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Author Topic: Blasphemy..... Solar power.  (Read 148419 times)

carlb23

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #45 on: May 25, 2016, 11:32:14 AM »
I bought a old water collector kit on ebay that had never been assembled for 150 dollars with glazing.  It was a 8'x12' design which i incorporated into the south side of my shed wall that i was building.  I set the wall 65 degrees to horizontal for best sun collection in my area in the winter.   I used  three 75 gallon ( filled to about 210 gallons total or just under 800 liters) plastic drums that are in the basement to hold the water with a 50' copper coil in each tank.  The tanks are coupled together so the water flows from one to the other.  The cold water is taken from the bottom of the right tank and hot water returned to the top of the left tank.   The drums were 30 dollars each the controller was 75 dollars and i had the copper tubing .    Cold water comes into the house and goes through the copper coils in the drums before it is sent to the electric water heater.   In winter the storage tanks stay around 120 degrees during sunny days and only drop back to about 100 overnight.   If we have several days of clouds and snow/rain it will drop back to 70 to 80 degrees.  in ths summer that are topped off early @135 which is the cutoff temp i have set.

It is a open system and there is no pressure in the storage water tanks.  A small circulator pump moves the water when the panels are hot enough as determined by the controller

I only have about 500 dollars US invested and it has been running very well for just under 2 years now.

LowGear

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #46 on: May 25, 2016, 04:19:12 PM »
BruceM:  
Quote
Casey, I was just wondering where all that power goes- A/C?  Is the house insulated? How many SF?  Solar hot water?  Electric clothes dryer?
 We have a one unit B&B and a live on site volunteer staff so (2) full sized fridges; (2) under-counter fridges; 1 regular hot water tank and one assisted; 1 electric cloths dryer; (2) 24-7 water features & (2) air - water pumps; 1 swimming pool; 1 electric cooker and a cadre of people that just can't figure out how to turn @*%%!ing stuff off.  We're at 1000 feet so AC isn't needed.  The house has an insulated ceiling but since we installed vents we've never felt heat from the ceiling.  We have a couple of windows that are only shut to clean them.  As I mention before a solar boost kinda like carlb23's only plumbed directly to the bottom of the electric tank is on the top of the project list.

glort:  
Quote
Solar panels don't generate a whole load of power from 10-7 But I have never heard of anyone having their water heaters set up to come on when the panels are generating and the homeowner could be making the most of that power instead of selling it for less than half of what they have to buy it back for.
 I use one.  It's set for 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM to suck off the solar excess and then from 5:00 AM to 6:00 AM just so we don't suffer first thing in the morning.  B&B guests have expectations.  Once in a while we have to reach in and trip the timer because I can't figure out how to schedule cloths washing during lunch.  It's also a nice time to run the dryer.  However We're on the old grid tie where a KW to the grid is the same as a KW out of the grid.  The new program much like glort described is why I balked at adding new solar especially when I learned that the entire site would be converted to the new program.  I thank the Utilities Commission every time I get a chance for selling us down the river.

carlb23:
I'm surprised I didn't read anything about insulating those tanks.  I'm thinking just pasteboard boxes would be noticed.

I don't blame HELCO at all.  The supreme commandment of most corporations is to deliver profit to the stockholders - after significant compensation to top management.  If you don't think this is Truth then you're in for many disappointments in your life.  HOWEVER: The Utilities Commission is compensated by the state to protect the interests of the people.  They are confused about their mission.

Casey
« Last Edit: May 25, 2016, 04:44:28 PM by LowGear »
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BruceM

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #47 on: May 25, 2016, 06:11:42 PM »
Here in AZ the biggest power co., APS,  has found a way around that annoying elected corporation commission problem-  they fund their own candidates and now control the commission.  Glad I'm no longer grid connected.

You're doing quite well on the power consumption considering all that you've got going, Casey.  Lets keep our fingers crossed for that big battery breakthrough that makes home storage a winner and the power co.s wail.




« Last Edit: May 26, 2016, 03:52:26 PM by BruceM »

carlb23

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #48 on: May 26, 2016, 11:54:10 AM »
[quote author=

carlb23:
I'm surprised I didn't read anything about insulating those tanks.  I'm thinking just pasteboard boxes would be noticed.



Casey
[/quote]

I just didn't mention it but they are contained in a 9'x4' box which is filled with blown in insulation about 20" all the way around the perimeter of the tanks. the top of the box is 6" of rigid foam.

BruceM

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #49 on: May 26, 2016, 04:02:46 PM »
Carl, you sure are a savy energy producer! The 80ish percent efficiency of direct solar hot water production is a real boon, despite all the plumbing.  My single 4x32' home-built hot water panel does almost all of my home space and domestic water heating.

LowGear

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #50 on: May 26, 2016, 04:49:21 PM »
Hey carlb23 and BruceM,

Hats off to you two. 

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mike90045

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #51 on: May 28, 2016, 08:10:34 AM »
micro inverters are nearly all grid tie models.   Sorry.  They won't sync to a rotating alternator, but may sync to a stable inverter-generator.  But then you develop high local grid voltage and fry things

LowGear

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #52 on: May 28, 2016, 05:01:30 PM »
Hi Glort,

Thanks for your consideration.  I'm working towards simple.  

I'm even unloading my bio-diesel equipment.  I'm still going to filter WVO but even when diesel was selling for $5.27 a gallon I just don't do enough fuel through flow to justify the time, and space.  Also a contact showed me his triple Duda filter into one container system that was world changing for me.

I hope you understand how dangerous DC is once you get 4 or 5 of those solar panels daisy chained.  Car batteries have sort of whispered us into lala land around DC.  Those prices are fantastic even if they're 10 years old and have lost maybe 1/3 of their capacity.

The two major advantages of micro inverters are 1) not having your "string" limited or brought way down by one bad or shaded panel and 2) individual panel reporting through your intranet or internet.

Gas dryers are about the same price here in Hawaii and in Seattle as I check the local craigslist.  The problem is bringing the gas into the house legally as we say but really mean "permitted".  Homeowners can't pull permits in Hawaii for much of anything but especially magic stuff like gas, plumbing or electric.  The lowest bid so far is $1250 for 30 feet of line.  And because there is so many un-permitted (Gee, I wonder why?) projects here the insurance inspectors really check for non permitted utilities.

I'm thinking about developing a campaign button.  "Ask Me About Our F$$k$$g Utility Commission."  Too subtle?

Casey
« Last Edit: May 28, 2016, 05:18:54 PM by LowGear »
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LowGear

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #53 on: May 29, 2016, 06:29:15 PM »
Quote
How about one that goes " Save the planet. As long as there is a buck to be made for Gubbermint or big business."

Just to get the record straight!  "" Save the planet. As long as there is a buck to be made for Gubbermint or big business."" is my quote of someone else.  I'm sorry but I'm just not in the government conspiracy world.  I'm just tired of incompetent people making far reaching decisions for masses of people without understanding the full consequences.    Is Hawaii's utility commission stupid, ignorant or paid for?  I don't know.  Did they kick the gonads off the camel that was challenging oil produced electricity - Yes.  Oh, and the quote is unfortunately very close to the truth.  Hence, sustainable energy must be shown to support big government and/or good profits for the capitalistic marketeers.  For me; it's driving me off the grid hopefully in the next five years.  That's the dream.

Casey

As one edjumacated fool to another.  My colleague was most lucky with the 120 volts DC.
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guest23837

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #54 on: May 30, 2016, 10:05:17 AM »
Quote
How about one that goes " Save the planet. As long as there is a buck to be made for Gubbermint or big business."

Just to get the record straight!  "" Save the planet. As long as there is a buck to be made for Gubbermint or big business."" is my quote of someone else.  I'm sorry but I'm just not in the government conspiracy world.  I'm just tired of incompetent people making far reaching decisions for masses of people without understanding the full consequences.    Is Hawaii's utility commission stupid, ignorant or paid for?  I don't know.  Did they kick the gonads off the camel that was challenging oil produced electricity - Yes.  Oh, and the quote is unfortunately very close to the truth.  Hence, sustainable energy must be shown to support big government and/or good profits for the capitalistic marketeers.  For me; it's driving me off the grid hopefully in the next five years.  That's the dream.

Casey

It's not always a government conspiracy sometimes it's the easy way out for those that are in power. For example in Ireland most governments are coalitions. A few years ago in order to make up the numbers a large party brought the green party on board in order to get into government. The leader of the green party is a one trick pony, interested only in wind power. Of course they are unreliable so oil and gas powered plants have to be kept running for when the wind stops blowing. If you erect a small wind turbine without planning permission you'll be made take it down. Planning permission will sometimes be granted for larger turbines that feed into the grid but something to charge batteries? forget about it.

This was "government policy" not because everyone in the government was fans of wind turbines rather it was because some politicians would agree to the tail wagging the dog so they could have power.

As one edjumacated fool to another.  My colleague was most lucky with the 120 volts DC.

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #55 on: May 30, 2016, 05:13:56 PM »
Sadly Ireland doesn't have enough sunshine to make solar viable although  some people have solar panels that will give you tepid water on a good day. The government is fine with this they charge 23% VAT (its a charge you can collect without a firearm) on the equipment and certification and they know it's not terribly efficient.

We do have plenty of wind turbines, we even pay a bit extra about, 10% on our electricity bills, to subsidize them, this is called a public service obligation levy. There are many wind farm and plans to build many more, there's a plan, plot? to build a turbine 169 meters tall in the valley below my house.

So Ireland is pretty much well covered with wind turbines Mr Glort and you may ask if electricity is unusually cheap in Ireland. Well it's the most expensive in Europe. And what about the wind turbines you ask in disbelief? Well ALL the electricity they generate goes to the UK through an inter-connector to the UK can meet "carbon targets"

This was and is a green party initiative. My wife doesn't understand why I want to go off grid!

LowGear

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #56 on: May 30, 2016, 06:21:34 PM »
So Johndoh, 

Our hearts are beating.  How expensive is a KWH in North Ireland?  I assume you're not in the Republic as the excess electricity is going to the United Kingdom. 

Here's a map showing how close the Irelands and Germany are  to the same latitude. https://www.google.com/maps/@51.528308,-0.3817765,5z  Just  a couple of clicks above Seattle.

Has anyone seen a good review of how the Tesla wall functions?

Casey




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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #57 on: May 30, 2016, 08:42:57 PM »
I live in the Republic of Ireland, cost of electric is 17.26c KwH plus an annual charge of €146.00  plus PSO levy @ 10% plus VAT @13%. I'm on a rural tariff I believe it's marginally cheaper in urban areas

mikenash

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #58 on: August 16, 2016, 04:00:29 AM »
It occurs to me that some types of geothermal should be practical in some places. Perhaps those active zones are just not stable enough?

dieselgman

I have been to new Zealand a few times to do Photoshoots.  The geothermal in areas there is amazing. You could literally sink a steam well in your own back yard and some people have.
Around the most active area, rotoroua, Geo is huge for heating and spas.  I don't think there is a motel in the place that doesn't have a geo thermal spa in every room.  The water is so hot you generally have to add cold water to make it bearable.  Depends where you are and what your tolerance is but it isn't lacking in warmth, put it that way.

There is no tap to turn off the Geo water, don't know if they can't for physical reasons with pressure etc or they just don't bother. It just overflows 24/7 and no greenee seems to whine about water wasteage.

The rotoroua convention centre/ indoor stadium is totally geo powered. They have a turbine for power and of course the place is heated the same way.  It's on a very active lake where you can walk around and see small steam geysers coming out of the lake shore and around.  It's got a 18" fence around it but of course like all good tourists we couldn't read Kiwi english so walked around and had a good look. It was amazing.
We went to a thermal park and the gysers there were the ones that shot into the air on command and smaller ones coming out of no where. there was a lake that steamed even though the day was near 30C and was far too hot to put your hand in.

They have a few geo power generation plants around the area mainly around Taupo where the geo park we went to was. They are building more plants ATM but the Rotorua council has of course laws on tapping the go power even for homeowners.  They have regulations ( read taxes) on this basically inexhaustible supply of power.  The temps of the geo ranges from 40 which is warm to 140 which is well past saturated steam.
Being the type I am, I'd be looking into a mini Geo powered Turbine no worries.

One thing about the place we learned, it stinks.  We were looking in a tourist guide and in a sub headline on an ad from one place it had " No Sulphur Smell". We wondered what that was about till we were about 20 Km away ans started accusing one another of ripe gaseous emissions.  Of course when they hadn't subsided for 10 min, the penny dropped. You do get a bit used to it after a few hours but when you first get near the lake... Hooley dooley!


As an aside, the place really did my head in. having been self employed about 90% of my life and studied business, marketing and sales, I was surprised how quiet the place was. There was a strip of over 1KM down the main drag where it was only hotels one beside the other, both sides of the road.  each one only appeard to have a few cars there.  we went into town for dinner and the end;ess restaurants were the same.  miles of them, hundreds of seats and about 10% occupancy and that's being generous.
We found a Pub with a nice outdoor setting and when the girl brought us our food I started chatting her up saying that I supposed the busy season, Christmas was just around the corner. She looked a bit blankly and said , no not really. I said oh, when do all the crowds come?  She looked again and said we don't really get a rush at any time, it's pretty much constant.  I said Oh, ok, is this the quiet time then? No, it's always like this.

I'm thinking WTF?? I said, thinking she may not know the area, Have you been living here long? She said yes, I was born here and still live at home.  By now I'm thinking the nice girl must be on drugs or something.
You can't have 5000 hotel beds in a little tourist  town along with endless restaurants and have them survive at 10% saturation.
I asked some more people about the rush and got the same answers, it's the same here all the time, just like this..... W T F ???

Don't know how that works. It's just not little owner/ operator places, there is an international Chain hotel there with a 7 storey building and that probably didn't even have 20 cars in the carpark either.
I felt sorry for the locals so we stayed a couple of nights in the smaller places but although clean, they were woefully out of date.  No wonder the owners rolled out teh threadbare red carpet though and thanked us like we saved their lives.  the 3rd night it was the big hotel though for some real comfort and a bit of luxury. Didn't even take much talking to get a massive upgrade with them into a suite for a middle range room price.

I got to admit, my real "Idealistic" power is Hydro.  Solar is nice and practical and all that but not enough real fun involved as in no moving parts.  Hydro would be great to play with in my old age.
Of course i live on the driest freaking continent in teh world  so water  sufficent for hydro is limited here even if we do have the worlds largest hydro scheme at one point.
I have spent many hours looking for properties that I could do a hydro setup on and there are some around although always distant from any major town let alone city.  I could probably pick something up for $100K  But that is a lot of money to pay for a hobby!!  Not to say I wouldn't do it anyway.  I am not much of a traveler but I and the Mrs could be very happy in a remote bush location with a shack built from a few shipping containers and spend some quiet time away from the rat race.  I think we would still have to have a place in the rat race as well, too much quiet freaks me out so i'd have to acclimatise.   :0)

Lister in the shed, panels on the roof, water spinning up some various home made turbines and hydro generators.....  I could set up my own power company!  :0)


Hi there, Glort

Rotorua is an odd place - you can't extrapolate the Rotorua experience out to the rest of New Zealand

It had a big tourism development a bunch of years ago when overseas tourism to NZ was basically bus-load after bus-load of Japanese tourists . . .

That model doesn't exist any more but the infrastructure still does

And tourists want a lot more these days than some hot pools and a Cultural Experience or two - and so they should

I am oversimplifying here, of course, but that's the guts of it.

New Zealand is almost completely "renewable" electricity generation - lots of wind turbines and a big "battery bank" of hydro

Electric cars would be great here if the price came down - we pay around $0.20 - $0.25 per kw/h; but almost $NZ 2.00 a litre (sort of $US 10.00 a gallon-ish) for our gas

And we are ripped-off on our back-into-the-meter solar just like everywhere else in the world . . . .

I have an off-the-grid property in development at the moment & the budget looks something like:

(1) Old 1939 6/1 CS and 5kW ST-clone - about $NZ 2000-2500 once all up and running
(2) Solar panels, inverter, batteries - around the $NZ 4500-7000 depending on spec
(3) 6kVA Honda generator in use whenever I am there at the moment - I think it was $NZ 1600?

Call it $NZ 10,000 and it is workable at that level in combination with a house with solar hot-water in summer and wetback hot-water in winter, LPG (Propane) hob in the kitchen, and a bit of a hands-on approach to managing the technology

If the average NZ power bill is something like $NZ 200 a month - that's a lot of months to pay it all back . . . .

But what isn't mentioned is the cost of getting the power to a rural site like mine - often $NZ 10K - 40K up front

Got the old Lister in the workshop now with the head off - a work in progress

Very interesting Forum you guys run here.  Thanks

buickanddeere

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #59 on: August 16, 2016, 03:13:10 PM »
Propane kitchen cooker.
Solar water booster and maybe a propane water heater.  (My next project to complete.)
Propane clothes dryer.


As I understand Hawaii is a pretty warm place, have you ever looked into Biogas?
In places like india, they use anaerobic digesters that are small enough to fit on the balcony of a flat in Mumbai but still produce enough gas for home cooking needs. The digesters are just fed with household scraps.
In the country where there is an abundance of manure or grass etc, they make digesters large enough to power a bank of IC engine generators. Some they make as concrete pits or domed in ground tanks, others are thick rubber bags.

From what I have seen, something constructed from a 1000L IBC could produce a very worthwhile amount of gas that would do more than provide enough for just cooking.  If you could make a Hybrid gas/ electric hot water system, you'd really be laughing.  Use the electric when the sun is shining for hot water and the gas to boost it when the sun is not around.  Could also size up to suit the needs of your clothes dryer. 
are gas clothes dryers common in the states?  they are not here and extremely exy. Pretty much only the commercial units are gas.

I have to admit, I think of a lot of things like this in terms of panels cost now.  I could get a good used elcetric dryer for $100 every day of the week. I can't imagine getting a gas one under a grand, if at all.
If I add $900 worth of panels to the roof, even at preimum used price of $100 for a 250W unit, I have got another 2KW of panels, enough to run the thing plus of course a heck of a lot of other things when the dryer is not being used those 3-6 hours a week.

I'd like to give this biogas a go next summer. I think my Daughters Rabbits would provide the perfect start up fuel and the slops from my veg oil processing could also be used (Sparingly). Never a shortage of household scraps here either. It would be pretty amazing to run an engine off this gas even just for the wow factor of doing it once.


Quote
Conversion of my pond pumps from direct electric to air powered via small compressors with timers.


I saw on a YT vid a guy was talking about storing the energy from his solar panels in the form of compressed air instead of electricity in  batteries.  If this is what you are talking about, Could you elaborate on how you use that energy, IE, in what you use the air to drive?
Are you going to use an air motor of some sort to convert it back to heat or power or use it some other way?

It doesn't sound very efficient but then again, neither is the 6C a KWH we get for selling power back to the grid here.  I was thinking that Gas tanks out of cars that have expired are not exactly thin on the ground here so storage could be fairly economical if there were a practical way of reclaiming the energy.

Is there much availability of used panels in the states?  I imagine older ones of 80-100W wouldn't be hard to get but here 250W panels 3 yo or less are not hard to find. In our northern sunny state which has a very high uptake of solar on roofs, There are that many going that cheap I'm seriously considering going for a drive and bringing back a covered trailer full.

I didn't get my panels I was going to. Issues with my availability and the guy selling them however we are planning for monday.  I also managed to do a deal for 4 for $150.  I'm thinking I might hit him up when I get there and see if he'll do 6 for $200. That would give me 2.5 Kilo so  decent start to a system.

Does anyone know about these Micro inverters?
I understand the basic principal of them taking the panel voltage to mains voltage but I'm wondering if they have to be grid tied or could I couple a pair of panels up to a micro and then run an appliance direct from that?
They would be very hand for a system where one did not want to use batteries or go into the mains. The inverters I have are grid tie so won't work independently.
They still aren't real cheap here being something relatively new but they could be worth the result.



Actually the primary fuel source for those community methane digesters is the community outhouse that dumps into the vessel.