L2L:

Funny story..Know a fella that has a micro fit .8.5 Kw. He ran it for 6 months, then removed the panels sold them and now feeds his Grid tied inverter from a 250 VDC rectifier..which in turn is cycled by a 10 watt panel and contacts.. Wouldn't recommend it, but it has been done.

My brother is down in southern Ontario and bought into that Ontario Hydro offer. He has a $70,000 investment which he claims he bought into early so got the best deal. Claims he makes $1500 per month at 9 cents per KW hour. Since I don't have his money, I'm taking the cheaper route.

I bought (300) 6"x6" class A panels off Ebay for $300 US with free delivery. I plan on mounting them on some regular used window panes I have(safety glass is too expensive) with stiff metal backing(likely fridge door skins and such from the local dump). If panel is rigid enough, glass shouldn't break in even a hail storm. As you can tell, I haven't started yet and I have it slotted amongst many other projects to do yet too! They should make 7 panels at a total capability of 1.3 KW if I dont break many along the way.

I came across this website which is full of ideas regarding all aspects of solar panels, from determining the number of panels you need to batteries, wiring, and mounting ideas. Been to alot of sites and this one is the most informative I've come across so far. http://rimstar.org/renewnrg/calculate_your_power_needs.htm

I have been collecting many others data regarding this for months and am again writing and sorting much of the theory into an excel spreadsheet to factor all I learn. I hope to eventually make things simpler and present simple step by step progression to seeing all expenses before one starts. Most sites are trying to sell you something and don't allow one to compare prices between purchases vs building your own from scratch.

There are various other energy saving ideas on this site too. Check them all out.

As Peppercorn was interested in how far I have gotten in my panels, I thought it best to respond again in a pertinent thread to avoid confusion.

I too often write by first collecting data from others and working from there. Here is what I have so far regarding my spreadsheet on solar panel arrays. It is far from being complete but it already helps you better determine the size required for your array better than any others I've seen on the web. This can be done under the Consumptions tab. The rest is a work in progress.

I want you folks to understand that the Ontario Hydro, Liberal "green energy" plan has made Ontario the most expensive place to do business in all of North America.
When you get 44 cents per Kw/hr who do you think pays that? The government has no money, it's our money they so freely throw around.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/a-sunny-ontario-experiment-gone-wrong/article19890164/

Germany now has more than 14 years experimenting with renewable energy legislation and is now documenting the failures of those policies. It is time Ontario – which largely copied those failures – to do the same.
http://ep.probeinternational.org/2014/03/21/ontario-to-follow-germany-in-renewable-failure/

I want you folks to understand that the Ontario Hydro, Liberal "green energy" plan has made Ontario the most expensive place to do business in all of North America.
When you get 44 cents per Kw/hr who do you think pays that? The government has no money, it's our money they so freely throw around.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/a-sunny-ontario-experiment-gone-wrong/article19890164/

Germany now has more than 14 years experimenting with renewable energy legislation and is now documenting the failures of those policies. It is time Ontario – which largely copied those failures – to do the same.
http://ep.probeinternational.org/2014/03/21/ontario-to-follow-germany-in-renewable-failure/

Those are some good reads but again what they don't do is show an alternative. I don't know how they can lock in a such an insane number as $0.44 to entice as my brother gets $0.09 and set up in 2013 and often brags because they later lowered the rate on newer systems. He also later helped others set up their new systems and never mentioned such an increase. Something seems fishy in that aspect.

The of the nuclear plants in southern Ontario are past due already for dismantling because they are too old to be safe. I think this is why the quest for alternative power is on. Disposing of the spent nuclear waste is another issue and politicians were trying to convince folks in my region that it would create jobs if we let them dump it here. We had to point out that Canada has the largest volume of fresh water in the world and the Lake of the Woods area feeding into the Great Lakes is this volume. Now they wanted to bury nuclear waste under this, the world's largest supply and called it a good idea.....

I doubt that we can ever get enough solar panels to meet even a portion of our needs but I'd assume that it is at least a step in the right direction. Also sure that there are others who will screw up this endeavor too as there always is. Hydro electric is still the safest and my area is surrounded by power dams. Sometimes I also consider that maybe our governments trying to get these systems out there as backup systems for our unstable economy. In this way communities would have access to at least some power during failure of the major grid systems. Beats receding back to the stone age as we'd lose all technologies otherwise.

It's easy to criticize such things as alternative power because we humans don't spend much time pursuing less viable options if there is too much expense involved versus profit. But having a system that is less infallible should be a plus in man's perspective to offset some extra costs. We have to instead build things to last longer again instead of replacing items every few years as we do now. How come our parents had 25 year old fridges that still work and we don't? How come we need the latest toys which have little some new fancy feature which we soon learn wasn't that required anyways.

We have become a debt based society working for a debt based government and wonder why our economy has become unstable... alternatives are likely going to become a necessity when we can't afford the asking prices of these options in the future. Understanding where to make cuts and then making corrections while one can still afford to is just a beginning to this process. My advice is to maybe join in and help others to look for these answers while there is still time.

My mistake, they did lower the price after 2013 but it was an average of 44 then ranging from 34 to 54 cents. If you look at the chart on this page you'll see the breakdown.
http://www.solartrader.ca/fit_program

This, more than anything will lead to (another) economic failure in Ontario as industry goes elsewhere. Worst of all it's at a time when natural gas is a cheap as ever.

Generating power with a nuke plant, coal or gas is just about boiling water into steam and spinning a turbine. Some moron (Dalton McGuinty) decided to dismantle coal fired plants instead of just running a natural gas line into the place and changing the burners to use the gas. All the turbines, infrastructure and boilers went for scrap.

Don't give me the "carbon dioxide is heating up the planet" crap either. It's a lie.

The consensus is that the panels will survive an EMP but the control units would be fried. A CME would bring down the grid but the control units might survive.

Sorry to bust your bubble, but no solar panel without adequate protection will survive. Electrically charged particles meets conductor.
Solar panels have such conductors between cells that compose a panel and conductors between panels themselves. You can test this by purchasing a single cell or extracting one from a toy or garden solar lamps. These generate under 2 volts of d.c. power. Remove the cell while keeping the black and red wires attached. Then to simulate a emp, connect these two wires to a 9 volt battery and you get a fried solar cell.

If you plan on using, thus exposing solar panels I suggest laying a thin metal wire screen such as chicken wire mesh over the array and grounding this to ground. You will loose negligible loss from the mesh overlay but in the event of an EMP, the grounded mesh will conduct the charge to gnd. Saving your solar panels through this EMP event(s). Unprotected solar panels will fry.

Next I would place a surge suppressor on both negative and positive wires coming from the solar panel array to the control box as an added protection. Your control box may or may not have one in the circuitry at the entry points from the solar panels. These are cheep, a dime a dozen.
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This is the first and only, fully protected method that will make it through an EMP and solar CME storm. All solar electric installations you see today will be rendered useless the second an EMP hits the earth. They are not built to withstand any type of electrically charged particle field, nor will they.
Enjoy!