New Solar Plant Opening north of Baldwin

[Dog Walker]

Doctor,  Tankless water heaters are WAY more efficient than electric or other gas water heaters, but because of TECO's really high natural gas prices and hateful minimum monthly charges you have to use a lot of hot water to make them worth their price.  Got babies or teenagers they are probably worth it.

It takes a special model to use "pre-heated" water i.e. water that comes from a solar water heater.  Most of regular tankless heaters work on water flow sensors, not temperature sensors which are slower to react.

There are some new "heat pump" hot water heaters now made by a couple of the big manufacturers that might be worth looking at now.  For most uses they might equal the energy savings of the tankless gas models.  They are more efficient and more expensive than regular hot water heaters, probably have a longer life span, but I've never seen them compared with tankless models.  If you don't have natural gas at your house they are probably a good choice and can certainly take the pre-heated water from a solar hot water panel since they are thermostatically controlled.

[Doctor_K]

Thanks!!

[ChriswUfGator]

http://www.news4jax.com/news/25230734/detail.html

Nice. Another 9% rate hike by JEA in the middle of the recession. I think everyone remembers them from 5+ years ago as being inexpensive but that is certainly no longer the case. The most interesting part of the article is that their average customer bill is a whopping $231/mo. That's just the average, so a full half of us pay more.

[BridgeTroll]

Spokeswoman Gerri Boyce said the JEA is not making a profit, but putting the money back into the utility.

"We are seeing regulations go up that are more expensive. We are seeing fuel go up. And we are seeing the cost of construction go up," Boyce said. "All of these things factor in."

Is it safe to assume some of this is the cost of going Green?

[hillary supporter]

Doctor,  Tankless water heaters are WAY more efficient than electric or other gas water heaters, but because of TECO's really high natural gas prices and hateful minimum monthly charges you have to use a lot of hot water to make them worth their price.  Got babies or teenagers they are probably worth it.
Exactly--- i have a tankless natural gas teco supplied water heater.  $20 mim fee discusting!
i have a propane powered water gas heater in my off grid home in Croatia..... just pennies!
i also have 3 75 watts solar panels for my 1000kwh 24 volt system. its great and all but limitations are there.
Our refrigeration is 24 volt, its the power sucker, otherwise we,d run smooth sailing with hd satellite tv, internet remote access, water pump. we resolved our problem with 24 volt 30 amp battery charger ( brought from USA) And yamaha 2400 inverted generator, running 2 hrs a night. Our cost was significant, but prices of technology are dropping fast. Also, geography of Croatia allows life w/o air conditioning--- not possible today with solar power. 24 volt ceiling fans actually very comfortable all day and night.

[Captain Zissou]

Not to rain on everyone's parade, but my bill is $120-$130 in the summer months, <$90 in the winter.  1500 square ft 2 bedroom 2 bath apt.

[ChriswUfGator]

Not to rain on everyone's parade, but my bill is $120-$130 in the summer months, <$90 in the winter.  1500 square ft 2 bedroom 2 bath apt.

Not raining on my parade, more like you're raining on JEA's. Their own published figures indicate their average customer is billed $231/mo, and averages being what they are, that would mean half of Jacksonville pays more than $231/mo. I'm sure they're missing the extra revenue off you, but that certainly doesn't change anything for the half of Jacksonville that JEA already acknowledged pays double what you do.

[JC]

I have to say this design is by far one of the most interesting.  I am not sure how much more efficient it is than solar panels but its pretty cool to read about. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_SunTower

I also saw a special on its construction, pretty cool tech.

[Dog Walker]

JC, the picture above is of a concentrated solar thermal plant.  There are a couple of different designs.  They concentrate the sun's energy to heat a fluid, usually oil. that boils water to turn a steam turbine.  They can produce a LOT of electricity in dry, hot climates with few clouds.  America's southwest deserts, Spain, North Africa, etc.  Solar panels are better suited to point-of-us or distributed generation situations than for centralized power plant operations.

They are usually paired with natural gas powered boilers to run the steam turbines at night or during cloudy weather to solve the energy storage problem.

Solar thermal plants are a good option in certain areas and can even be used by big industrial plants who use a lot of steam or electricity.  Think an aluminum smelter near a bauxite mine in the desert.

Can you imagine what would happen to a bird that flew too near the target tower?  Phittt!  Ashes.

[hillary supporter]

Not to rain on everyone's parade, but my bill is $120-$130 in the summer months, <$90 in the winter.  1500 square ft 2 bedroom 2 bath apt.

Thats awesome! Are you using other energy sources or just electricity?

[Dog Walker]

Apartments frequently have lower electric bills because of the other apartments, above, below and beside them so they have lower heat and cold loads.

[Ernest Street]

there are a LOT of variables. Asphalt parking lot next to you? My mistake..cutting all your shade tree growth out at the stupid request of the Homeowners insurance company? No attic ventilation?..the list goes on, but I agree with the rates being screwy compared to other places I visit or knowing others power bill figures.(FPL..TECO)
Back a few years ago this was organized crime behavior.
EXTORTION,or PROTECTION fees were locally assessed and enforced(collected). now it's found a way legally to pass as "Fee's, late fines, or reconnection fee's. The DMV is behaving similarly right now.

[JC]

I kind of think that the old model of using a power plant to provide electricity to multiple locations is kind of, shall we say, yesterday.  Why do we need concentrated power plants at all?  Seems like we could reduce the price of copper dramatically if homes produced their own power.  The model could work sort of like this. 

The federal government loans homeowners the money to take their house off the grid.  It could start in any city, an army of workers removing old power lines and poles while another army installs the needed equipment to make each home self sufficient.  The government could recoup the money by charging what individuals paid for their conventional electricity.  This would create a ton of jobs and would all but eliminate the need for fossil fuels...  I realize I am oversimplifying but whatevs. 

[Dog Walker]

Seems like we could reduce the price of copper dramatically if homes produced their own power.

Power transmission lines are made of aluminum.  

Love the idea, but how would you get power at night?  Batteries?  Oh the price and pollution of lead!

Totally grid independent would be great.  We could do it easily by providing each house with a generator big enough to power that house.  Ta Da!  Done.  BUT, why less efficient than a central power station.  Way more pollution of all kinds.  Much more expensive in every way.

If the price of solar PV cells comes way down then another model might be to cover every available roof and surface with solar cells, feed the power into the grid to a central station where the excess could be stored (flywheels, compressed air, pump water up hill, make hydrogen, whatever) to be returned to us at night when the sun don't shine.

Let's turn JEA into a battery!  I'll vote for that!

[JC]

Seems like we could reduce the price of copper dramatically if homes produced their own power.

Power transmission lines are made of aluminum.  

Love the idea, but how would you get power at night?  Batteries?  Oh the price and pollution of lead!

Totally grid independent would be great.  We could do it easily by providing each house with a generator big enough to power that house.  Ta Da!  Done.  BUT, why less efficient than a central power station.  Way more pollution of all kinds.  Much more expensive in every way.

If the price of solar PV cells comes way down then another model might be to cover every available roof and surface with solar cells, feed the power into the grid to a central station where the excess could be stored (flywheels, compressed air, pump water up hill, make hydrogen, whatever) to be returned to us at night when the sun don't shine.

Let's turn JEA into a battery!  I'll vote for that!

Yeah, its easy to poke holes in the two paragraphs I typed but whats lacking in your critique is the imagination that put a man on the moon, split an atom, cracked the genetic code, smashed particles, etc, you get the point....

"where there is a will there is a way!"