I’m only half kidding. I’m a bit of a prepper and I have lots of powerbanks and devices that charge from USB but besides idling my truck I really had no other way to charge any of them in case of a long-term power outage which seemed a bit of an oversight on my part.

Not like this solves the issue. 30 watts (under ideal conditions) isn’t much but it’s a start.

  • Iced Raktajino@startrek.website
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    2 days ago

    Lol, def can become an obsession. First hand experience there.

    I’ve wanted a whole house PV system for a long time, and this is just me finally getting around to making it happen. SO and I were talking about getting a backup generator installed, but that would have been about $7,000 for something that would only get used two or three times a year since our power doesn’t go out often (we have no heat or ability to cook when the power goes out, and it’s always in the dead of winter when we lose power). The PV system I sketched out was about $9.000, but in addition to covering us during outages, we could use it daily to reduce electric bill so, unlike the generator, this would pay for itself over time.

    SO finally came around to my way of thinking, so here we are lol. My limiting factor is usable roof area. Of the roof that’s south facing, only about 14x20 feet of it is suitable for mounting panels. There’s a west-facing gable, but it’s blocked most of the time by a tree. The east-facing side of the gable is available, but it’s pretty much always foggy in the mornings here, so it wouldn’t add much to the system.

    Unless I build a ground mount setup in the back yard, we’re pretty much at the limit of how many panels I can buy. I’m kind of glad for that because otherwise I’d just keep buying them.

    • GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca
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      2 days ago

      I keep thinking about this. I can’t justify solar when I live in a northern country and pay about $0.06 USD/kWh, but the value of resilience also counts.

        • GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca
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          2 days ago

          Im “lucky” enough to live in a region with abundant hydroelectric power. It’s still cheaper to heat your home with natural gas here…air source heat pumps might get close when they work.