His energy bill is $0.00

Brother Apostate

I just read about a guy in NJ who lives in the nation's first solar-hydrogen house. The technology this civil engineer has been able to string together – solar panels, a hydrogen fuel cell, storage tanks, and a piece of equipment called an electrolyzer – provides electricity to his home year-round, even on the cloudiest of winter days:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070315/ts_csm/chydro

Sounds great, however, the price tag, according to the news- "The total cost, $500,000, was paid for in part with a $250,000 grant from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities."

Imagine paying $500,000 per house to get it off the grid. Even at a whopping average of $1,000/month in electrical utilty bills, it would take almost 42 years to cost-justify! That's without factoring in maintenance and replacement as the system wears out!

What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of getting off the grid?

LeslieV

At this point it would only be for those that are wealthy.

Leslie

Sad emo

Probably a dumb question with a simple answer but why couldn't he have had just solar panels? Is it because you guys use more power in the US - maybe for things like air conditioning? We have a few solar powered houses here (plus some wind powered ones) and as far as I know, they didn't cost as much as that.

We even have solar powered parking-ticket meters (even on cloudy days!)

anewme

Where I live up here in the mountains there is a group of neighbors up in the canyon, all engineers, who have achieved something like you are describing.

I find it fascinating. My husband is so eager to begin to use biodiesel and solar power!

But we are also very interested in learning about ANYTHING WE CAN DO NOW to lower our monthly bills.

I have changed the way I do cooking and laundry, heating and driving.

Did you know,

you can cook your polish sausage and your broccoli in the same boiling water? (Could also throw some eggs to hard boil too!) Am I going too far? I once visited a very poor old woman and she did this.

It does make sense to utilize your electric and gas devices smartly.

placing two small dogs under the covers at your feet at night can save on heating bills!

using an electric crock pot is an energy saving cooking device?

hanging clothes out to dry on a line is not only energy efficient, the clothes smell clean and sweet!

you can stop the tub from draining while taking a shower and then give the dogs a bath in the water (just kidding!)

Aside from installing expensive collectors and buying generators, what other ways can we reduce our energy bill? Id be interested to hear!

Anewme

Leolaia

Brother Apostate....But I bet it's hugely increased the value of the house. Should he ever sell it, he'd get a lot of the money back if not more depending on the buyer's market for such an unusual house.

bikerchic

Sounds great, however, the price tag, according to the news- "The total cost, $500,000, was paid for in part with a $250,000 grant from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities."
Imagine paying $500,000 per house to get it off the grid. Even at a whopping average of $1,000/month in electrical utilty bills, it would take almost 42 years to cost-justify! That's without factoring in maintenance and replacement as the system wears out!
What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of getting off the grid?

Um maybe too much time and money on his hands, but then maybe it will be a prototype which will work out and be marketable in the not so distant future which is a good thing if it works out that more homes could have this type of technology and be cost effective too.

PEC

Harbor Freight has a 25KW diesel generator for about $4K. Run it off of used fryer oil and you could go off grid for cheap. Running full out 7 X 24 at $.05 a Kwh you would generate $10950.00 of electricity in the first year. If you get the fryer oil for free you would be making money in less than a year. You would use 21,900 galions of fryer oil in a year.

Philip

johnny cip

if you use wind or solar etc. the electric co in your area. has to buy back what ever excess you produce. so if you can make enough cheap electric. you will be recieving a check from the electric company instead of a bill just ask the wt's they got $50,000 FROM THE state to help them produce their own electric at patterson.

Jim_TX

"What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of getting off the grid?"

I think that there are many things that can be done by the average homeowner right now that can reduce the utility bill to near $0.00.

I have replaced all of my incandescents with fluorescents. This has reduced our electric bill somewhat. (Last month, it was about $49.00 - two people. My mil's bill was over $80.00 - one person.)

I am working on a prototype low-cost solar panel-to-battery-to-LED lamp that will work from power collected from the sun. (So far, it's going well. Quite bright, too.My goal is around 480 Lumens.)

Other people install solar panels (and get a tax break for doing so), and generate solar power during the day (while they are at work), that gets puts onto the power-grid - spinning their electric meter backwards. Later, when they get home, they use power from the grid. Their power bills are usually very low. (Check out a magazine called Homepower - http://www.homepower.com/.)

If you are interested in things of this nature, keep a look-out for weekend 'fairs' or shows that occur throughout the year. I have attended one semi-locally, and one can learn a lot from these.

Regards,

Jim TX

DannyHaszard

I was born green

I would be working R+D on green engineering every waking moment if I wasn't working the watchtower mission

Yep,what a rotten shame i am so diverted and I will make you pay watchtower.

His energy bill is $0.00

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