical refrigerator that pulls anywhere between 300 and 800W.)
(Also, seriously, though. Most apartment owners and condo HOAs won't allow their residents to put these on their balconies.)
These types of devices are fairly popular in Germany, and maybe other places. For someone like me, with very high peak daytime prices, even a small offset would be valuable, but the full price here seems to be $500, which is too much. No reason it couldn't be much cheaper, though.
For example, Utah, which was a balcony solar pioneer:
https://hub.utahcleanenergy.org/solar-power/for-policy-maker...
I know I can't justify spending $3k upfront to only offset $25/month at best. I'd rather just turn off a few lights and stop paying for Netflix.
It seems like a large cost for not a lot of power offset that's also unusable when the power goes out (since you can't run untied from the grid).
What was your experience if so?
Call it 1.5kwh for the entire day being optimistic. This would save me (inclusive of taxes, etc.) roughly $.33/day. Call it $10/mo.
34mo so payback isn't the worst I suppose. Better than I expected to be honest. Probably not worth the hassle factor though since I don't have an ideal place to put such a thing.
I do have an "always on" load of well over 200W in my home, so at least it would offset every watt it generated. I'm not sure how true that is for most folks, as most folks don't run a home lab in their basement.