RE: DC-> AC Power Switching

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "Steve Conner" <steve.conner@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi,

All this stuff goes under the name of embedded (or distributed) generation.
I did my PhD on it. If you're a sucker for punishment you can download a PDF
of my thesis here

http://www.scopeboy.com/elec/RE/

As part of this work I analysed the economics of lead acid battery storage.
With the deep cycle batteries I was using, it was not economical to store
energy in them and sell it to the grid. The cost of wear and tear on the
batteries (they wear out with time, and eventually won't hold a charge and
need replaced) meant that the system couldn't turn a profit unless it could
buy electricity for free and sell it for more than 50 cents/kWh. The cost of
electricity here is about 10 cents/kWh so it was a complete non-starter.

The economics would be different with (say) car batteries bought from
Wal-mart- they cost less but won't last so long because they are not
designed for deep cycling. I show how to calculate it in the thesis.

You might also be interested in the cheap and nasty (and almost safe-ish)
grid-intertied inverter I built for selling energy back to the power
company. This project was what got me interested in solid-state Tesla
coiling.

Steve Conner