What's the regulatory situation for selling energy back to the grid? Friend of mine 10+ years ago in Porto Alegre opted for solar for water heating only, because there was no mechanism for net metering.
You don't sell the energy. Well you kind of do, it's just that they don't pay you in real money. They pay you "kWh credits" which are theorized to offset your consumption in the winter months where solar energy production is lowest. The catch? Those credits expire in one year if unused. They do not accumulate.
So brazilians are financially incentivized to produce as much energy as they consume only. Any energy surplus means giving energy away to the power company for free. Since solar energy production is variable, one also needs to be clever with forecasting in order to estimate highs and lows so that they compensate for each other. Make the summers pay for the winters.
I suppose one could simply work around all that regulatory nonsense by not actually generating any credits in the first place. Build a small system that generates less than needed since that still means significant energy cost reductions. Alternatively, increase energy consumption. Air conditioners are god's gift to brazilians but there are only so many you can buy before you run out of rooms to install them in. So that leaves... Converting any surplus energy into cryptocurrency instead of injecting it into the grid. They won't pay us? We'll pay ourselves by mining monero.
A policy which incentivises turning excess solar energy into one step above pure heat. Classic.
With solar panels, I get to redirect that useless sun heat into those air conditioners. The result is more money in my wallet. It's perfect.
Even if I were to mine cryptocurrency, it's still pure heat anyway. Sun's shining whether we want it or not. I'd just buy more panels so I can redirect more sun energy into computer chips instead of allowing it to uselessly heat up my backyard. Processors dissipating heat or backyard radiating away heat at night -- what's the difference?
The system asked me for a hostname of sorts when I set it up. I named it "sun monetizer". Makes the sun useful for something. I used to hate the sun with every fiber of my being. Now I monetize it. The next step is realizing that cryptocurrencies make it possible to monetize the sun at industrial scales by serving as energy-to-money converters.
Sun's gonna continue injecting heat into this earth whether we want it or not. Better make the most of it.
If you are thinking about building in brasil, instead of traditional masonry, consider using insulated structural panels, called EPS in brazil. I friend of mine did a home using this system in Rio de Janeiro where you easily get over 42C (107 F) outside in the summer. It works fantastically.
Energy in Brasil used to be way less expensive, and traditional masonry and concrete construction is not very friendly to insulation unless you do like the germans that have double walls with the insulation in the middle. So, culturally, insulation is kind of an alien concept for a lot of people and even engineers.
That's kinda fucked up. But well, for my friend in the South, where winters are miserably cold and houses have no heating infrastructure, using the accumulated energy credits during the winter is easy. Heck, there are even crypto-mining heaters available these days, so it kinda works best for him I guess?
Yeah. My air conditioners are running pretty much 24/7.
> You don't even need to wait for winter to use those credits.
Depends on how much energy you generate. Solar power can easily generate the amount of energy consumed by air conditioning. Just gotta make sure peak summer output generates enough surplus to cover the needs of the other seasons. My solar system generates between 400-1100 kWh/month. It's always been enough and if my needs change I can always expand capacity.
> And if you have money to do so, buying an electric car can be also a good usage of those credits.
Absolutely. That's my next goal. I don't want to pay for gasoline anymore. I think it's still a bit too early for that, electric cars need to get cheaper for it to be truly worth it.
Didn't know about this! Added to the wishlist.