Quote Originally Posted by Gregg View Post
(On storage) That little line deserved its own quote box. Let me know if you figure out how to do this, I'd be happy to throw in some seed money. So far its been the holy grail for a bunch of pretty sharp guys who are trying to figure the secret out.
Well, you can do *some* things sort of easily.

Every day around here somewhere, the sun evaporates ocean water. Which eventually falls, and lands on the mountain here, which we catch and store in a large reservoir that provides about half the water supply to our village. It's not big enough for Real Hydropower, and we wouldn't have overflow most of the year anyways, we fill it up during the several months of real rain, then drink it down the rest of the year.

But. It has to flow down the mountain to the village to drink. And that is a huge pressure head, about 1100 feet. So high a pressure that the system has a series of old pressure-reducing valves along the way. Which are all failing as they age and being replaced.

Replaced with microhydro generators, if we play our cards right. Which will generate enough electrical power to run our water system off of. And when water use is up, power generation will naturally be up. Yay!

Not a general solution, of course. I find the best way to store solar power in my house is with large masses that absorb the heat during the day and release it at night. My next home will be built to be very very stingy with electrical use (12v LED lighting, gravity-flow systems instead of pumps, etc.), and heavy on the passive solar.