Number crunching

Did it just seem to make more sense because we knew less about it?

 

This.

Actually?
The pros use either Diesel.
The Red Ribbon crowd uses NatGas or propane.
Diesel is the hands down winner except for the whole storage thing.
The building I'm tapping this out in has a 500 gallon diesel tank - under a fairly large diesel Genset (125kw).....but the owners have deeeep pockets.
WHO THE HECK outside of Gaza has ever experienced 5 - two day outages in a year?
I've lived in hurricane country for 30+ years and outside of California, I've never heard of a place in the US where 1 hour power outages occur more than one or twice a year.

My solution is currently a dual-fuel genset with several 20# tanks and cords that I'm working to upgrade to a salvaged 120 gallon propane tank with an interlock connection to the breaker panel.
The advantage to my setup is that I will have a 6-7 day backup capacity that's prepaid and shelf stable.
My current setup is staged (tested this year during hurricane season) to give me a less convenient 3-day prepaid, storage stable power backup.

MY mileage.
ACTUAL mileage will vary.

 

Obviously, you have not lived in rural New England. During my 18+ years living here up North where almost every major Nor'easter causes a massive number of power outages, while power outages lasting more than 2 days are rare, we have experienced on average 3-4 times outages every year each lasting 12 hours or longer. If power is restored within 1 hour, I don't even count it as an Outage.

 

I think power outages really are dependent on circumstances.

We have experienced 2 outages that lasted a week or more.

One in a rural area where a tornado took out a couple of towns and surrounding areas. At the time of the first we lived on a rural farm in the outskirts and the power companies frankly had bigger fish to fry than us - hospitals, towns First Responder centers etc.. Our homeplace was rural in every sense with the accompanying electric run well pump etc..

The 2nd incident of over a week was when living in town in a lovely area with many mature lovely trees. Again the aftereffects of a high windstorm in town with tornado force winds got us and many surrounding areas. The storm blew over many older enormous trees - some actually came out by their roots. Because our area had so many trees down laying across the downed power lines the Power Companies began the slow process of returning power to areas less affected. All the trees had to be removed from the downed power lines before power could be returned to our area and new lines strung. I remember it well as my wife was pregnant with one of our kids and we ended up getting a hotel room and eventually moving her in with family until we could get settled down back into our house with power.

Our most recent of power outages was a two day affair again involving winds and trees. Our area has many large trees and high winds can limited access to downed lines and if lying across knocked down lines complicate the process tremendously.

Living in Nebraska while in the service was a whole different experience. It was considered tornado alley and had just huge storms roll through. However, the part where our base was built was a rural farm area 25 miles outside of Omaha with sparse tree cover for the most part. Returning power there after a large windstorm/tornado was not complicated by collateral damage and was usually done very quickly.

People sometimes have medical conditions/concerns that take the loss of power to large concern levels - and as you age you may have a very hard time tolerating a power outage in the dead of winter while a younger person or neighbor would have no concerns or difficulty with a power outage. If it is a spot outage many alternative housing situations exist- not so much for a widespread outage. We have a back up heat sources but many are not so fortunate.

And of course, First Responders and the communities always do their best to help. In our area you can also count on your neighbors helping out - still it would be nice to be proactive and avoid the situation and be able to help out others.

Sure diesel in nice if the price of the fuel happens to be right but very few cities would let an individual store diesel of any quantity on their property due to safety concerns and the dangers inherent in doing that. Natural gas is convenient and in the US readily available as a supplied home utility in many areas.

 

I just received a quote from a local solar company for installing the Tesla Powerwall – they are about $17,000 installed. This number is without solar panel installation. Yep, no way it will pay itself.

 

No.
I have indeed NOT.
I'm reminded of the famous story of somebody who visits Vermont* during the summer, thinks it is paradise, and moves there only to discover the hellscape that awaits them during their first winter. I lived in New London, CT only long enough to evade the barriers that separate the mentally deficient from getting into the US Submarine programme - but NOT long enough to realize that normal people do NOT belong in that branch of our military.
I've visited all 50 states, and lived in more than a few of them, and I've always had a deep and abiding respect for those that live in the frozen, uninhabitable parts of the US north of I-40.
I love the wit and biting sarcasm that is the New England sense of humor, and growing up in my beloved home state of Indiana has given me knowledge and respect for weather that can kill you if you're not prepared.

PART of being prepared is to know that very few healthy people in my part of the country freeze to death.


F: “Hey, buddy! Does this road go to Montpelier?”
V: “Nope. Stays right here.”
F: “No, I mean can I take this road to Montpelier?”
V: “Don’t think you can get it in your car.”
F: “Well, if I drive down this road, will I get to Montpelier?”
V: “Don’t know how good a driver you are.”
F: “You don’t know anything, do you?”
V: “I know I ain’t lost.”
F: “There’s not much between you and an idiot, is there?”
V: “Just this yard and that fence.”

(*) New Hampshah, CT, and the inhabited parts of Maine are easily substituted in this story.
It's all the same place, really.

 

Well, the number of people who died during the 2021 Texas power crisis - Wikipedia...total loss of life was reported to be 246, with deaths in 77 counties. Victims included children less than a year old to 102 years old... At least 246 people were killed directly or indirectly,[3] with some estimates as high as 702 killed as a result of the crisis.

Not everyone on the list was "unhealthy" with underlying medical issues, I suspect,... but all of them were certainly "unprepared" for sure.

 

DITTO. But I keep the bottles as "backup" when I am out of gasoline and can't replenish them. The generator runs longer with a higher peak and sustained power with gas burning than propane. But, I am now thinking of installing a propane water heater and leasing a 250gal propane tank. I can't find any contractor who installs solar water heating systems on our home. A propane water heater would eliminate the heating oil boiler usage during the non-heating season. But I have not done the math yet. This may not be an economical solution and it is still reliant on the fossil fuel.

 

I have never checked how much LPG stays in the bottle after normal use. I haven't used it in a dead of winter cold, but what would be the approx % unusable LPG that remains in the bottle say @70F vs @0F? Ideal Gas Law calculation... PV = NkT Any guess?

Same here. I have never had old stale gas hindering the operation of small engine equipment I own. Other than buying ethanol-free gas and adding Sta-bil, I have not done anything. In fact, had gasoline in the tank that sat over 10 years in a gas-powered pressure washer. It wasn't even ethanol-free gas, but a regular 10% ethanol blend. It did not start right away, but after changing the spark plug and oil, it fired up with no problem and ran fine with 10+ years old gas. Though, I sold it last year, so don't know if it is still running now.

 

I'd be concerned with the diesel gelling here.

With TOU plans, peak shaving could help with the cost, but it seems residential battery systems are still in the new tech, high price stage.

Friend once got a car that sat for ten years, and it started up and ran. Deposit build up on the valves soon bent a push rod.

 

I have checked the TOU plan with our utility. Currently, our utility's TOU plan applies only to the distribution cost not to the supply part. The TOU plan will have a mandatory monthly fee (currently set to $15/mo) which does not exist for the non-TOU plan account. In the best scenario in which we restrict our electricity usage to 100% off-peak (8pm-7am), our monthly savings will be ~$60/mo. A simple calculation for the payback period for the $17,000 Powerwall without solar would be 23 years and 7 months. This is assuming that 100% of our daily electricity needs are met with the stored battery kWh in the PowerWall and the battery will not need any additional maintenance cost such as periodic replacement. I highly doubt that today's battery will retain much of its initial capacity past 10+ years. Even if with 30% off of the $17,000 using the full tax credit, the payback period is still 16+ years. So, this is not a viable plan for someone going to retire in a few years.

Additionally, the number does not get much better even if I consider the installation of solar panels. Slightly shorter payback period. But it is still way too long with those high up-front costs.

 

I've found a similar return on investment in our calculations.

I like solar and in the right situation would pull the trigger on a system for our home.

One thing I thought of when checking out solar for our home I haven't heard mentioned, in residential areas is future trees and tree growth. We live in a residential area with typical lots. As a look at the neighbor's yard there are some trees that haven't reached their future mature height. Also, what is to stop a future neighbor who buys a home from deciding they would love some sort of tree in their back yard for shade whose mature height might block sun to our home.

I think the type of residential setting your home is in and future tree or residential growth could undermine a solar system in our area.

This isn't the case for all areas but in the southeast US where trees thrive and grow to great heights it is a future consideration. If you live in a residential area you don't control what type of trees your neighbors might plant. I had never thought of that till recently.

As you mentioned batteries degrade over time but so do solar panels and the amount of energy they can produce. Also the many inverters used on the system have limited lifespans - and as in all electrical systems components will degrade. That isn't a reason to not install a system but is certainly a reason to go in with your eyes wide open.

Sorry if I rambled on and am interested in all things energy and solar especially appeals to me.

 

Exactly - in your situation you are in control of a large area and can insure your systems integrity and access to the sun as long as you maintain the acreage.

Not everyone would be fortunate to have that control over their surroundings. In a residential area a very large shade tree could greatly limit the amount of time your system would experience the right angle of sunlight for good production. I certainly hadn't ever considered that situation before - where a tree or new tree as it matures and grows would impact your system negatively. Our home as many around it is a one-story home and actually not that tall. In a typical residential lot a solar array on the ground would take up invaluable land space and in residential area be limited to a back yard only and even that might be impacted by building code. Now days 6 to 8 foot privacy fences are not uncommon in residential areas which could further impact sun access to a ground mounted system.

Not a concern in your situation.

 

Texas isn't 'my part' of the country, but yeah.
I take your point.
Texasass is like a whole 'nother country!
They even have their own power grid.
Like many underprivileged locales, they are perhaps overrepresented by people who die from the effects of Darwinism.
Setting aside the "some people say...." estimates, there were some people during that outage who were not prepared for a power loss and died from hypothermia.
Automobiles and CO took their share as well.

Thanks for that.
My portables are new and on a regular rotation.
The large tank will be moved (someday) from my country estate (5 mostly unimproved acres) by a propane company owned by a friend who will be happy to fill it.
Even without being filled, it's nearly full and would probably be worth moving even if it were never refilled.
I've lost count of the number of hurricanes that I've been through since Hugo but I can count on one hand the number of times that I've experienced >12hr power losses in 5 homes since then (Hugo was in 89.)
Still..... I married up.
the Wife Approval Factor for spending $1500-2000 on a better power outage plan is HIGH.
We DO disagree a little on my rehabbing the old tank

 

A 10kWh battery was going to nearly double the cost of my 5.2kW system. So I passed on it. The solar company rep believed costs for systems should be improving in the next few years. Further down the line, I think we'll see even greater reductions when old EV batteries get repurposed into stationary systems.

Site analysis is an important step to planning a system. Think my neighbors would have to plant a redwood to impact me, and I'm on a 0.11 acre lot.

Generators and cars lose efficiency with age. Most PV panels have 25yr warranties. Degradation to the point of replacement won't happen until some time after that.

 

I've lived in such areas -- described in your second quoted sentence, not first -- all my life, despite never having lived in hurricane country or California.