Hi James
On (24 Nov 96) James di Paulo wrote to Magus...
 Jd> Sorry for yelling in my last post. It is quite frustrating, but power is
 Jd> the only commodity that I know of where if one needs a certain amount 
nd
 Jd> asks the price of the equipment, the response is, "what are you going to
 Jd> use the power for?".
Your apology, most necessary. Anyone who knows this business, even very
slightly, is going to load the reply with ifs and buts. That shows their
concern for the truth and for helping you. A plain answer, will be 
isleading.
Here is a plain answer, you just change the quantities yourself-
Assume a PV setup. Assume average sun hours 30 days X 5 hrs daily. That's 150
hours/ month of generation. For 1200 kWH to be delivered in 150 hrs,
1200 div by 150 = 8 kW rating for the PV array.
In Australia a panel of 1 sq foot area delivers 4 watts. No. of such panels
for 8000 watts = 2000. Which means an array of 1200 sq feet which for example
could be supported on a frame 10 ft high, 120 feet long.
In Australia a 4 watt panel costs US$60. In the Home of the Brave and the
Free, I guess that for the large quantity needed, a price of US$10 might 
pply
per square foot. This figures as $US20, 000.
Add batteries and automatic voltage regulator.
Batteries- allow for 5 sunless days ie 1/6 of a month. Storage thus required
is 1200 div by 6 ie 200 kWH. An auto battery is good for about 1/2 kWH so
that's 400 auto batteries.
Auto battery is unsuited to repeated discharge duty, so allow for golf cart
batteries, I don't know what sizes but in AUS a premium auto battery is about
US$80 so for the full battery rigusing golf cart version, about US$40, 000 or
more.
With the necessary cabling, engineering, instruments, switchgear, inverters,
switchboards, a building for the batteries etc [or the cost of a room added 
o
the house] the  you will need a budget of about US$100, 000 plus substantial
future costs for battery maintenance and renewals.
Cheers.....ALEC
... ....The wheel is environmentally unviable
--- PPoint 1.92
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