Reply #17: That's pretty cool.

[Gregorian]

I seem to remember a multiple junction cell that was in development by Lawrence Labs at Berkeley, only a few years ago.

I'm really more concerned about the batteries. I can always buy more photovoltaics. But I don't want to end up with a herd of big lunking lead acid batteries.

And my loads are big enough that I'll need a fairly large system. I don't see this in the same light as the computer comparison. Well, actually that isn't a bad comparison. But the thing about computers is they've been changing so fast. This is more like computers in 1985. Now that was awful. So the comparison would be that I have a IBM 286 with 56k of ram, and I know that we're not just jumping to the 386, but we're making a huge leap. That's my concern. I see photovoltaic and battery technology both making big improvements.

I'm so darned excited about all of this. It's a shame it wasn't more of a national priority. A real shame. So here we are.

I'm most likely going to bring the power company lines in. Then I'll have a grid tied system. Screw the batteries. For now.

I can't wait!