Florida “Gutting” Energy Efficiency Goals, Terminating Solar Power Rebates

Just something for you to check out,
“used car battery for less than 5,000$”
My storage situation is all set for now thanks to a sealed lead acid battery pack that was designed for backup power at a cellphone tower site that a local battery supply company let me get for a very reasonable price to avoid the hassle of shipping to South America.
Out of curiosity though last winter I checked with a friend that manages a well known name auto supply store about the prices of car battery packs. It would have to have been sold to me with the deception to the supplier that it was for use in a car. However used and new Leaf batteries were available with various degrees of warranty from a cost of 3500-5800$. We couldn’t figure out just how much of the control hardware/circuitry came with it or needed to be transferred from the old one, so that is a consideration that needs to be taken into account.
As for setting up storage to buy power from the utility at a low price and sell back at a higher one, I have read that they are rather strict on approving systems that include storage to make sure that that doesn’t happen, but maybe you could get away with it.
But as for going offgrid, by my pseudonym, you might see that I am all for it. If you have or can acquire the knowledge and skills to set up and manage your own system it will lead to tremendous savings. We are heading into our ninth year of doing so and with all the comforts of a grid tied home just managing our supply and usage with the various technologies available have spent a lot less than what our utility bills would have been through that same time period. What got me started was the ridiculous price and conditions that the utility wanted before even starting to charge me a monthly bill. Our total system and upgrades through the years haven’t even cost what that original investment to be grid tied would have cost.
So as long as the sun continues to shine and the winds continue to blow, I will continue to be Offgridman.

Definitely sure about the savings as compared to what we used to spend, our electric bills for my workshop/studio and our home used to run 150 – 250$/month depending upon the time of year nine years ago.
Now some of the savings come from consolidating onto a single property where I built my retirement home and new studio, but most of it was due to prior experience as an electrician so it was possible to design and build the system on my own. Also getting wire and junction boxes from the scrap yard, and building my own racks contributed, along with wheeling and dealing on all of the purchases beginning with panels and wind turbine on through the high efficiency appliances and batteries.
However none of what we have purchased would have gone over the initial cost of 30-40,000$ just to get grid fed power in here from my neighbors property. The variability in cost is because even after I cut down all of the trees and marked out the exact path for the buried feed the utility refused to give me an exact cost and just said well it is going to cost at least this much $$$. So dig the ditch and we will be back within 60 days to inspect, and be back within 90 days after that to lay the wire. So I was expected to keep a four foot deep ditch close to 500 feet long cleaned out and ready for the wire for up to five months.
This really gave me the impression that they did not want my patronage for their services.
As to a smaller amount of panels, with the costs what they were 8 years ago we have been getting by with 2.7 Kw in panels and a 2 Kw wind turbine. With the way prices have dropped over the past few years I am planning on adding a couple of Kw of straight east and west facing panels next year to spread our collection time during the winters.

“party of vested interests”
Yes it is quite obvious to anyone that makes even a meager attempt to ‘follow the money’ as we say.
My current hope is that in ’16 we will get the larger turnout of voters that usually happens for presidential elections, and by that time have them well enough informed to vote for the people that will actually do what the majority of us want. Ie: do something about changing our energy production to more renewable sources, and work towards mitigating our causes of climate change, and get rid of the ‘good old boy’ nnetwork that is controlled by the fossil fuel interests.
Doing what I can to inform family, friends, and neighbors of the penalties if we don’t make these necessary (and common sense) changes, and remind them of the power we have if we will all just take the time to go vote.