$160,000 worth of wind and solar power with batteries can’t power two homes alone
By Jo Nova
Let’s run an experiment on a whole nation that we can’t even do easily on a single home
Wind generator, solar, off grid
Photo | Daily Sceptic,
Imaging scaling this up for a country?
The Daily Sceptic has the story of an Australian farmer in Victoria who has gone off-grid to try to be as self sufficient as he can, not out of ideology, but for pragmatic reasons. He has two 3 bedroom homes, with 30 solar panels and a 1kW wind turbine each. For storage they have about 30 German lead acid batteries which at current prices is about $15,000 of batteries each. But even so, each house still has bottled gas stoves, and a 6 kVA petrol generator. The generators are set to come on when the batteries get too low, which often happens in the evenings of autumn, winter and sometimes in spring. (He estimates about 60 – 100 hours each year). Even above all that equipment that needs gas, fuel and maintenance and cost about $160,000 in total to set up, they still have to grow, cut and collect, ouch, 100 kg of wood (220lbs) per week in winter for each house.
He warns that anyone who thinks the nation can run on wind and solar without fossil fuel or nuclear energy is “totally deluded”. And these are farmhouses on the coast in Victoria — so a milder climate — we’re not talking of snow.
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/10/160000-worth-of-wind-and-solar-power-with-batteries-cant-power-two-homes-alone/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=160000-worth-of-wind-and-solar-power-with-batteries-cant-power-two-homes-alone
