I'm only half kidding. I'm a bit of a prepper and I have lots of powerbanks and devices that charge from USB but besides idling my truck I really had no other way to charge any of them in case of a long-term power outage which seemed a bit of an oversight on my part.

Not like this solves the issue. 30 watts (under ideal conditions) isn't much but it's a start.

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[–] 1 point 1 month ago* (1 child)

Time, in hours (H), equals average solar kilowatt hours per month (K), multiplied by the price of one kilowatt hour (P), divided by the total cost (C) of all the purchased components.

H = (K * P) / C

So you're dividing the average saving per month by the total cost and expecting to get hours?

If we generously estimate a very high 3000kWh/month generated and high $0.40/kWh price and it cost OP $9000, then you formula is (3000×0.40)/9000 = 0.133 hours.

Breaking even after less than 1 hour?!??! Extraordinary!

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  • [–] -1 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    It's pretty easy to cry about bad math, but it's a lot harder to figure out the right math.

    Don't worry, I'll try to do it for you again a second time.

    Power consumption varies. Use the average monthly power draw from the solar array, let's assume for demonstration purposes 1,000 kWh/month.

    Multiply that by the cost of 1 kWh from the power company, let's say 20 cents.

    In one month, that means you saved $200.

    Let's assume the solar equipment costs $1,000.

    The answer is 5 months, or 5,000 kWh.

    Sorry, I'll make sure the free work I do for you is better quality next time.

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