ParkingLotLust

Well, I have a lot of electronics in my room (higher-end computer, modems, stereo, tv, consoles, dvd player, etc) and me and my parents came up with the idea of running my room off the grid. Basically, because electricity prices are going up and up, and my room obviously uses a lot of power. I'd estimate that I would need around 1200-1500w of power.

Ive been looking at two options - solar or wind. There is a perfect place to put a few panels outside my window, and since its not windy here very often, Im thinking solar would be a more cost-effective option. Does anyone have any sites showing how solar setups have been set up? How much do solar panels cost, roughly (in $CAD), and how many would I need?

Hero999

How often do you need 1500W?

Is that peak power of continuous?

You really need to know how many kWh you use in a day rather than purely the peak demad.

You could probably save quite a lot of power by turning off all the appliances with an internal mains transfromer at the mains when they're not being used.

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ParkingLotLust

Id say around 750w continuous. Any way to measure the kWh of just my room? I have access to the meter but that measures the entire house and farm. I turn off what I can, but my computer stays on 24/7, as does the modem, and the stereo (alerts me of various things, not to mention it sounds much better than computer speakers).

Also, my parents are planning on running the next house they build off-the-grid, so another reason for wanting to do this is to see how much it costs, and how it performs.

Nigel Goodwin

Obviously it's not good being in Ontario! - you are going to need pretty huge and expensive panels for that sort of performance, plus HUGE banks of batteries.

Cost wise?, I would expect it to cost considerably more (at a guess, probably 5 to 10 times more?) than buying your electricity off the grid over the life of the installation.

Solar power isn't really a very cost effective system, FAR more cost-effective would be wind power.

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justDIY

long story short, you're too far North for PV to make an impact in your electric bills. now solar hot water is a different story. converting your hot water heater to solar (you'll still have to cover the entire roof with collectors not just a small portion) will save more electricity than your small collection of electronic gizmos.

plus building a heat collector costs a lot less than an electricity collector.

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ParkingLotLust

Hmm, so basically its out of the question. Well, thats good to know. Thanks!

blueroomelectronics

Why would you leave your PC on all the time and your stereo. Both can use a fair amout of power. Let your PC enter standby, and shut off your stereo when you dont need it. I game with USB headphones and they give me an edge in BF1942

As for wind Canadian tire sells a wind turbine max 800W @ 12V for about $900 and solar is about $90 per 15W @ 12V
Stepping it from 12V DC to 120 AC will lose energy so you'll need quite a few to run 1500W

Some fellow in the GTA is running 2000W solar (cost him about $18000 if I recall)

And you'll need to store all that energy too... Solar not so good at night.

PS you can buy a kilowatt meter from CDN tire for about $24. It's a good start.

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justDIY

turning it off is the quickest way to see immediate results in electric costs!

when I went off to college, it was all you can eat electricity in the dorms, so everything was left on, all the time. when I rented my first apartment, gas and water were included, so my only utility was electric, and I didn't worry much about savings. years and years go by and I own my own home now and pay for everything. I try to economize on all the utilities as much as possible now, the most expensive being electricity. most of my computers as well as all my other gizmos stay off except the computers i use in my business. I need to get in the habit of unplugging wall-warts now, since over a 5-10 year period they too waste noticeable amounts of money when they're sitting there not connected to their rechargeable device.

I recently purchased 72 watts of PV cells to see how much energy I can squeeze out of my Northern latitude. At best I hope to power a small irrigation pump one hour at night with the entire day spent collecting. At worst, I'll hook my garden shed up with some LED lighting.

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ParkingLotLust

You guys mentioned that wind would be a better option; maybe not now, but when we do build a new house, what kind of costs are involved with wind? Also, I recall seeing the solar water heating in Australia, do you have any sites on that?

As for the computer, its on for two reasons; I run an irc/http/ftp server, and it acts as the WiFi AP in our house. The stereo Im getting better and better at turning off when I leave, but I prefer 5.1 surround sound when Im watching movies and tv shows, vs headphones.

blueroomelectronics

Looking for a lower power solution might be an option. Linux can be installed on wee low power devices like the NSLU2 or for more power look at something like Clark Connect for a full server.

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justDIY

use a public IRC server and sign up for one of those $2.99/mo hosting accounts for your web and ftp

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Andy1845c

After moving into my own house, I have become a big fan of those power strips with the switch on them. I have my TV and DVD player on one, computer on one and my electonics equipment on one. I switch them off when i'm not using them and it A.) saves a small amount of electricity by keeping wall warts disconnected and B.) more importantly, protects the equipment from surges in the line.

Call me an anal and cheap, but in my house, I shut everything but the fridge off when i'm not home or when i'm sleeping.

justDIY

if I were organized, I could group all my chargers together and have them on a strip like Andy

i used to turn my TV off with a switcher thing, but that didn't last long - it forces me to go through a "setup procedure" after it detects "power was lost" - they probably designed that to punish people that don't believe in "instant on"

how is Europe coming along with its ban on "standby" power devices? I remember reading something on the BBC months ago that the EU wanted a ban on all gizmos not having a hard wired power switch. That is a LOT of gizmos!

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Thunderchild

yea it is a lot of gizmos, I've always hated not having a hard wired switch that cuts the main off and guess what when we wired our own houses a lot of sockets we put switches next to. things don't need to be left on standby it is called stupid f*cking lazziness and lack of consideration,

750 W per hour ? how do you use that ? and average PC uses like 200 wats at the very most, todays standard pc's compete very well if not better than the long addored workstations and servers of once so you can't have anytrhing special, the service that hosts my website has no better computers as servers than my own,

what type of screen do you use ? LCD screens save a lot over CRT, what lighting do you use in the room ? i sure hope it is fluorescent lamps,

750 W sounds like a lot of wasting going on to me,

you might as well move the whatever to a hosting service, i think the best I have found is freehostia they offer good free accounts as well.

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ParkingLotLust

Big honkin' power supply in the computer (rated at 600w, Id guess around 300w continuous - a lot goes on in there), plus a satellite modem, plus a 5x100w stereo, plus a crappy CRT tv, dual 17" LCDs, satellite receiver, xbox, NON-fluorescent lighting :P and whatever else happens to be plugged in at the moment. 750w was just a rough estimate, and Id rather (had the idea worked out in the first place) be able to provide more power than too much power.

I'll probably end up transferring most of my stuff to online hosting services, but the IRC and FTP servers cant exactly be put online, because Im sharing about 500GB worth of stuff on both of them (by IRC I mean DCC, not an actual irc server server)