Finally get to charge my Tesla with solar

[FutureBoy]

All this talk about uses for ice, looks likes I’m going to need one of those hotel ice makers if I can’t have a refrigerator. Not sure how the ice maker compares to the refrigerator that we are trying to avoid.

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[Frankenblob]

All this talk about uses for ice, looks likes I’m going to need one of those hotel ice makers if I can’t have a refrigerator. Not sure how the ice maker compares to the refrigerator that we are trying to avoid.

Hehehe, you can have a fridge but it is a consumate waste of energy, a freezer will consume quite a bit less, plus, in the winter ( your locale too) a broken freezer works wonders for food material. Just letting another know about energy conservation.

 

[Obxcast]

I'm super excited. After watching other people install solar on youtube I finally get to install solar myself. I don't know how long it will take me to install it on my house because I'm not familiar with the whole process of getting solar however I have basic idea from watching youtube. Can't wait to get started.

Mine took 3-4 months. It is great! Congrats!

 

[MEDICALJMP]

Hmmmmmm, what if you put the cans/bottles IN the ice?

Wet can/bottle, slippery....but COLD

Hehehe

Then see Crissa’s comment above. I want my pop cold, not frozen. Only my margaritas and foo-foo drinks get the frozen treatment.

 

[ajdelange]

I would also look into installing micro inverters, I have Enphase micro inverters installed here in the U.K.

They still sell systems that don't use microinverters? I thought they had dominated the market by now.

 

[ajdelange]

Hehehe, you can have a fridge but it is a consumate waste of energy,

It is? Modern ones are pretty good. We have a small separate one for drinks which I think uses maybe 20 W?

a freezer will consume quite a bit less,

I'm missing something because that represents a violation of the Second Law (a freezer operates at colder temperature and thus must be less efficient).

 

[Crissa]

Roof is better; higher gives better arc to the sky, and it doesn't take up space which stuff is likely to run into it.

If you you do put it on the ground, make sure to raise it high enough so that you don't have to mow grass around it, four feet up and animals can graze underneath.

I'm missing something because that represents a violation of the Second Law (a freezer operates at colder temperature and thus must be less efficient).

Nope. Freezers get the advantage of phase change of water to ice. They're also generally chest-style, so not only are the seals up at the warmest point of the box, when you open it, the pool of cold air doesn't spill out.

-Crissa

PS, ice makers, on the other hand, are horribly energy inefficient. They're forcing the phase change, instead of keeping it. And to get that clear tasty ice every one wants, it has to carefully manage temperature and water flow. Lots of power use.

 

[ajdelange]

True the phase change adds to the inefficiency of a freezer in a couple of ways but all that energy doesn't have to be wasted. If you remove a frozen item to a refrigerator rather than to the ambient you will recover some of the investment (not the part lost to Carnot and mechanical inefficiency though). This leads to the tip that just as one should not put a hot item into a refrigerator/freezer so should he not remove a frozen item from a freezer except to a refrigerator. With a solar system this is mooted by the fact that the electricity is so cheap.

Also interesting in this regard is that when you open the door not only are you injured by having to take the latent heat out through a double phase change but then insulted by having to expend energy to reverse that (or at least one of the two) by expending energy for defrost.

 

[Crissa]

Yeah, it's better to keep thermal mass in your fridge or freezer, rather than air. Our power is unstable in the fall - fire weather, heatwave brownouts, and winter storms take their toll. So I keep frozen gallon bottles of water to act as thermal mass to speed cooling and retain cooling and a dam against that lost energy when the fridge is opened.

Silly little trick of adding these bottles as the refrigerator is emptied.

-Crissa

 

[TeslaHugger]

I can't believe it but I made a big mistake with solar kit. Fortunately I caught it before the vendor shipped out the inverter. The kit ordered was SMA SunnyBoy with TS4-R-F optimizer which turns out isn't really an optimizer. It's just a rapid shutdown.
After spending several weeks trying to determine how to get optimizers to work with SunnyBoy I just gave up and ordered SolarEdge instead.

One more step closer to charging my Tesla with solar .

 

[TheLastStarfighter]

Hehehe, you can have a fridge but it is a consumate waste of energy, a freezer will consume quite a bit less, plus, in the winter ( your locale too) a broken freezer works wonders for food material. Just letting another know about energy conservation.

My fridge uses around $50 of energy a year. It is virtually irrelevant. What on earth are you talking about?