Letter to the editor: Alternate energy's learning curve

I was instrumental in building, operating and repairing local power plants over 20-plus years. Upon retirement, my sons and I built my own solar-powered system four years ago. What an agonizing learning curve. The capital cost was significant; I used no government subsidies.

My local electric utility bill tells me a wealth of information. Most importantly, how many kilowatts of power per day and month do I use? This allowed me to size the number of solar panels, inverters and type of batteries needed to meet my household needs.

Three years later, this is what we learned. Is it worthwhile? Maybe. The variations in the watts per day vary greatly. The number of cloudy days requires many more solar panels to ensure enough power to recharge the batteries necessary to keep watts flowing for a single day. Extended short solar days (winter) require more batteries in case of lingering cloudy days. So now I have three times the number of original solar panels and four times the number of batteries.

At the end of year three, I added a windmill to supplement what the solar panels could not make and the batteries could not store. Wind in hilly Western Pennsylvania is not consistent, so the windmill’s performance was disappointing.

Alternate energy has a place in the future, but there will be pains and darkness while learning. Also, do not forget to make all of these solar and windmill parts. Do not turn off the gas and coal and nuclear power plants until you solve the other alternate energy issues.

Raymond J. Borkoski

Ford City