Friends, Lurkers, Xenomorphs, Lend Me Your Ears!

[Occhidiangela]

Try Popular Mechanics and Scientific American from about 1980 to 1990. During that period, after the early 80's tax credit for adding certain solar accessories to the home, a considerable fount of 'good ideas' were spawned when people predicted that energy prices would keep going up. Local Library may be helpful.

OPEC's greed and the desire to feed economies and bank accounts made for lower prices, and some advances in technology made some reserves previously un economical more readily exploited. Coal got a political boost with some rather interesting decisions that I can only call hopeful.

That said, the solar power most frequently used in those days were roof top arrays of panels, costing in the thousands, that generally faced "south." Tied to them was the hot water heating system, in the shape of pipes that circulated water through the arrays to keep the hot water bill down. A few of my neighbors had them on the rooves of their town homes, and were pleased, though that does not solve your refrigeration problem.

Refrigerators require a cooling cycle, which hot water from solar panels did not in those days get much of a payoff per square foot of panel. Since you don't have zoning issues, in terms of local Home Owners' association tenets regarding how your property looks, I'd guess that you have available solutions that not all home owners have.

Wind mills? What is the average, peak and mean prevailing wind in our area, and how tall of a pole can you put up before you kick yourself for uglifying the landscape? Look at photos of the windmill farms out near Palm Desert California to get a sense of a windmill that gives you a pay off for the size of airfoil/fan. Small fans probably won't do it, and as you have already surmised, considerable reserve storage capacity is a necessity. A windless day in So Car in the summer may draw a lot of kWh while you wait for the next breeze. :)

I am pretty certain that the latest generations of solar panels can be easily found in either Scientific American or Popular Mechanics, but I noted when I looked into it that the best models were either out west, where humidity was low, or in the Northeast, where a combination of passive sloar heat (rocks that soak up the sun's heat in the day to release at night) and solar panels made for partially solar abodes.

The high heat high humidity environments did not seem to get as many write ups, and when I was in the market, that combination was NOT economicaly practical for most homeowners.

Natural Gas took care of the rest of the argument in the 90's.

However, I do not think that, if you are working on the premise of principle rather than cost effectiveness, that is an obstacle for you.

I'd say Google is your best be to find the latest Sq Foot kWh specs, as well as storage specs. The option is there for those with the dough.

For example, here are a few specs to whet your appetite: Some Solar Panels

For a few windmill ideas, this site asks the right questions.

Something for 21st Century Don Quixote to tilt at!

Look at your generator capacity and what it lets you do, then figure out how many panels you need ot replicate it, or how to replicate what % of it you want to draw from the sun, the wind, or both. Depending on your district and State laws, the local power companies may have to buy from you your excess capacity. Check So Car laws on that.

I'd love to see what you finally settle on.