| "Early DC power stations had a dynamo for every light bulb. Source unknown." I have no idea where they got that picture either. Edison's Pearl St. station did not work that way, and that was the first power station. The generator shown is Edison's famous "long-waisted Mary Ann". But Edison never built a one generator per bulb power station. He was able to calculate ROI [1]. This is probably some conceptual drawing of what would have been necessary had the "subdivision of the electric light" (a hot issue around 1889)[2] had not been accomplished. "In other words, a DC electrical system could make a solar PV system more energy efficient." Not clear that it matters much in terms of raw conversion efficiency. Solar inverters are now up around 96-98% efficiency. If you're going to have batteries, you need something that handles battery charging, discharging, and some constant output, and while you can get all that stuff for 12VDC or 24VDC, it's not any more efficient than outputting 120VAC. The real argument they're making is to save power by using small boat or RV sized appliances. They're available, efficient, undersized, and about 3x as expensive as line-powered units.[3] [1] https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674423640 [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/040152a0.pdf [3] https://www.thecabindepot.com/collections/appliances |