This is kind of interesting . . .
Like many others, we use Costco to buy bulk things or special items such as this new screen I have plugged my laptop into. This morning, I am looking at the myriad of emails (many of the junk) and clicked on the latest Costco addy to see what they are hawking.
Voila . . . a solar powered generator.
This one is made by Anker (of phone battery charging fame), sold at Costco, and at a discounted price of ~$3700. There are some issues with this source of power. Some detail:
Ultra-high AC output power of 6,000W/9,000W and 120V/240V dual-voltage AC output and 7.68kWh capacity, this combo can power almost your all home appliances, a perfect companion for home backup and RV life.
One Battery, one Power Station, and one foldable Solar Panel. Is that enough? Probably not if you wish to turn on the air-conditioning in AZ. However, we do have the sun which makes this work in emergency situations. The furnace air circulation fan could be powered by it. I think it is too limited in output.
Just something new popping up.
These have been around for a few years now, sold by Jackery and Bluetti. We bought a Jackery with solar panels a few years back to run our air filters in case power went out during forest fire season. They take a fair while to charge, but they work within their limits. We liked it so much, we spent orders of magnitude more to get a full roof of solar panels and a real battery backup system.
These are great for campers and specialized power backup. A friend of ours is part of a big music festival which involves camping out without power on site. She bought a Jackery to run lights and a few other gadgets out in the field.
P.S. I’ve been seeing walla (or wallah) a lot lately instead of voila. The latter is French for here-it-is or so-you-see and pronounced, roughly, wallah. The former is from Hindi and is a suffix meaning person or seller as in box-wallah or Shakespeare -wallah. It’s sort of like the schaft suffix in German. I suppose there are a lot more immigrants from the subcontinent lately.
@Kaleberg,
I’m not a native French speaker, but I took French from 3rd to 10th grade, then for two years in college. I’ve also spent some time in France, Geneva and Quebec. I’ve always heard it with the V sounded as the first consonant: \vwä-ˈlä\, or \vwah-LAH\
@Kaleberg,
I asked a friend who is fluent in French (and about seven other languages besides English) and who is a former chair of Romance Languages. This is his reply:
“I have heard this. Definitely not French. If I had to guess (and I have no idea if I’m right) I would say this is an English (British English) affectation among upper middle-class English Brits in the South of England.”
Kaleberg:
Sometimes the mind does not engage the fingers. Thank you for the input.
I have seen similar and smaller versions for a while. There is also a company with a trailer full of panels advertising they will come to you and provide solar power for shorter term needs. They park one on the side of the road at times for advertising I suppose.
The thing to remember about pv is that the solar resource is diffuse. At best about 1000 watts per square meter. Around 20% of that can be converted to electricity by commercial cells. So 200 watts per meter squared. You do the math. To get significant useable power you either need a large area or spend a lot of time charging the batteries whose capacity is measured in Watt Hours.
SW:
Joel had Solar and I believe he confirmed similar.
@Bill,
Yes, we had 22 rooftop solar panels on our house in St. Louis for eight years before we moved. Saved us about $600/year at Missouri rates. Cost $24,000 parts and labor back in the day. Ameren paid half of that and we got a 30% tax rebate on the remainder. Even at the reduced cost, we never made our nominal investment back.
Time. That is why degradation is such a show stopper for Perovskites despite the hype.
@SW,
Indeed. Our solar panels came with a 25-year warranty.
despite being what some might call a rabid environmentalist i have never managed to get on the solar bandwagon. issues such as suggested here. but also i was reading somewhere about someone who had solar power in his house in cloudy oregon and it worked great.
only, i thought, i live in cloudy oregon without solar power and “it” works great. i love my big south facing window, but even when the sun doesn’t shine i don’t need much heat…this is a mild climate.
i think anyone who needs air conditioning should not live where it is “too hot” otherwise. i lived in Florida w/o AC and survived…as people did for a few hundred years before i got there, same in Arizona, which was too hot for me. but i lived in a house designed for english weather. the indians managed w/o AC but they built for the heat and dressed for it.
and i can’t imagine going out into “nature” and feeling the need to drag your electric gear along with you.
Ironically you are the ideal candidate for PV. If you are serious about using this tech the first thing you need to do is get as efficient as possible with the power you consume. Par down what you actually need to just those functions that can only be fulfilled with electricity. Then it is possible that you can design a system that will do what you want it to do at a reasonable price point. And realize that you are spending money to live up to your ideals not just trying to break even or pocket a savings over your old electric bill. If you don’t make an effort on the consumption side all you are really doing is making a statement.
@SW,
Many people have asked me about our rooftop solar. I told them that first they should have an energy audit of their house. We had sweeps installed on all outside doors, caulked up cracks, had the maximum insulation blown into our attic and had all the windows re-hung.
Joel:
That is good advice. Much can be saved with simple corrections. It may pose a question of whether solar is needed.
@Bill,
Since the electricity we generated with solar replaced electricity that was, at the time, generated ca. 70% with coal, I’d say it was necessary, both to reduce pollution and to reduce global warming.