Blackouts ARE Coming.

[Jma]

I might try a small fan underneath it when it starts to get hot again this year & see how that goes.
I was of the opinion that a lot of heat like that is wasted energy?

[george65]

I was of the opinion that a lot of heat like that is wasted energy?

It is and that's what I don't understand. If the inverters on average are about 98% efficient( I used 95% as a worst case scenario) how come there is so much wasted heat/ energy?
You cannot blow a fan the size I have through a heat sink and get that much heated air for hours if the wasted energy it's trying to remove is a couple of hundred watts or less.
I could literally heat the house with the heat I get off the thing.... If it heated up the same in winter which there isn't enough power to get it up to that temp.

I was looking at doing some sort of Ducted setup to put the heat in the house till I realised there wasn't any in winter and I sure as hell didn't want it in summer.

Most of the heat comes from the switching Mosfets that are doing the all the voltage regulation. Most of the weight of an inverter is in the heat sink to take the thermal rise in the components and keep them in their operating curve. Most inverters will throttle back on thermal overload so may not produce their full output which is another reason to keep them cool as possible. The amount of energy wasted when they even go the first step of throttling is a LOT more than you'll burn from using a fan that's for sure.

[george65]

If the current lags the voltage the meter cant compensate so under charges result , if voltage lags it dont read as true watts so it also undercharges both cases are bad business for them

So the question would be then, How do we make certain that our power factor is correct and we don't deprive the poor hard done by power companies of any of their much needed Revenue?

Would say Connecting a capacitor bank to an outlet throw the power factor so it was spot on and we were billed for every watt we used. How big would it have to be to make really SURE it had an effect and the power companies didn't loose a cent?

We wouldn't want our Pf to be off and get any power we didn't pay for now would we?

[Jma]

It is and that's what I don't understand. If the inverters on average are about 98% efficient( I used 95% as a worst case scenario) how come there is so much wasted heat/ energy?

I'm sure it'd please me more if that energy was going back into the grid instead of being wasted as heat.
I can't find the paperwork that came with it but there's 14 panels & from memory I think the installers told me the combined output was 3.5 kw, fed into a 3.0 kw inverter.
Not sure really as it's never been tested to my knowledge, no testing when it was first installed, several attempts to get the company to come out & test it failed, pricks weren't interested as it wasn't performing like they advertised...no surprise there really...

You cannot blow a fan the size I have through a heat sink and get that much heated air for hours if the wasted energy it's trying to remove is a couple of hundred watts or less.
I could literally heat the house with the heat I get off the thing.... If it heated up the same in winter which there isn't enough power to get it up to that temp.

I was looking at doing some sort of Ducted setup to put the heat in the house till I realised there wasn't any in winter and I sure as hell didn't want it in summer.

Most of the heat comes from the switching Mosfets that are doing the all the voltage regulation. Most of the weight of an inverter is in the heat sink to take the thermal rise in the components and keep them in their operating curve. Most inverters will throttle back on thermal overload so may not produce their full output which is another reason to keep them cool as possible. The amount of energy wasted when they even go the first step of throttling is a LOT more than you'll burn from using a fan that's for sure.

By the sounds of that I guess it's the voltage regulation causing it to get so hot in summer.
Not sure I've noticed the output on it change when it heats up, but possibly haven't been viewing the screen readout at the right time.
Will try a fan this year when it gets hot & see what happens.

[irritant]

And the problem with people from South Africa is that they haven't got a damn clue about what's happening in Australia

LOL

A quote then, from one of your country's most famous bands:

"The time has come to say fair's fair
To pay the rent, to pay our share
The time has come, a fact's a fact
It belongs to them, let's give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning?
How do we sleep while our beds are burning?
How can we dance when our earth is turning?
How do we sleep while our beds are burning?

The time has come to say fair's fair
To pay the rent now, to pay our share"

I can't speak for anybody else, but that speaks volumes to me.

I don't care what other people say. I can and will never back anyone who is part of any form of hate-group.

From what I can see, the "fossil-fuel using nazis" are no more than ordinary, down-to-earth, day-to-day people, ordinary middle-class men, women and children. Just going to work every day, going to school, trying to make something out of themselves in a world where everyone else has lost their minds and only know destruction, and trying to just live their lives in the best possible, most NORMAL, SANE and RATIONAL way they can.

And all they ever get for their efforts is hate and backlash. Burdened with endless taxes, garbage spewed out by pressure groups and other anarchists, nonsensical rubbish of how "sinful" they are every Sunday in church (which doesn't mind the donation from these "evil" sinners), how they are eating evil sugar and meat, how THEY are the haters, and how they alone are responsible for destroying the earth, which as far as I can tell, is still turning, just like the song says.

To me in my life, I have packaged the green people exactly where they belong -- just another lawless, corrupt hate-group with their rhetoric and nonsense about how they are being hard-done by, using it as an excuse to inflict maximum damage and inconvenience on the lives of ordinary, hard-working, sane, rational, NORMAL people.

[george65]

To me in my life, I have packaged the green people exactly where they belong -- just another lawless, corrupt hate-group with their rhetoric and nonsense about how they are being hard-done by, using it as an excuse to inflict maximum damage and inconvenience on the lives of ordinary, hard-working, sane, rational, NORMAL people.

Honestly, I don't understand how people fall for this greenwashing. I often think they can't be too intelligent but then I know some people whom back it and I would say were smart people. Perhaps people are too easily lead by what they read an hear in the media and never look into things beyond that? The majority though I think are people that always have to have something to believe in, some cause to back, something to vent frustrations on or believe the future will be better. The way the PC lefties are trying to dominate all free thinking, free speech and any idea that does not fit in with their own narrative is hugely dangerous to society and it's way of life. The Hypocrisy they go on with is incredible and there is never any allowance for their position or what they base it on has any margin for error and even when shown to be wrong they will deny and lie about it.

To put what they thing is the fate of the world in their hands would be a ridiculous irresponsibility. Rational people want the truth and encourage discussion to see if there is something they may have missed and can learn. The green PC lefites want to shout everyone else down and THE most offensive thing anyone can say is a valid Point they can't argue with.

With all the RE and emissions changes they want it's very easy and straightforward to see their ideas can't and wont add up yet they still keep pushing them.
It has to be a conspiracy pushed by big Biz and the weak minded.
EVERYTHING to do with " saving the planet" has a cost, a Huge one. There is never anything touted that can be done for free. It's always the profitable option for big biz that is the only solution. In the case of power, why would we desecrate the landscape with solar farms hundreds of KM away from where the power is needed when there are endless rooftops still available to cover in panels that have no other useful purpose instead of using land and effecting habitats and the natural landscape.

The obvious and only reason is profit.
We are told over and over again that RE is so cheap yet the world over, everywhere that has elevated levels and policy's forced on them has more expensive power than anywhere else. The hypocrisy and irony is so plain and so prevalent only an idiot could ignore it and still back the cause. Only it's not that simple because the green cult has suckered in a lot of people that are anything but idiots. Spose that's how successful scams work and this is the Biggest scam in the history of the world.
The whole green thing would be a joke if it were not for the way it is effecting the lives of normal people and the increased unnecessary burden it puts on things.

In year to come this will be exposed and looked back at and the future generations instead of thanking us for saving the planet for them will be wondering how the FK with the technology we have could people be so damn Gullible? The idea of man playing god with the earths temperature and weather is both laughable and very scary given the record mankind has for Fking things up.

It's not an Australian thing which a lot of zealots here choose to ignore. Our head green washed scientist has said if Australia achieved Zero Co2 emissions it would make NO difference to the world levels. You won't find any local greenies that will admit that even though it was well reported and is a matter of record.

The whole thing is simply a HUGE worldwide scam both for profit and to detract the attention of the worlds population from the many other things our leaders are screwing up and the corruption that is endemic in gubbermint and business the world over.

[george65]

I think the installers told me the combined output was 3.5 kw, fed into a 3.0 kw inverter.
Not sure really as it's never been tested to my knowledge, no testing when it was first installed, several attempts to get the company to come out & test it failed, pricks weren't interested as it wasn't performing like they advertised...no surprise there really...

Sounds like one of the many Dodgy Companies out there that hire unqualified people that have no idea what they are doing and don't care anyway.

The inverter should tell you the instant and daily output, only ever seen one that doesen't.
Over clocking the panels to the inverter isn't a bad thing and is in fact standard practice now. Panels are never 100% efficent , far from it so having extra panels allows you to start producing earlier and later in the day. In my couple of years of Fiddling round with solar, that's the thing to look at not the peak. The faster those things start making the max power they can and the later they Keep producing it, the better. All my arrays are Doubled up on panels at least. I can still be producing 4+ Kw at 7:30 PM in summer.

The inverter will produce up to it's max at Midday no matter how many panels over it's capacity you have but the more you have the faster it comes on song , the later it runs and the more it produces especially on those crappy days.

Not sure I've noticed the output on it change when it heats up, but possibly haven't been viewing the screen readout at the right time.

They generally have to be pretty hot to throttle back but it depends on the unit. One mistake I see people doing is have outdoor inverters mounted where they will be in direct sun. That is recommended against for good reason. A simple shade in front of the unit to keep the direct sun off would make a big difference.

You may not even notice the throttling if it did happen. Panels fall off the Curve significantly in summer. The hotter they get the worse their efficiency. They are rated to 25o as standard but checks I made this winter showed that any time the sun hit them pretty much they are up at 40 and go north from there.
I did read of one guy in Canada that got a fair bit over his panels rating. He was a smart Cookie too. He built large reflectors out of Snow to help put as much light on his panels as possible and also being significantly below freezing, the things were well above their rating.

I did some tests last summer with my ground mount panels and I could get a whopping 20% gain in output by giving them a good hosing. It took less than a minute for them to warm up again and the effect to be lost but it did show the difference.
I discussed water and fan cooling the panels with some learned people on another forum and it generated quite a bit of interest. We all came to the same conclusion though that the cost, complexity and potential problems were not worth the trouble. Especially when most of us are making loads of power in summer anyway.

I also toyed with the idea of covering the back of an array of panels on my veranda and blowing air through for heating the house. Thing is when the sun is shining where I am you don't need daytime heat and in colder environments you don't get anything worth while anyway same as when it's overcast.

[hinekadon]

geo 65 pf works both ways if you are feeding back to the grid you miss out as well you know like dragging a kenworth with a morris minor or a morris minor with a kenworth its a shit load easier to pick up the morris and put it on the back of the kenworth , Im sure you can write another book on this subject as well ????

[irritant]

...Our head green washed scientist has said if Australia achieved Zero Co2 emissions it would make NO difference to the world levels...

Exactly, and this is what I can't understand either. All the RE schemes only serve to (ideally) stop more CO₂ emissions.

But, what about the gas that has already been put into the atmosphere?

If you look at Mauna Loa observatory data in Hawaii, it has now climbed to 414 ppmv CO₂ already.

So, even if the whole world stopped all CO₂ emissions tomorrow (totally impossible since humans breathe), you're still at 400+ ppmv, which I thought they said was too high and is causing climate change, is it not?

Surely, you have to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere too, to reduce levels down to 380, 360 ppmv or whatever -- and that's the point. If you lower it, how far do you lower it?

Who says it was better years ago?

When you go back to the late 19th/early 20th century when I think it was something like 280 ppmv, you had even worse storms and droughts on record. For example, the drought Cape Town had a few years ago was apparently the worst...since 1911 -- which was a lot worse! Not to mention ravaging storms (e.g. 1856) where several steam ships would run aground/wreck in one night due to gale-force windstorms that gave the place the nickname "The Cape of Storms". Sailors were terrified of the notoriously bad and often extreme weather.

I've seen photographs where Table Mountain is totally covered in snow down to the foothills. Looks ice cold and miserable like Alaska weather -- at 34 deg. S latitude.

Today's weather seems positively tame compared to those days, so why go back?

Maybe 390--400 ppmv is a good/optimum level?

[george65]

So, even if the whole world stopped all CO₂ emissions tomorrow (totally impossible since humans breathe), you're still at 400+ ppmv, which I thought they said was too high and is causing climate change, is it not?

A known and well used tactic by the alarmists it to keep moving the goal posts when their predictions don't work out or they don't get the hysteria they want. At the same time they elevate they gloom and doom they are preaching to increase the fear factor and scare people into coming to their side.

Surely, you have to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere too, to reduce levels down to 380, 360 ppmv or whatever -- and that's the point. If you lower it, how far do you lower it?

I read a lot of green hype about " sequestering" carbon and putting it in the ground to remove. it. Inevitably they admit that all these methods to do so would consume large amounts of energy. Obviously it's not all going to come from Solar and wind so therefore the logic is it's going to require the burning of more FF. Even if they said we are going to do a solar and wind farm to provide power, there is still huge amounts of resources and emissions in building the panels or turbines, transporting them and setting up infrastructure to make it functional and you haven't even got to the machines that are going to trap the carbon.

What worried me though is what if the greenwashed have it wrong. Yes I know that question and such extremist thinking could somewhere in the world have me locked up for being a racist ( everything the green Cult don't like is " Racist" ) but what if we start meddling with Muther Nature, make the world cooler and then it goes into this cooling phase they are predicting now. We lower temps, nature lowers temps and suddenly we are being wiped out by starvation because nothing will grow and we wiped out all the livestock because they were such a danger to the world because they farted.

Mankind has a piss poor record of messing with nature and given the endless things we have fked up when meddling with and trying to control nature, I'll take my chances leaving things alone thanks. The chances of us trying to control weather and getting it wrong are far too great for me to think about backing it.

And what about putting all this carbon in the ground. what effects could that have. I wouldn't give a shit how safe any bought and paid for scientists said it was. They have told us endless things before were Ok then done complete and utter backflips practices when they could no longer baffle people with arse covering bullshit when the evidence become completely over whelming.

I have no idea what it might do but I do know that doing something has a ramification to it. Just because we THINK there might be no side effect does not prevent there from being one. Even if it is OK, how can we know plants for instance may not tap into it and bring it back to the surface negating all the effort to put it in the ground? There are lots of deadly poisons floating round in the air and deadly things in the soil. in their natural concentration they are harmless but concentrate them a bit and suddenly you could wipe out cities.

No one really knows what pulling the millions of tons of carbon out the atmosphere will do not the effects of Concentrating it and burying it. It's meddling with mother nature and she tends not to like that especially with the propensity mankind has for Fking things up.

Today's weather seems positively tame compared to those days, so why go back?

Every time there is a hottest day it makes every lefty media headline as proof positive of Climate change. Here it often occurs at the same time Europe is having a record breaking cold day or the greatest snowfall in 20 year. THey NEVER mention that but it you put that to the green cult, it's proof positive of climate change also. Nothing like having a 2 way bet so you can virtue signal either way and can't loose.

Thing is, if you look at most historical records for Different places, Hottest, coldest, wettest, driest, strongest wind, lowest wind and everything else, still goes back to the 1800's.
Sure different places here and there have new records but on average and over all, the records at a minimum go back decades. These records are not being broken every day. The weather always has changed and always will and to imply it should always be the same is Ludicrous.
Here our lefty weather dept openly admits they adjust records and it's always so they can claim them as globull warming . They literally fiddle the facts to suit their own agendas they want to push.

Maybe 390--400 ppmv is a good/optimum level?

This is another bit I don't get.
If you look at what makes plants grow in greenhouses, it's elevated temps and Co2 Levels.
I was watching a vid he other day that shows satellite photos show wilderness areas are in fact growing and getting greener. The plants are doing well so if the temps are getting warmer and the co2 is rising, the plants are going to grow better, absorb the co2 and put out more oxygen as they do.
WHAT THE FK IS THE PROBLEM?

Sea levels are NOT rising at the rate the green washed cry about, temps are NOT going on as many say at a rate that in 50 years earth will be a scorched 90oC dessert and generally every claim by the greenwashed can be proven wrong if you work on facts rather than emotion or cult loyalty and stupidity ..... although they won't accept anything bar their version of things.

[Jma]

Sounds like one of the many Dodgy Companies out there that hire unqualified people that have no idea what they are doing and don't care anyway.

Eurosolar...your description pretty much sums them up.

The inverter should tell you the instant and daily output, only ever seen one that doesen't.

It does, currently it says Pac=2200w (give or take a bit) & E-today 5.98 kwh which I guess isn't too bad for before midday at this time of year, about 10 k's south of the Tropic of Capricorn.
Mid summer on a fine day I see the E-today around 20-ish late afternoon/early evening.

One mistake I see people doing is have outdoor inverters mounted where they will be in direct sun.

Seen similar & couldn't figure out why some people choose to do that, mine's fully shaded which is why I was surprised when I discovered it gets so hot.

[george65]

Eurosolar...

Oh! :0(

First hand experience with those con merchants. Mate somehow dropped the ball and had them put a system on for him. Couple of back packers did the install and then they sent out an electrician to connect it that admitted to mate he had all of 15Min training on solar which meant he was not qualified. After the 3rd guy finally came out and it still wasn't working properly, I got up and had a look and straightened it out.

Fk me, How do you mess up connectors that can only go one way, but they DID! Load of other things wrong with it that mean it should never have been passed but I fixed it up, made it safe and reliable if not compliant and he hasn't had any trouble. Makes power now and all the bolts and clips are secured so it won't blow off.... now. Looking through some pics I realise that was a year ago last weekend.
So much for my own install being dodgy because I'm not qualified, It's never had a problem and always worked from the start. As did the one I put on my fathers place.

I believe they are not euro any more but have about 4 other names they go by. Same shit con me, different name to Hide the guilty and warranty claims.

Seen similar & couldn't figure out why some people choose to do that, mine's fully shaded which is why I was surprised when I discovered it gets so hot.

Probably installed by other shit Crunts that don't give a dam about anything bar the simplest, easiest, quickest and cheapest way out.
When I go into town on the train I like to look out the window and play spot the panels. There are some doozy installs. My favourite is this one on a shed roof right under this Big maple tree. The installers must have been dodging branches the whole time. It's beyond ridiculous. Clearly the tree wasn't put there yesterday and from what I can see of the array, there isn't much getting any sunlight.

At a park where my kids play soccer, there are houses around with panels that face 3 different directions... Including south.

Spoke to the sparky today about putting in some 32A Circuits for my solar next week. Hoping that will address some of my Voltage rise issues. May not help a lot how much I can push back in summer but hopefully will improve things next winter. I'll be able to replace the 3.6 Kw inverter I have on one with a 5.0 I bought a while back so that will be a start. I have another 25 panels to install but haven't bothered so far as I don't have the wiring capacity.
I will end up with about 30Kw of panels on 15KW of inverters.

Should be adequate most of the year! :0)

Sparky seemed quite excited about the idea of a transfer switch for a generator. Going to talk to me about some different setups for that. All I'll need to do then is get my Big genny finished and I'll be all set for summer and whatever it brings.... or does not.

I'm working on an idea for a thermal cold storage to use the excess solar power in summer. Would give a Minimum of 20KWH worth of cooling and be able to run when the blackouts come.