About Crisis Energy Solutions
Hello. My name is Bob Elwell. I’m the engineer, president, and owner of a company called Energy Crisis Solutions. I also have another engineering company called Procade Technologies that I started up in Erie, Pennsylvania, about eight or nine years ago. I’ve been developing products for close to 40 years. Electromechanical and plastics.
So as you can tell in the United States right now, the economy is changing, the politics are changing, and our country seems to be in trouble. And as we affectionately refer to that, the zombies are coming. Since we noticed this a few years back, we actually started getting involved with planting vegetables in our basement, trying to grow them as best as we could. We were actually getting some production out of our vegetables in our basement as part of our preparation. We also went to the gun range, did some target shooting, and stocked up on a few things to help us.
as part of our preparation, we started talking about solar. We planned on looking at creating a small off-grid system that we basically wanted to power our small refrigerator or freezer and any other computer appliances that we might have. We wanted it to be portable, put it on a cart with wheels, and make it adjustable to aim directly at the sun, both winter and summer.
A small system, 2 to 3000 watts Pure Sign wave inverter. And then we would use the batteries off our boat to start. And then, down the road, we planned on upgrading to lithium batteries to support long-term battery life and more power. Since I’m an engineer, I just took the basic CAD system I use all the time, and I designed this cart with some two-by-fours and some plywood. And then, I went out and purchased some of the components offline and put them together. As part of the package, I went to a Home Depot and found some small, cheap panels that were only like 85 bucks apiece for 100 watts. And they were small enough that I could put two panels on each rack. Part of the design. I put together drawings to show how to cut the components and build them reasonably quickly. And the same thing goes for the solar panel rack that I made adjustable to go from 24 to 72 degrees.
Here’s a picture of the assembly of the electronic components as we started to get it completed and tested. And here we have 64.5-kilowatt-hours on this system so far at the time of the picture. We brought the solar panels out of the garage, put them outside on the deck, and started running the office off it.
In 2019, things seemed to ramp up pretty quick. A lot of things started going wrong. We have the COVID epidemic. We had global and local lockdowns all throughout the states and the world. And it was right around that time that we decided that we better start ramping things up, and it’s time to move south and start preparing for retirement and warmer weather and get out of the snow
Then our solar panels since they were portable. We also brought those down and spread those out in the backyard. Started getting those into production, running the house, especially my office. Once we were down here, we thought having a more efficient controller with more features would be a little better. So we replaced the grade. PWM system with the Victron MPPT its Bluetooth capable and can talk to our smartphones. Here’s a picture of the chart showing the voltage of the solar system and the battery and how it’s charging over time. And a couple other charts show 34.9 amps on the absorption side and then another 27.9 on the box side.
Since the United States is undergoing many traumatic changes, we’re starting to run into food shortages. We’ve got the oil and electric crises going on, ramping up rapidly. Russia is attacking Ukraine, which is starting to affect food and other global shortages. The United States inflation rate is, they’re saying, 8{82e12e166b173ab2d2e0ab2f412c23135090a7be6d18ec2ba18cd722c7ddfa50}, but other people are reporting 15 to 20{82e12e166b173ab2d2e0ab2f412c23135090a7be6d18ec2ba18cd722c7ddfa50}. And the electric rates across the United States seem to be going up 3, 4, 5, or 6{82e12e166b173ab2d2e0ab2f412c23135090a7be6d18ec2ba18cd722c7ddfa50}. Florida, right now, I’m hearing that Tampa is going to increase its electrical rates by 18{82e12e166b173ab2d2e0ab2f412c23135090a7be6d18ec2ba18cd722c7ddfa50} over the next three years.
So as we jokingly said before, the zombies are here now, and it’s time for me to start upgrading our plan. So we started stocking up on food, vegetables, fruits, pasta, and other things. Started growing vegetables in our garden and, again, back to our solar panel. Started getting those out and using them more and more often. And since we were down here, we decided that maybe we upgrade our system to a complete ten K system would be better. And here’s a picture from Google Earth where we will plan to put our panels. And I started contacting local solar companies to give me some system quotes.
Quotes for solar from other companies
25 Panels for $62,228
31 Panels for $35,901
31 Panels 47,669
31 Panels for 48,644
25 Panels for $46,000
And as you can see, the quotes are all over the place. I think the lowest one was in mid-thirties. Our highest was 80,000, but they didn’t record that on this chart. They presented a lot of different information. Electric capabilities are based on the time of day, the month, and the system’s total cost. And 62,000 was one of the higher prices that we got. And the solar production and the amount of savings and then the payback. And as time went on, I started looking at how this would be done.
And I started my own design, and I quickly realized that what they told me was not necessarily as accurate as needed. It was alarming. It was costly. The warranties weren’t quite working as they wanted, and the financing charges were expensive. The interest rates were hidden. There were hidden fees. There were a lot of misrepresentations and lying going on. And so I decided to. I’d start my own company. And that’s why we came up with the Energy Crisis Solutions Company name.
The charge card percentages are going up because of the banking, the interest rates, the bank loans, and property values are settling down. And in some cases, house appraisals are leveling out depending on where they may be going down in the country. The zombies are definitely coming in. Inflation is dramatically increasing worldwide, not just in the United States. And in some cases, I view that as a possible crisis level. So the break-even point for paying off solar systems may be moving and making the payback more difficult. The selling proposition we’re trying to offer here is that it’s a crisis-based solution that focuses on what you need, not what they want to sell.
Yearly Breakdown showing Savings over 25 years
We can do small, quick portable systems and smaller, cheaper systems. And we will offer applications and engineering, not just selling the system. And since we’re a smaller company, we have less overhead, lower rates, fewer people involved in the system, and fewer people to pay for. Our systems are more flexible., and it allows for smaller systems. We can even help people who want to do things independently and create portable systems. If you have any projects that you want us to take a look at or you have quotes from other people, please look at giving us a call. Our number is 3526007473. Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks.