A Preppers Guide to Home Survival: Urban Survival for the Average Person by Daniel Wilson

Author:Daniel Wilson [Wilson, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics & Social Sciences, Social Sciences, Disaster Relief, Reference, Survival & Emergency Preparedness
Amazon: B00K8IS0TC
Publisher: Daniel Wilson
Published: 2014-05-09T04:00:00+00:00

Solar

Everyone knows what solar power is. They see solar panels on people's rooftops. Solar power is clean and safe. But it has a lot of drawbacks.

First, lets talk about how much power a home uses. A typical family home uses about 40k kwhs (kilowatt hours) of power per month. Don't worry about the technical stuff right now, just stay with me. A typical solar panel which is about a 2 to 3 foot, by 4 foot flat panel produces around 200 watts of power. So when we do the math you would need about 200 of these to power your home. Lets say these are only 2 foot by 4 foot. That would be a 400 foot long row of 4 foot tall panels. Or 200X8 foot, or 100X16, or 50X32. You get the idea, it would be huge. So they are not that efficient.

Next is price. These panels can cost over $200 each. But lets just be conservative and say $200. I mean, you're buying in bulk so you should get a discount. So 200 panels at $200 each, $40,000. And that's just the panels. You still need the equipment to connect them all, the electronics to tie it into your home, etc. And of course these are dependent on the weather. If you have a long, cold, rainy, dark winter, you won't get nearly the 40k kwhs of power that the system is rated at. Your power savings with solar usually come to about 10 years before the system has paid for itself.

But in a disaster situation you won't be living like normal, you won't be running a lot of lights, using your microwave, running your central heat and air, watching tv, and that type of thing, so you wouldn't need nearly that much power.

Another drawback is visibility. People will see you have solar panels and know you have power. That brings danger. People suck and you don't want them coming around wanting to take what you have.

If you're not an expert in solar power then you will want to buy a solar power kit. Something strong enough to help keep your battery bank charged, assuming you're not using too much power, with all the converters and other electronics necessary to use it properly will cost at minimum around $2500. Or you can go with a smaller setup and add more wind power, which is detailed in the next chapter. It's all about your needs, how much sun you get vs wind, and what kind of deal you can find on the equipment.

The best part about buying a kit to setup your own solar system is that you will have hands on experience with it. You will learn about your system. So if there is a problem you will have a much easier time to fix it than if someone else had set it up and you're tinkering around with something you don't have any experience with.

So solar isn't all that bad for disaster use. It would be good to have some solar equipment setup to help with power usage.

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