Having owned a small solar system for a year now, I have a few things to say with a tribulation outlook.
Some people like to have a sense of security for future emergencies, not minding large expenditures in return for peace of mind, but if you would feel sore to have made large purchases for tribulation purposes, if the trib did not arrive in your lifetime, then you should be as wise as possible when it comes to purchasing solar power for tribulation use. If even the Apostles were on earth today, I don't think they could give you an answer to the timing of the 70th Week. I regret that I cannot at this time, March 31, 2010.
Perhaps you should not purchase your solar panels just yet, as there is a new thin-film type (using cadmium telluride instead of silicon) promising to cost as little as one dollar per watt; i.e. a surface area providing 100 watts at peak sun times should soon cost only $100. I don't like to put words in God's mouth, but what if He is indirectly providing these cheaper types for tribulation use? Shouldn't it mean that it's okay to put off purchasing until they're available everywhere at low prices? Wikipedia has an article on thin films:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_telluride_photovoltaicsI was "fortunate" when the electric company wanted about $12,000 to install power to my new property. It made going solar easier; I took the plunge with an estimated $12,000 cost that includes eight 130-watt panels and eight 530-amp batteries (and some propane appliances), which is considered a small solar system...but it's enough for me alone.
My Kyocera panels (not thin film) are listed at $426.40 (US) each at this webpage, or $3.28 per watt. There are others at less than $3. While thin-film panels should be cheap enough by 2010-12 to make costs a virtual non-concern, batteries are still fairly expensive (mine were about $250US each). The good news is, we shouldn't need many batteries, and the present world-emphasis on battery improvements may bring their costs down just in time for your needs. The battery charger (mine $400) and the inverter (mine $1,600) to convert the solar power to AC are also significant in cost. After these expenditures, you'll be off to the...well, not exactly the races.
One thing that I've learned: it would be a good idea for all tribbers to have at least four panels and four batteries. You can run power tools when you need them, often enough for building shelters if there are not too many workers at the same time. Washing clothes in a washer, no problem. Some light-bulb operation at night. Want music? No problem. Need to use the computer (laptops use far less power than desk tops)? No problem. The four panels will do it in many times of the year.
A water pump takes very little power for your household needs if it's pumping horizontally, say from your rain barrels to a pressure tank in the house. Pumping vertical is another matter. The depth of water in a well and width of pipe combine to determine how much wattage is needed to bring it up. Your pump's tag will inform you on the approximate amps/wattage used. I have a small submersible pump (1/6 HP) that, according to a typical watt meter, uses about 230 watts when pumping horizontally 20 feet and vertically three feet in a 1.25" pipe. I don't know whether it's correct to say that a 1/3 HP motor would use twice that wattage, but it sounds about right.
Using four of my panels, with a total maximum output of 520 watts, the pump above would run without using batteries, most times of the year (i.e. may not be able to achieve 230 watts in winter), in the middle periods of the day, even if sunlight is shining through some thin clouds. That's very important if you have a garden beside a water body of some sort (like me, you can route roof or ground water into a cistern/tank). In other words, get a pump low enough in wattage that it can run on your panel power alone, because you won't want to use up your batteries if you can help it.
Without batteries, one can only have power as the sun shines. The 130-watt panels can only bring in 130 watts each when the sun's angle is straight on, and when the sun's position is at "high noon." This means that each panel can only run two 60 watt bulbs at peak sun conditions. It's so precious little it makes you want to cry, especially as the sun is often on a significant morning/evening angle.
My four deep-cycle batteries are six volts each for a total of 24-25 volts of electric "pressure." They are rated at about 450-530 amp-hours (depending on the rate of discharge), meaning that the company promises them to provide roughly 500 amps x 24 volts = 12,000 watts for one hour...or 1,200 watts for 10 hours, etc. However, to keep batteries healthy, one should not let them regularly discharge to less than half capacity before recharging them, meaning that I have 6,000 watt-hours available for use on each recharge cycle. That may sound not-bad, but my four panels cannot recharge the four batteries in a single day because they provide less than 530 watts per hour. It can take up to a dozen days, in other words, if there is lots of cloud cover, or the sun is low in the sky. It makes me want to cry. I mean, $12,000 for what??? For daily piddle and, on some days, electrical constipation?
It gets worse, but I do have some good news. Fridges have recently become much more efficient, which allowed the risk of purchasing a small electric fridge (it is two-foot square, 55" high, 11 cubic feet), but without freezer. Its annual usage in normal household conditions is rated at 306,000 watt-hours (306 kWh), or an average of about 840 watt-hours daily. A watt meter (simply plugs into your wall outlet) showed that the fridge ran on 130 watts, suggesting that it runs 840/130 = 6.5 hours per day = 16 minutes per hour.
PLUS, the fridge doesn't need to be turned on constantly. If I plug it in for an hour in late-afternoon, it will still be cool by morning. Imagine how much better the situation would be with, say, four inches of foam insulation on the fridge walls. In fact, that idea is what caused me to look into an electric fridge in the first place i.e. to forego a propane fridge (= very expensive) altogether.
With the four panels and four batteries, I cannot leave this fridge on 24/7 and still get sufficient recharging of batteries in most times of the year. But, I can use it to my hearts content during sunny periods in most months, especially the hottest months when it's needed most. I have found that freezers use about the same amount of power. I just couldn't believe it. I shall have a freezer for the tribulation, so help me God.
BUT, rather than spending $500 on a new small fridge/freezer, you might do better to use (in the trib) the larger appliance(s) you now have, and put the $500 toward an extra one or two solar panels to help power it. It's your ballgame, your homework; you've got to do the math and make the decisions.
When trying to decide how much power your own fridge will use, I don't think one goes by the amp rating stamped on the unit's back. For example, if it's rated at seven amps (as my old one was), it should use much less in normal operation (seven amps = 120 volts x 7 = 840 watts). Unfortunately, I don't know exactly how much that fridge used, for while I now own a watt meter (about $40), I don't have the appliance anymore.
New fridges inform the customer (let's hope they are accurate) on expected annual wattage, making it fairly easy to approximate the wattage it runs on. If the fridge uses 365,000 watts annually, it's 1,000 watts daily and 42 watts per hour. But fridges don't run constantly. If one runs for 20 minutes on the hour (i.e. 1/3 the time), it's operating on (42 / .33 =) 126 watts. It sounds unbelievably great, and it is. It's as much as two 60-watt bulbs.
To give you an idea of what you'd be looking at, the figures being thrown at me by the sales people and battery people claim that an appliance running on 42 watts per hour can get about (6,000 / 42 =) 140 hours (or 6 days) of operation, per cycle of my four fully-loaded batteries, for they tell me that the four contain 6,000 available watt-hours per cycle (when cycles are to the point of 50-percent discharge). Assuming that there is no stretching of the truths (unfortunately, according to my experiments, there's a great stretching of the truth), you've still got to consider that 1) it takes dayS of sunlight to re-charge the four batteries with four 130-watt solar panels, and, 2) batteries become less efficient with every passing cycle.
This is why inexpensive thin-film panels are important. The film doesn't last as many years, nor capture as much energy per area, but for trib purposes, who cares? The main goals are: 1) using no battery power if possible, and, 2) getting batteries recharged as quickly as possible, and as full as possible. The more panel power, the better. However, I don't know but near squat on using thin-film panels. Until one has personal experience on a product, perhaps one shouldn't give thumbs-up so hastily. What I'm suggesting is that we should look into thin-film once it's available at low-enough cost.
Instead of one fridge, having two small "bar fridges" is a consideration for times when you don't need the whole of one. Or, one unit might be used for keeping colder temperatures, saving power on the one that can stay warmer. BUT, I chose the larger unit because, I was told by the salesman, a small bar fridge uses nearly as much power. BUT, the reason may be due to the unit's insulation rather than a less-efficient pump and/or heat exchanger. I would strongly recommend insulating all trib fridges to the hilt. I'll report back here what electrical savings I get after insulating mine, but in any case, you KNOW that you'll go further with extra insulation, so plan on it.
In winter, I can use the outdoors to cool the fridge, for I arranged the other side of the kitchen wall to be an unheated storage room between kitchen and garage. The wall behind the fridge can therefore be opened to let cold air to its back side, and thereby to the other sides, tops, and bottoms...but without letting the cold air into the house. In other words, if you haven't yet built your trib retreat, you can do the same just in case you need it.
Also, for the handyman, here's an idea. With heat-exchanger tubes (normally on the back of fridges) located in the cold, they will release heat faster, requiring the fridge to operate less time. However, I haven't as yet checked to see whether the fridge's condenser pump or exchange system will be adversely affected in any way by being in the cold. The potential problem is that the chemical in the tubes may not liquefy, and may therefore spoil the heat-exchange process. However, I tend to doubt that this would be a problem, but aim to ask the fridge people anyway. What I'd like to do is to disconnect the heat-exchanger tubes from the back of the fridge so that I can also insulate the back. It's counter-productive to release heat near the fridge...which is why I'd also like to re-locate the tubes further away. I don't see why one couldn't locate the tubes outdoors, or in an unheated crawl space under the house.
The storage room itself will be a walk-in freezer when it's cold enough, and a walk-in fridge when average temperatures are at/above freezing. That will give the fridge motor a break just when it's needed most, in winter, when the sun crosses lowest across the sky...a time that is tough to get through with only four panels and four batteries...unless your area has a high number of "sun hours" per day. A sun hour is the equivalent of an hour's sunlight from a directly-overhead (or high-noon) position. See the website below for a U.S. sun-hour map and other information.
http://sunelec.com/index.php?main_page=page_2There's a global sun-hour map at http://lreese911.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/solorpower.pdf
Specific solar systems (i.e. number of panels versus batteries, etc) are usually designed based on low sun-hour rates so that households will have enough power to get through winters with minimized generator back-up. But you don't need to follow this rule if you have other methods of keeping your foods cold, if you minimize your lighting (dimmer switches sound like a great idea), reduced oven cooking, hang clothes to dry, etc.
Four 130-watt panels receiving three sun hours daily is a total of just (130 x 4 x 3 / 24 =) 65 watts per hour for 24 hours, i.e. 65 watts constant on average all year long (this is the math you'll be doing with your particular situation). To recharge four batteries like mine when they're 50 percent discharged would then require about (6,000 watts / 65 =) 92 hours, or about four days...on average i.e. it could be as long as eight or even a dozen days in periods with much cloud cover. Doubling the number/area of panels but still using four batteries would get you through a winter much better and safer.
I say "safer" because batteries not charged sufficiently suffer damage. If you use batteries for long periods while they are constantly 40-50 percent discharged, they will be threatened with near-ruination. Batteries need to be brought up to a full charge every so often. This is a major trib problem. If one can't operate a generator to charge the batteries when the sun, over repeated long periods, is unable to, batteries will suffer sulfating. PLUS, batteries need to be "equalized" from time to time, which is a process of burning away their sulfates with a good shot of higher-than-charging voltage...a job that solar panels CANNOT handle. An alternative electrical source is needed for equalization; one can use a generator as well as solar panels (preferred over solar panels) when the grid electrical system is unavailable.
So, while adding more panels makes it more certain that four batteries are brought to fully-charged conditions more often, a generator, I think, is still needed for burning away any sulfates that are built up by under- and irregular-charging. The trib-problem is, I don't think batteries can go three years or more without high shots of voltage (in the range of 31 or 32 for a 24-volt battery system). My battery provider (Surrette) suggests equalization every three months to keep batteries working at their optimum.
So where's the problem? Charging batteries with a generator = $$$ of gas needed. That, along with the cost of a good propane generator, only makes the solar headache more intense. This is where it reaches migraine levels. I opted for a propane generator, even though it costs much more than a gas/diesel one, because propane has a long shelf life (years) while gas/diesel may spoil significantly after one year (or less). The bad news is, I succumbed (even though I had been warned) to the temptation of purchasing a cheaper ($1,100) generator (brand = "All-Power") made in China (reliable brands cost $2,000-5,000 for a comparable 6-kilowatt unit).
I had ridiculous breakdowns right away. For example -- and this is a good lesson passed on to you -- it had a plain, un-reinforced (i.e. no fibers/threads in the rubber) water hose (!) acting as the propane hose, and it cracked after three months in the cold. All the propane in the tank was wasted out the cracks, something that you MUST prevent in the trib if all you have is the one tank of propane. You don't want to lose your entire trib supply of propane for a faulty hose. Shut the propane supply to the generator off when it's not in use, even if you purchase a reliable generator brand.
It might be better, and cheaper, to have three sets of batteries, one for each year of the trib, so long as they are re-charged from time to time over the long periods when sitting around waiting to be used. I left a set of four batteries for three months over a winter and they were only about 25 percent diminished. They could go a couple more months.
BUT, having a generator available in the trib might prove crucial for having strong electrical currents that your solar system cannot provide. Your system will only be able to provide what its inverter can provide. The higher the inverter provision, the higher the inverter cost (the inverter is the "machine" that turns the DC of the panels>batteries to usable AC.
I had no shortage of electricity (and therefore no headaches) over the past summer months. And bonus, I haven't needed the generator all summer. That's a good thing because it sits broken, unusable. Why? Two reasons. All-Power hasn't sent a new hose though it was ordered more than four months ago, even though their people promised three times to send it (seems like a near-scam company). Second reason, the hose comes permanently affixed to brass fittings (made in China, likely) not available in America so that I CANNOT repair it myself. That's another reason not to purchase any critical trib-thing from foreign makers.
All in all, whether to go solar in the trib is a tough decision, and an even harder one is whether to go solar before the trib. On the good side, you can start to pay for the solar system now by the money saved on the grid...if your generator usage doesn't eat up all that's saved. The cost of a propane tank adds still more to the cost of the gas inside it. You may or may not already own a tank, but for many these combined costs may get to the point where using the money to buy foods instead, before the trib starts, is more preferable than the solar system.
How about having many small barbecue tanks for generator use exclusively, as well as your own large tank for other uses? For safety reasons, barbecue tanks can only be used for so many years, and people dispose of the barbecue type even though they would likely go on working fine (without leakage) for many more years. How does one get several of them? Ask the hazardous-waste disposal site? Maybe Home Depot has a few aging tanks.
What if someone living on your property needs gas for a stove but he/she is situated hundreds of feet or more from your large propane tank? That's why it's good to know how to fill small tanks yourself. The website below tells how, and claims: "It's perfectly legal to refill them for personal use, however."
http://www.instructables.com/id/S2E7DNLFWKQKKCS/You might like to go solar as soon as you see the anti-Christ in the first half of the trib. I think that's a good plan. If you start three years before the skincode arrives, you'll be an experienced solar monkey when you need to be, and your batteries should easily live until the end of the 1260 days. There are short-life and long-life batteries; the longer they live, the more they cost. If you buy seven years ahead of the rapture, buy for a 10 or 12 year duration so that you can abuse them a little without their dying before the seven years are up.
Batteries don't live for x amount of time, technically, but have a maximum number of re-charging cycles before they become practically useless. The life of my batteries are rated in the ballpark of 1000-1200 cycles when regularly depleted to half capacity. Surrette has/had a chart online showing that their batteries give the most over their lives when the cycles are regularly to 40 percent discharge, but with solar, we can't keep regular cycles anyway, so the only reason for this paragraph is to give an idea of how long into the trib you can expect them to last. If I do one cycle per week to 50% depletion, I get about 1000 weeks, or some 20 years. Therefore, one who aims for a lifespan of seven years in 1000-cycle batteries should use no more than about two such cycles per week, for an estimated lifespan of 10 years. But I don't think you'll get these spans because real life doesn't treat batteries at their best working conditions. The trib rule will always be: use as little battery power today as possible so that batteries are not threatened as much for the many tomorrows.
And that's another reason to get more panels, because panels last for many more years, and involve no cycles. You can arrange to use your electric power mainly during sunny periods and use no battery power whatsoever at those times. Inverters are designed to automatically use panel power first, and dig into battery power only if panel power is insufficient. If you're going to use a high-watt appliance extensively, and you have the choice of midday versus dawn or dusk, you know the right choice.
Caution. Inverters are made with a "throat" size that allows a coughing up of only so many watts at any given time. Mine (Outback 3524) can cough up to 3,500 watts AC at any time there's demand (whenever an appliance or piece of equipment is turned on, that's "demand" to the inverter). You might not be able to use a 20-amp hand-held circular saw if your inverter can only get you a maximum of 2,000 watts. Either get a circular saw that operates on less power, or make sure the inverter is built to handle the load.
I think (= am not sure) that such power tools do not use the same wattage at all times. For example, my 20-amp saw does not always need 20 amps (= about 2400 watts); it might use 800 watts when running freely on no material; 1,000 watts when cutting thin plywood; and 1,200 watts when cutting 2 x 4s. Or, the harder you push the saw, the more power it will use...meaning, on the up-side, that if your inverter can't generally handle a certain tool, you may be able to use the tool more lightly and get away with it.
The sales people say that we can't combine a new battery pack with an aging one. Just so you know to inquire about this (my battery string/pack allows me to add new batteries when it is up to a year old without doing damage). In other words, you can't start using four batteries at the start, and add four more to the same battery pack in the heat of the Week...without doing some damage to the newer batteries and/or reducing battery effectiveness. I don't yet know how extensive that damage/adversity is. It may be somewhat acceptable, though not recommended, to add a new string to an old one, if absolutely needed. Inquire with the solar people before the trib is underway.
Or, you can have two separate battery systems, the old and the new, and charge both by the same panels. One can install a transfer switch that allows panel power to route either to one set of batteries or the other, but not both sets at the same time. I believe (= am not yet sure) that you'll need a separate inverter for each battery pack, and you may (= I am not sure) also need to have two separate circuits in the house. I'll report back when I get to solving that problem myself.
This is a little like raising infants into adults. The first and only time that you do it is your training session. Flunk the first time, and there's no chance to get it right the second time.
Don't trust sales people in this business. Don't even trust manufacturer claims. The solar industry is hard-up, and needs to hide some truths to get people to buy. You probably won't get results as rosy as promised. When I installed four new batteries, I kept a record of how much wattage I got from the time they were fully charged to half-discharged. I got less than 2,500 watts where I was supposed to get more than twice that much. I complained to Surrette, but because the batteries were at the freezing temperature at the time of the test, I have been instructed to do the test again in warmer weather, which I will do, and report back here.
On many days, you won't need any power aside from that for a water pump and solar-friendly light bulbs. One or two 9-watt fluorescent light bulbs can be sufficient to light a room. I use one bulb for plenty of light at the computer desk, equal to several candles. BUT, I just got wind of something I had not been told by the salesperson who sold the system. He did say that the inverter uses some 20 watts of power constantly, 24 hours per day, and that I can set it to Search mode to get it down to 6 watts when there's no demand, but he did not say what another salesman informed me of days ago, that the large inverter I'm using is not appropriate for small electric usage.
When I contacted Outback, tech-help said that an inverter even smaller (allows 2,000 watt demand) than mine has only about a 50 percent efficiency when the demand is 50 watts. In other words, when I'm using 40 watts on the laptop, and 9 watts in a bulb, and that's all I'm using, my 3,500-watt inverter is working so unlike it was designed that it's using two to three times the 49 watts. When power is scarce to begin with, that's a significant waste.
Looking into it, the story got worse. When using just 20 watts as one would with two bulbs, the efficiency of the 2,000-watt inverter drops to at least 15 percent. Even worse, when using only 10 watts, the efficiency is just 5 percent. My math tells me that a nine-watt bulb would therefore use up the nine watts DC plus 20 times as much, for a total of 180 watts DC just to produce 9 watts AC, and that's not including the 20 watts to run the inverter. It means that one will be hard-pressed to use a single light bulb when using this inverter in the system. My mistake could be your advantage: CHECK INVERTER EFFICIENCY if you plan on having low-power usage.
One alternative is to have two inverters, one providing high demand in case you need it, and the other being the everyday inverter that gets you your light bulbs in the evening without much waste. But you can't use both inverters at once unless you like touching one power wire to another (and frying the equipment). For safety reasons, use a transfer switch that automatically shuts one inverter off when turning the other one.
Another alternative is to wire light bulbs in a separate DC circuit system and forego the inverter; i.e. wire the power straight off the batteries. As I haven't yet wired most of the house, I can easily do so now for both AC and DC. Start off with an extra panel box for the DC system, and use 10 gauge wire throughout (so says the electric inspector) to all bulbs and their wall switches, each wire on a 5-amp breaker. Lower voltage currents (because they carry more amps) require heavier wire than standard 115-120 volt systems, but a quick look online shows that up to some 71 feet of mere 14 gauge wire can be used to wire any item using 3 amps (= 75 watts) on a 24-volt system. That should reach any part of the house, and larger currents would be no problem using 12 gauge wire (= a little thicker than 14 gauge), but my inspector wants 10 gauge just in case. See chart at: http://www.powerupco.com/technical/24VWireSizing.pdf
As you can see on the sun-hour map, the best places for solar power are in the western United States, west of and including Texas, while extreme-western Canada rates amongst the worst. But Canada gets lots of natural refrigeration to make up for it. Extreme-western Canada is not very cold in winter, and has high humidity (it rains nearly every day in some places, and I mean six days a week for nearly the entire winter; I know, I've lived on the north-west coast in winter).
In a trib situation, you might like to have your panels on/near the ground rather than on the roof. That's because trib survivors are not going to be inconvenienced to turn the panels by hand toward the sun in the morning, then turn the panels toward the sun at noon, then turn them toward the sun in mid afternoon. People who hold jobs daily don't like to do this, so they might purchase an automatic solar tracker. However, it is said that including just one or two more panels gives as much additional power as a solar tracker, so that most opt for the extra panel(s). Even so, if you have your panels on a pole in the ground, and you have arranged a method of turning them, you have that option in the trib to maximize power when you need it.
You can even have your panels on a platform equipped with simple hinges so that you can change from a winter angle to a summer angle, though if the angle is perfect for in-between (i.e. fall and spring), it might be just dandy to leave them fixed at that angle all year long. My angle is fixed on the roof, and favors the winter slightly (when it's needed most) more than the summer. I've installed mine high on the roof because I have tall trees. My roof slope is 16-12, or about 52 degrees.
I've used a unique system allowing the melting of the snow on the panels at will. Instead of installing the panels over the shingles, panels were laid over horizontal 2x4s nailed to the top of roof rafters. I plan on covering the bottom side of the rafters with plywood so that an enclosed space will exist under the panels. I then bring a furnace duct to the enclosed space, and run furnace heat into it when it snows. I'll arrange to shut the duct when I don't need to warm the panels. Of course, there is silicone-caulk between panels, and all around them, to keep rain out. For the little water that may get in, and for the high humidity that will develop when heated air hits the undersides of the panels, I'll have a water-proof catchment below the panels. I'm also water-proofing the roof rafters and 2x4s in the enclosed, heated space, as they will also be covered in water droplets throughout the heating process.
I've got to do this because the roof is too steep for getting on with a snow shovel, and the panels are too high to reach with a long instrument. The point is, if you're not in equatorial/tropical zones, you've got to deal with snow on your panels.
There is the problem of creating an ice bar on the roof at the lower end of the panels as snow on panels is melted repeatedly. It may not be possible to melt one or two feet of snow more than once or twice if the melted snow doesn't run off the roof as water (I've yet to see what results I get). But for those light snowfalls, or windy days, that can cover the panels for weeks at a time if the temperature stays cold enough, heating panels from below will at times be just the ticket. I could have the snow melt as it drops.
You can build your own solar panels for under $200 each; so is the online claim at http://www.greendiyenergy.com/indexcd.php. It doesn't look like a scam, but you are not told up front that you can't buy your own solar cells new from a solar-cell provider...because they deal only in high quantities of tens of thousands (someone should get into the business of supplying cells in small, do-it-yourself quantities). You can get a glimpse of the system at this video. The webpage below shows you (without charge) how to make your own panels for about $100, and should be sufficient information to indicate whether you would like to tackle it.
http://www.mdpub.com/SolarPanel/index.htmlI've bought another generator, a 2,400 watt Yamaha. It runs on gasoline but can be modified to propane for about $200. It's more expensive (about $1,300) than other gasoline models because it's an inverter generator, i.e. it has the ability to run slower, and therefore use less gas, at those times when the electric load is lighter. Other generators run at the same top speed even when they are providing the lightest loads. You see, the inverter (the other one, not the inverter generator) will regulate how much power is allowed into batteries when being charged by a generator. When the batteries are low, the inverter will allow the highest amounts of wattage, but as the batteries are in the process of topping up, the wattage is reduced to protect the batteries e.g. from over-heating. At those times, the generator need only produce small amounts, so if it can do so -- and the inverter generator can -- one will save gas. The generator is extremely quiet, no toleration needed.
Gasoline is out of the question for long-term trib use, as it has a short shelf life. Propane is the way to go, but propane generators cost a small fortune, so you may do what I did, buy a gasoline generator that can be modified to propane:
"Our do-it-yourself change over kits allow you to run your Honda gasoline generator on propane, natural gas, or all three. Your engine will last longer, start better in cold weather and even start next year when you go to use it in an emergency......If you have propane available you probably know you can store propane for years. It does not gum up, go bad, or pollute the air like gasoline does. Use the little bar-b-q grill type cylinders as shown above or up to the 1000 gallon ASME tanks."
The following webpage is not a Yamaha dealer, but promises to provide me with a tri-fuel carburetor kit, allowing the machine to run on any, gasoline, propane or natural gas at the turn of a switch:
"...You could run the generator from the [small propane] cylinder while camping and then, when you come home, you can connect the same generator right into a natural gas line or just fill the generators gasoline tank and run. That's right. It's as simple as turning one fuel off and the other fuel on."Here's the tri-kit and how it works.
Here's an article on battery charging. Don't confuse an inverter/charger with an inverter generator. The inverter/charger is what I've been calling an inverter. It not only converts DC to AC, but regulates battery charging. It's not the charger itself, but any charger, either the panels or the generator, cannot charge batteries without it:
http://www.energyalternatives.ca/SystemDesign/Chargers1.html
Here's a site for checking out generators and other solar-power ideas:
http://www.energyalternatives.ca/catalogue/Categories/12.htm