[groar]

Originally Posted by Piwoslaw

OK, either the pixels on my screen are drunk, or this is WILD!!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're reselling back to the utility for 5 times more than you buy?

That's it. This is because European Union asks all European countries to have a certain percentage of renewable energy. I don't know about Germany, except PV is much more present there than in France. I know that main European help stopped for Spain and Italy and selling price has dropped dramatically for new installations, lowering the number of new installations. Current French rates are known for new installations until end of 2009. For 2010 the rates are always unknown and the incentives may be lowered by 20%.

Would your utility sign a contract with me if I laid a cable across Germany to France?
Would it be possible for you to have some kind of battery set-up, allowing you to buy electricity at night and sell it back during the day? Would anyone notice? Even if a battery system is 70% efficient, you'd still be making money, and relieving the utility's day load at the same time.

My selling contract is limited in number of kWh sold by year. Nobody in France should be able to achieve such an amount. They know exactly all the details of my installation and could detect if my system works "too well". They can get the value of my selling counter whenever they want from the street without having to enter my property. Their selling counter also has a system that is able to detect if I'm directly reselling electricity that I'm buying to them.

About such an "hypothetical" system, to add 10% to my production would earn 170€/year.
You would have to use a battery with a capacity of a car battery for it to last at least one year. It would cost 50€.
You would also need an inverter that is able to do 12V DC to 220V 50Hz AC which is able to feed a synchronized current with the grid. The smallest I know costs 600€ and needs much higher voltages to work.
You would also need to design a system to limit the additional power, the best would be proportional to the power you generate. This would be priceless

[ranting and whining]
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[/ranting and whining]

In France lots of wind turbine projects are stopped for bad reasons : noise, "cancer"... and some cities prevent PV when they can be seen from the street !!!
In Spain in April the consumption lowered by 15%. They mainly disconnected the wind turbines because stopping nuclear or coal plants is too complicated

Denis.