Buick and Deere has an excellent point. You can buy 100W solar panels for $75 each, and a "grid tie" inverter for $100. The "grid tie" inverters are "plug and play" and automatically disconnect when line voltage is lost so you don't shock the utility workers when the power goes out. That obviously doesn't help in the event of a power outage, but you can have a backup generator for that. So for $400 you can be up and running with a 400W system. In my snowy, cloudy zip code, at my local 11.7 cents/Kw-hr, that system will pay for itself in about 7 years. A typical house will need a 3600W system, but you can build the system incrementally with the money saved after the first investment.
"Saving" money through solar or wind energy is much easier than "making" money. This is because if you grid-tie, you're essentially selling your own power to yourself at retail rates. However, any excess is sold to the utility, typically at wholesale rates. The utility is legally not allowed to pay more for power it is buying. So if you size your system to provide maybe 80% to 100% of your daytime need, and buy your power at night, you'll *save* money. But if you want to invest in batteries, storage, and over-sized solar arrays to provide *all* your energy needs to go off-grid or stay on-grid and sell some back, then you're in for some big money. Unless you live in prime solar territory like Arizona, it will be very difficult to make this system pay. You might be energy independent, but it will be very expensive.
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Today's Featured Article - Hydraulics - Cylinder Anatomy - by Curtis von Fange. Let’s make one more addition to our series on hydraulics. I’ve noticed a few questions in the comment section that could pertain to hydraulic cylinders so I thought we could take a short look at this real workhorse of the circuit. Cylinders are the reason for the hydraulic circuit. They take the fluid power delivered from the pump and magically change it into mechanical power. There are many types of cylinders that one might run across on a farm scenario. Each one could take a chapter in
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