This topic contains 11 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by 
Crow Bar 7 months, 2 weeks ago.
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You don’t think that this is planned? (From a text conversation)
PG&E power outages.
Planned or unplanned?
Following a grand scheme to get people on “micro-grids”, so their use can be curtailed at will?You don’t need all that power for your 3D printer or hydroponic system. You don’t need all that excess power, it isn’t required.
PG&E gets to get out of the volatile utilities and yet still provide a service, building and servicing all these micro grids on contract, the .Gov gets to control your expenditure of voltage and everyone is green whether or not they wanted to be.
Oh yeah, they get rid of a bunch of dead underbrush that couldn’t be dealt with otherwise.
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In SA, as I have mentioned, we have times of rolling blackouts. Stages 1 – 4 being the worst.
The last few years we have learnt, at least some of us, how quickly one can learn to scale down your power requirements and go from paying the utilities for all your power to saving a ton of money being solar grid-tied to the utilities to going off-grid with the same solar system.
Now let me be clear, it is NOT easy to do, but dang, once you have learnt to live with 50l of water per person per day and no power, all in a 1st world city, trust me, your views change … like in a LOT!
We don’t have snow in SA, so no real heating costs but we do have heat. Just last week I saw temps in a town in SA hitting 52°C (125.6°F). The latest model air conditioners can work quite nicely with solar systems in these cases.
Point of the reply: Get a move on and become more self-reliant, less impact on the environment. PG&E is not there to “save the day”.
Problem is, MOST people are just not interested in scaling down. THAT is the core problem.
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Anonymous@TTT I see the need for a solar system on my house. But, at least here in the US where I live, nobody has solar systems. In a serious SHTF or heaven forbid a TEOTWAWKI situation, people are going to flock to houses with solar power. It makes you a target. If you refuse their demands for food, shelter, whatever, they will shoot up your solar panels and then you are SOL just like everybody else. Just being a target is a serious problem.
How do you deal with that where you live?
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How does one deal with that? You don’t.
That Disney song about Let it go comes to mind see because the HAVE NOT’s will overrun the HAVE’s on any day and no-one has enough bullets to stop that. 🙂
Ideally one needs to have the panels “not obvious” but in most cases in cities that is near impossible.
However, we are not in a serious SHTF or heaven forbid a TEOTWAWKI situation so it is ok to have panels until then.
That is how I view it.
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@TTT,
I could not agree with you more about people scaling down, and self-reliant.
Very few here in the US.
I know a few guys who entire SHTF plan is to have enough solar power to power the whole house, like nothing happened at all.@No$$,
That is a concern I have had in the past.
Neighbors start showing up expecting to be allowed to charge their whatever device. Then the neighbors you dont know. Tell someone “No,” and “The Internet/Smartdevice is a basic human right!”
And, yes, I can see some yahoo shooting up your solar panels out of spite.-
Yes, taking the entire house over, if you can afford it, great. But why?
Have a different take. I say: Fit the loads to the batteries, and not the batteries to the loads.Batteries for off-grid setup/evenings are seriously expensive and have to be replaced every X years. Why waste money on that if you have access to utilities, MUCH cheaper per kWh.
And when the utilities are off, decide what loads are important and sort only that.Re neighbors demanding their “right to charge their phones” … very few legal guns in SA, lots more illegal, so no problem there really. However, we do have BIG surrounding walls, some with electric fences on top and some people have dogs … so not an issue really. 🙂
Other than that we are a very friendly nation and will help any neighbor in need … just aks nicely IF we answer the door intercom. 🙂
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Good points TTT.
Unfortunately the USA is not SA.
We have a lot of entitlement mentality here.-
USA not SA … don’t you worry Crow Bar, we have our own shiite going on here.
Must admit though, no sure what is worse, SA’s problems or the “entitlement” in the USA?
Neither is good longterm for either nation.But I think it is good to share what works elsewhere though, MAYBE someone picks up a new idea and runs with it.
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AnonymousHow about this. Build platforms/frames out of wood (easy to work), put on wheels. Mount solar panels so you can easily adjust the angle. Store them in the garage at night, during storms, while on vacation, etc. Heck, store them until you need them and just charge your battery bank off utility power until the power is out. You could put 1, 2 or 3 panels on each platform. I could build those myself. Depending on how many panels I wanted, I might have to extend my patio or add a deck to I could set them up in the back yard. Would have to get an electrician to wire the battery bank to the utility power and have a selector switch between solar and utility power for battery charging. Each would require different chargers.
All I need is to power my alarm systems (yes, more than one), power some lights, fans, CPAP machines, recharge many types of batteries, run my ham and other radios for gathering news.
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Yes, moveable frames can most definitely work!
I like this companies products to grid-tie/charge batteries, keep my electricity bill as low as it can without a lot of batteries.
Like here – and it is portable if you want to move it:
1) That is what I was buying at that time from the Utility Company.
2) Loads that will go off if we have load shedding.
3) Loads that are always on using solar/batteries if the power is off.
4) That was what my 3.5kw Canadian Kumax 10 x 350w array was producing at that time.
5) That was the battery bank SOC (State of Charge), being recharged.
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Days of terrifying darkness, cold and hunger amid PG&E’s sweeping power blackouts
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