Solar electricity

[Marty Machine]

.. we have shareholders to think of and we MUST increase profits every year.

Yep, that's EXACTLY the problem for all companies, bloody shareholders!!!

Any company with shareholders is on the eve of it's closure, we dont have the same economic climate that we've had 20+ years ago when shareholding "WAS" a good idea and investment.
NO company today can offer fantastic economic growth, there's no room to spread, not enough money to go around anymore, and HAVING to provide for shareholders worsens the expansion of any company.

It's about time companies started offloading all their shareholders and remain strong and having a future....afterall, it's shareholders that kill companies and cause everyone to lose our jobs, it's that simple.

Shareholders alone ARE the end of the world.

Im hearing you and have always been a firm believer that anything that is fundamental to our way of life should be government controlled...NOT... privately owned to make a profit.
Electricity.. water... health... all should be in the hands of....wait for it.... US!! Yep radical as it may sound but we did once own them all.. then got fed a few sheckles to sell them off to a private conglomerate who will rape them for all they are worth only to sell them back again when exponential growth plateaus out. Then we will invest and build them to 21st or 22nd century technology to sell them to the very same groups again.
They've been doing it since Oliver Cromwell and will continue while we allow it

Sadly a community based "owned by us" system will never happen as the govt. wouldnt make any money, although as compensation they'd raise our taxes to 90% of our pay :-(

I can't wait to win the lotto and start my own bank/supermarket/utilities services for the people, not for the fatcats up top....why do billionaires still need MORE money anyway.....a race to be #1 in social circles?
I'd be happy with 1 billlion, why would i ever need to keep earning more....oh yeh, to keep those damn shareholders happy......gotta get rid of those shareholders!!

[Retropin]

I can honestly say that I consider myself lucky enough to have been brought up in London in the 70's..... all my school pencils, books etc were provided for me as was milk at break time. Health system was free - completely.. free dental, free medical. Only Harley st had private doctors. Buses, tubes, trains all ran.. all owned by " the people", you were expected to contribute to the cost of the ride.. NOT pay full amount plus a profit. Council houses were in abundance.. I grew up in one. Once a year, council would come round and repaint it for us.. we had a garden front and back and lived on an estate... playgrounds were provided.. after school activities like sport were provided.. musical instruments to learn - all provided.
It was the heyday of government owned institutions... but... it didn't stop people moaning about the crappy health system.. crappy public transport ( a man used to issue you with a ticket!).. didn't stop the unions demanding more and more and people going on strike because they wanted more and more.
So in the early 80's we had Thatcher and ALL was sold off.. I mean - ALL.. trains, buses, tubes, houses, parks, health, dental.. greed ruled and greed conquered.
Now the pittance each person earned by buying shares and then selling is gone.. the infrastructure is owned off shore and profits are imperative.. people pay and pay again.
UK manufacturing base is now a thing of the past.. it got sold off.. the city was the way to go and so the top 5% saw massive amounts to be earned as they did all round the world, then made it all implode and again... the people pay. Now the UK is in recession ( as are we but a denial recession) and has no way to dig itself out other than fleece its own people.
Government owned institutions on reflection were great... unfortunately, people have to have hindsight to realise it.

.. Sorry - I digress... back to solar...

[Retropin]

Just had a letter from my provider.... QLD Gov is scrapping the solar subsidy as of June 30 of 8C per KWH which takes my contribution payments down to a paultry 6C per KWH.. I then buy it back at 28C per KWH!!!

Well that truly F**ked that.
So tell me.. how do I get a battery system so I can go off grid???

[Freiherr]

Look for deep cycle cells. They are not cheap at around $400 each but they last many years and if you are lucky, sometimes companies like Telstra used to sell them cheap after 5 years use. You need to get a whole bank of them for typical home use so initial outlay is a pain.
That sucks with the gov. reducing subsidy. They suck you in to use solar, lpg or natural gas and then hike the prices or reduce subsidy.

[Retropin]

Look for deep cycle cells. They are not cheap at around $400 each but they last many years and if you are lucky, sometimes companies like Telstra used to sell them cheap after 5 years use. You need to get a whole bank of them for typical home use so initial outlay is a pain.
That sucks with the gov. reducing subsidy. They suck you in to use solar, lpg or natural gas and then hike the prices or reduce subsidy.

Thanks mate.. bet im not allowed to go off grid!

[swinks]

a mate of mine just got a electrician in and changed the feed into a bank of batteries setup in a little shed and I think a inverter ?? which set him back about $3.5 - 4k and just had the power disconnected. It is things like air con and cooking elements that eat the juice but if you have / get gas then that won't be a problem

[Retropin]

Agreed.. heating and cooling are the big power suckers. The oven is by far the biggest juice sucker followed by the fridge and freezer. I don't turn the air con on even though we have it. Makes me laugh when I see all the ads telling you to turn to LED lighting to save energy when you haven't been able to buy a standard incandescent for quite a few years now.. CCFL @20W will produce more light than a 20W LED. Electricity prices in QLD are about to go up a further 13%.. this is on top of the 21% of last year and the rise the year before that etc. For my shop, the cost of the line supply is now what my whole bill used to be when I moved into it some  8 years ago... the whole charade is spiralling out of control and im getting really pissed off with it!

[joele]

I am not sure I agree with CCFL putting out more lumens than LED, my house is 100% LED from downlights to the regular globe replacements, personally I prefer the output (look and instant 100%) to CCFL but either way the lumens IME are slightly higher per watt with LED and figures I can find seem to back that up...

Incandescent Watts	CFL Watts	LED Watts	Lumens (Brightness)
40	8 - 12	6 - 9	400 - 500
60	13 - 18	8 - 12.5	650 - 900
75 - 100	18 - 22	13+	1100 - 1750
100	23 -30	16 - 20	1800+
150	30 - 55	25 - 28	2780

http://eartheasy.com/live_energyeff_lighting.htm

You should have seen the original lighting we had in the lounge when we moved in, they had these huge downlights, each one was one of those outdoor 200W flood lights.. Hilarious as lounge had 4 of them and no dimmer, so 800W, replaced with 6 x 9.5W LEDs on dimmers, plenty bright enough (before it was a joke) and drastic power saving...

As to solar we were lucky to get it in time for the higher rate so we make more during the day (when no one home) than we pay for at night, at 8c I don't know if I would have bothered though, takes much longer to pay it off..

[studley67]

sa power is calculated over three tiers of rates.and you pay more in summer ie winter tariff/summer tariff.

winter
peak36kwh@$0.3150
next85kwh@$0.3179
next25kwh@$0.3500

summer
peak243kwh@$0.3205
next568kwh@$0.3519
next164kwh@$0.3844

then add gst
so qld power is a third cheaper.so i'm moving.
but then council rates up there really suck

[joele]

winter
peak36kwh@$0.3150
next85kwh@$0.3179
next25kwh@$0.3500

summer
peak243kwh@$0.3205
next568kwh@$0.3519
next164kwh@$0.3844

then add gst
so qld power is a third cheaper.so i'm moving.
but then council rates up there really suck

How over complicated...

Ours (vic), well for my supplier, are just two rates, peak and off-peak (off peak being weekends and after 11pm)..

Peak 33c and Off Peak 16c

[Retropin]

I am not sure I agree with CCFL putting out more lumens than LED, my house is 100% LED from downlights to the regular globe replacements, personally I prefer the output (look and instant 100%) to CCFL but either way the lumens IME are slightly higher per watt with LED and figures I can find seem to back that up...

Incandescent Watts	CFL Watts	LED Watts	Lumens (Brightness)
40	8 - 12	6 - 9	400 - 500
60	13 - 18	8 - 12.5	650 - 900
75 - 100	18 - 22	13+	1100 - 1750
100	23 -30	16 - 20	1800+
150	30 - 55	25 - 28	2780

http://eartheasy.com/live_energyeff_lighting.htm

You should have seen the original lighting we had in the lounge when we moved in, they had these huge downlights, each one was one of those outdoor 200W flood lights.. Hilarious as lounge had 4 of them and no dimmer, so 800W, replaced with 6 x 9.5W LEDs on dimmers, plenty bright enough (before it was a joke) and drastic power saving...

As to solar we were lucky to get it in time for the higher rate so we make more during the day (when no one home) than we pay for at night, at 8c I don't know if I would have bothered though, takes much longer to pay it off..

Yeh.. I wouldn't take the figures for LED too literally. Often they quote the LED power rating not the package consumption.. for instance a bulb consisting of 16 X 1.1W LEDs will in fact require 20W +/-10% of power.. its light output will be 1000 Lumens per metre.. a CCFL at 20W will only require a straight 20W and its light output is some 1540 Lumens per metre. But.. if someone has a vested interest in selling you expensive LED bulbs then they are not going to tell you that all CCFL is now tri phosphor and has a much greater light output than standard phosphor... it is also a fraction of the cost. Investment in LED is a misnomer as any marginal saving you may perceive is grossly out weighed by the inflated costs... it wont last 50,000 hrs.. or 20,000 or even 10,000... in fact its light will diminish as the phosphors die or individual LEDs drop out..

Heres a picture of a standard LED power supply ( SMPS).. you can see that it requires 0.95A @ 170V to produce 100W of 12V supply, so it requires 161W to produce 100W... not so efficient all of a sudden, and youll be interested to know that the current input has been removed from the labelling now... can you guess why?
LED is exactly what you want if your house supply is 12VDC.. but its not, its 240V AC and its the conversion that kills the deal..

[studley67]

you would know

[MartyJ]

Just on the light bulb Gav have you seen the doco 'The Light bulb Conspiracy'.  It's on YouTube and a great interesting piece.  The light bulb was the first consumer product with planned obselence designed into it...

[Freiherr]

Are there such things as perpetual motion devices such as electromagnetic generators which can produce free enegy at home? A while back, I saw an article where Australian scientists had a device which generated 25kW per day which is ample for an average household. These guys probably got shut up by the big power conpanies and the government.

[Retropin]

Just on the light bulb Gav have you seen the doco 'The Light bulb Conspiracy'.  It's on YouTube and a great interesting piece.  The light bulb was the first consumer product with planned obselence designed into it...

No mate.. haven't seen it but will go search for it..

Cheers!