Cheap alternative energy?
- Thread starter PiKe
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Soldato
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4.3 Kw to power a house?
Only possible if you have a small house and gas heating, hot water, and cooker.
1 electric shower would bring a 4.3Kw system to it's knees, even a typical kettle would take a chunk out of that
Only possible if you have a small house and gas heating, hot water, and cooker.
1 electric shower would bring a 4.3Kw system to it's knees, even a typical kettle would take a chunk out of that
Soldato
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I was being a pedant 
Caporegime
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4.3 Kw to power a house?
Only possible if you have a small house and gas heating, hot water, and cooker.
1 electric shower would bring a 4.3Kw system to it's knees, even a typical kettle would take a chunk out of that
The future part of it would be, everyone with solar panels, everyone feeding into the network, and so when you need a little more power rather than pulling it from electricity made by burning coal, you're pulling it off the network which is being fed by solar.
Of course, the ad break in Corrie will become a national disaster, with old grannies taking to the streets in riots to protest their water not boiling.
Even then, night time use is heavy(not as bad as day time as office lights/manufacturing equipment, etc, etc, is largely shut down. We'd need to find a way for local substations to store a heck of a lot of stored solar energy throughout the day to be used up at night, and we really won't get away from having some nuclear power stations ticking over to provide energy when that runs out.
Wind is a joke though, ugly, big, irritating and can be loud, also I've heard its fairly unreliable, solar panels don't have a lot of things to go wrong really, while wind has essentially an engine that will need maintainance at some point and is spinning a heavy load for years on end.
that is one super kettle!
Associate
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Read an article a while ago about a pretty efficient storage method, it was effectively a scaled up thermos flask with a huge hunk of metal in it. Spare energy used to heat it up during the day, gives out energy when needed. I'll look for a link.
Edit: Found the link, only a preview available now though unless you sign in. Seems that over a year my memory of the technology got a bit rusty though.
http://www.newscientist.com/article...-batteries-to-be-clean-energy-reservoirs.html
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solar power should have been used years ago on new builds,to much red tape i guess
A question,so like in 5 years there will be a shortage of power so even more bigger bills as we end up buying power from abroad,all the past goverments knew that the power stations lifespan and now we will end up with shortages while it takes 10-15 years to get a nuclear plant online
A question,so like in 5 years there will be a shortage of power so even more bigger bills as we end up buying power from abroad,all the past goverments knew that the power stations lifespan and now we will end up with shortages while it takes 10-15 years to get a nuclear plant online
LCD tv's use around 30W, a decent battery has around 1,320Wh so around 40 hours assuming some inefficiency.
The energy can be stored for later use, besides even though a shower is ~10KW it's only on for 5mins so it's not using that much electric from the grid.
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4.3 Kw to power a house?
Only possible if you have a small house and gas heating, hot water, and cooker.
1 electric shower would bring a 4.3Kw system to it's knees, even a typical kettle would take a chunk out of that
Where did you get 4.3kw from. If it's from a solar panel, that's say 4.5kw peak output. Which will generate around 5000kwh over a year, the average electrical usage is also around 5000kwh.
http://www.ashadegreener.co.uk/
Free solar panels through a goverment subsidy, the company that installs them gets a certain amount of money for each kilowatt generated by the solar panels so eventually make their money back and more.
Free solar panels through a goverment subsidy, the company that installs them gets a certain amount of money for each kilowatt generated by the solar panels so eventually make their money back and more.
ashadegreener said:
I doubt they would say otherwise, but I don't really see it being an issue for most.
Guess it depends on the person, I think free electricity would be a selling point on a house though
Trouble is I can see people wanting rid of them in 5-10years. They are only 3.33kwp, you can use hardly any power as with such schemes you only use what is being produced. The company gets everything else. Which means you can use power when you're at work. So your saving is going to be absolutely tiny, and with prices prodicted to plummet and efficiency of panels to double. It's probably not such a good longterm investment. That's how I see it.
