Alternative Energy projects

[3930dave]

Many mass markets are driven to the size they are by high energy-density batteries..... people carry the modern personal electronics they do, largely due to lithium batteries.

While I do recognize the above reality, there are people (me for one) that are willing to make use of existing basic FLA or AGM batteries, today, in grid re/displacement systems.

While they may not make sense in a tiny condo, or other severely constrained spaces, I find the battery boxes in the link below, and in the Vancouver Island house at 4:00 minutes in the vid in post #1, deliver appropriate performance today.

tobaccovilleweather.com Whole House UPS

"Appropriate" performance is subjective - admittedly, my expectations differ from many consumers..... I don't expect to run a clothes dryer, or a 3 ton+ AC unit off these systems.

As daytime electricity rates continue to skyrocket in jurisdictions like where I reside, I predict that large scale UPS systems like the tobaccoville one above will become more common in residential use.

Rgds, D.

 

[buickanddeere]

I'm thinking something of that nature as well to trim daytime peak load demand with the summer AC and pool pump.
The electric water heater is on a timer to bulk heat the tank during the lowest rates.
The local utility would connect a 600V three phase 200 amp , 200Kw service to the shop without question . They claim however that a 10KW net metering system is not possible as it would overload the distribution system .

 

[buickanddeere]

I'm thinking something of that nature as well to trim daytime peak load demand with the summer AC and pool pump.
The electric water heater is on a timer to bulk heat the tank during the lowest rates.
The local utility would connect a 600V three phase 200 amp , 200Kw service to the shop without question . They claim however that a 10KW net metering system is not possible as it would overload the distribution system .

 

[3930dave]

The local utility would connect a 600V three phase 200 amp , 200Kw service to the shop without question . They claim however that a 10KW net metering system is not possible as it would overload the distribution system .

LOL ! Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

I'm thinking something of that nature as well to trim daytime peak load demand with the summer AC and pool pump.

I've started with baby steps..... wanted something portable, so threw together a 1kw Xantrex inverter and a light-truck sized AGM battery, mounted on a handtruck - real useful for camping and other outdoor activities. Daytime, at the house, it's used to run our goto computers - a bit of load shift accomplished, and a nice backup in general for light loads. In a pinch, it will run a 700w one cup coffee machine.

I define a major catastrophe as No Coffee Available

I poked around a bit the other night to see if I could still find the link...... one of the best home systems I've seen was set up as a personal system a few years ago by a telecomm engineer, as a whole-house UPS. If I find the link, I'll post it here, as the system was very well done.

Similar to that design, access to large-scale industrial batteries was the foundation of another system built by an olde-tymer I talked to about 15 years ago. In his case, he found a great deal at a local industrial battery distributor - the batteries that came in were slightly out of a utility's spec - nothing that really affected their final residential use, so this olde-tymer snapped them up at a fraction of cost.

Last I talked to him, he was just using a small Honda air-cooled engine belted up to a truck alternator to charge his battery bank - as his loads where modest, he didn't have to charge very often. He heated with wood, no AC, and had little/no cooking loads on electric - not a lifestyle many people would volunteer for today. He lived in the middle of the area that got hit badly in the Ice Storm of '98 - he said the look on military guy's face that came to his door one night was priceless - he was surprised to find a house in the middle of nowhere with no generator going, but with light/heat/ and movies running !

You only miss the grid, if you rely on it in the first place....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Figures..... that a bunch of Scots would pull this off !

BBC - Future - The small Scottish isle leading the world in electricity

Rgds, D.

 

[FatTire]

Glad to see some people on TBN interested in alternative energy. I guess it would be fair to say it is a way of life for us.

We live about 5 miles beyond the end of the power lines and live off-grid at 9000 ft elevation in the foothills of Colorado's San Juan Mountains. We have a 2KW PV array for our home and a 1.2 KW system for our shop. In our home's crawl space we have 16 lead-acid batteries (size = L16, wired for 48VDC to the inverter). We are just ending our 4th winter with this setup and have not run a generator during that time for our household needs. (!!!)
An important factor that enables us to do that is we live in an area with exceptional sun, we get at least 2 or 3 hours of full sun more than 320 days per year. We have a very efficient electric fridge (German), small microwave, and modern front loading washer. We do not have a clothes dryer or a dishwasher but we have a small chest freezer (AC). My wife and I are both very conscious of our electric use and are comfortable cutting way back on our discretionary consumption during storm cycles. Very thankful to my wife for choosing to live this way. She says there is nothing she misses about living on the grid.

Our home is mostly timber-frame with straw-bale insulation (small 2nd story is spray-foam). Primary heat is passive solar and wood. So far this winter we've burned 2 1/4 cords. (April is a high heating month, it is still cool and the sun angle is no longer favorable, so we will likely burn another 1/2 cord or more this month). We have a 500 gallon propane tank for hot water, cooking, and back-up space heating. We use about 200 to 225 gallons of propane per year and have the tank filled every-other summer. We catch rainwater for our water and store it in a 6,000 gallon cistern, so the PV system has to power a pump in the cistern but it is a small head, less than 20 feet from the bottom of the cistern to a shower head. In 2008 we were able to get a permit from the state's Department of Natural Resources to catch this much rainwater. Without the permit it would be illegal in Colorado.

In our shop we have 8 batteries, and a 4kW inverter I occasionally run a generator out there, block heaters is the main reason. The need to fire up equipment coincides with stormy weather, nothing I can do about that, but I try to keep whatever equipment I'll be using the next day parked indoors whenever I have space.

So that's a glimpse of how we live here!

 

[FatTire]

I forgot to mention Internet. The internet has become a big expense for us, much more than propane. We are using Exede satellite for internet, at $150 a month. That is in addition to the Verizon bill for cell phones and whatever data we use on our phones.

 

[3930dave]

Excellent post FatTire. I appreciate hearing real-world data; your homestead is very well tuned - definitely HomePower worthy, if you haven't been profiled by them yet.

What I did find startling was that you need a permit for your cistern ! I thought it was just us Canucks that were routinely over-taxed - they do understand that the water goes back into the ground when you are done with it ? Not like you are beaming it into outer space....

Great example of living successfully off-grid !

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

I forgot to mention Internet. The internet has become a big expense for us, much more than propane. We are using Exede satellite for internet, at $150 a month. That is in addition to the Verizon bill for cell phones and whatever data we use on our phones.

At 9000 feet, if you are spending more on Comms than heat, you are doing something right :drink:

People whine about batteries, but mostly existing technology just takes space, sounds like you are doing fine with your FLA matrix.

Things do change though....

Lithium-Ion Battery Inventor Introduces New Technology for Fast-Charging, Noncombustible Batteries | UT News | The University of Texas at Austin

Tick, tock...

Rgds, D.

 

[FatTire]

The rain catchment issue is a really big deal in Colorado water law. The issue isn't about the water -- it is all about who has the legal right to put the water to use. The fear was (is) that a new user (someone like us) is coming and "taking" water (in a legal sense) from a senior user. If you are a senior user you might worry that this is the first crack in a system that goes back 150 years. Thankfully most people recognize that taking water off our roof and depositing it back to the ground at our leach field a 100 feet away just isn't a big deal, even in the legal world.

Despite the sun it is pretty cold here, at least it was historically, something like 7000 or 8000 heating-degree-days. (That terminology may not translate very well to Canada. It is in degrees F and is used in the USA to determine heating/cooling needs on an annual basis.) The past few winters have not been that cold.

 

[FatTire]

At 9000 feet, if you are spending more on Comms than heat, you are doing something right :drink:

People whine about batteries, but mostly existing technology just takes space, sounds like you are doing fine with your FLA matrix.

Things do change though....

Lithium-Ion Battery Inventor Introduces New Technology for Fast-Charging, Noncombustible Batteries | UT News | The University of Texas at Austin

Tick, tock...

Rgds, D.

They don't make it clear if the 1,200 cycles are deep cycles? We're expecting to get over 3,000 shallow cycles from our lead acid bank, but we do very few discharges below 60% capacity. We might be ready for new batteries in about 2024, so it will be interesting to see what is available by then.

 

[3930dave]

The rain catchment issue is a really big deal in Colorado water law. The issue isn't about the water -- it is all about who has the legal right to put the water to use. The fear was (is) that a new user (someone like us) is coming and "taking" water (in a legal sense) from a senior user. If you are a senior user you might worry that this is the first crack in a system that goes back 150 years. Thankfully most people recognize that taking water off our roof and depositing it back to the ground at our leach field a 100 feet away just isn't a big deal, even in the legal world.

Despite the sun it is pretty cold here, at least it was historically, something like 7000 or 8000 heating-degree-days. (That terminology may not translate very well to Canada. It is in degrees F and is used in the USA to determine heating/cooling needs on an annual basis.) The past few winters have not been that cold.

You do have an optimal area for PV - lots of sun, and many people don't realize PV panel output usually goes up with temperature going down.

It may be more common than I thought, but I'd never come across anyone "owning" rain before..... did Gene Simmons invent it ?

Water flowing on the ground, yes, wars have been fought over that, but I'd never heard of "rain" permits...... most of why I hang out on TBN is to learn new things, lesson accomplished today !

Rgds, D.

 

[piercedtiger]

Glad to see some people on TBN interested in alternative energy. I guess it would be fair to say it is a way of life for us.

We live about 5 miles beyond the end of the power lines and live off-grid at 9000 ft elevation in the foothills of Colorado's San Juan Mountains. We have a 2KW PV array for our home and a 1.2 KW system for our shop. In our home's crawl space we have 16 lead-acid batteries (size = L16, wired for 48VDC to the inverter). We are just ending our 4th winter with this setup and have not run a generator during that time for our household needs. (!!!)
An important factor that enables us to do that is we live in an area with exceptional sun, we get at least 2 or 3 hours of full sun more than 320 days per year. We have a very efficient electric fridge (German), small microwave, and modern front loading washer. We do not have a clothes dryer or a dishwasher but we have a small chest freezer (AC). My wife and I are both very conscious of our electric use and are comfortable cutting way back on our discretionary consumption during storm cycles. Very thankful to my wife for choosing to live this way. She says there is nothing she misses about living on the grid.

Our home is mostly timber-frame with straw-bale insulation (small 2nd story is spray-foam). Primary heat is passive solar and wood. So far this winter we've burned 2 1/4 cords. (April is a high heating month, it is still cool and the sun angle is no longer favorable, so we will likely burn another 1/2 cord or more this month). We have a 500 gallon propane tank for hot water, cooking, and back-up space heating. We use about 200 to 225 gallons of propane per year and have the tank filled every-other summer. We catch rainwater for our water and store it in a 6,000 gallon cistern, so the PV system has to power a pump in the cistern but it is a small head, less than 20 feet from the bottom of the cistern to a shower head. In 2008 we were able to get a permit from the state's Department of Natural Resources to catch this much rainwater. Without the permit it would be illegal in Colorado.

In our shop we have 8 batteries, and a 4kW inverter I occasionally run a generator out there, block heaters is the main reason. The need to fire up equipment coincides with stormy weather, nothing I can do about that, but I try to keep whatever equipment I'll be using the next day parked indoors whenever I have space.

So that's a glimpse of how we live here!

Awesome read! You're where my wife and I want to be in a few years. We're in NY and I hate the laws, taxes, etc. We've been looking for land in PA as it's close to friends, but we want enough land that people aren't too close. Would love to do off grid and not rely on the power companies or have those bills. Internet is the challenge as I'm a remote IT worker so I need it to pay the bills. Trying to work out our heating plans as well. Were thinking geothermal with wind and solar to power the pumps and compressors. Radiant floor heating would be nice since we only need about 80F for that from what I've read (higher is not comfortable to walk on). I'm hoping that would mean less heating resources (wood, gas, heat exchanged) needed to meet the heating requirement. Probably a wood stove as backup or to cook on. Tesla's PowerWall has me intrigued if the price comes down.

Wife wants to build our house too, looking at cob, straw bales, earth bags, etc. However, she's disabled due to back injuries so her ideas mean more work for me. haha Trying to figure out a compromise. We also have 3 kids addicted to electronics so they play into it. Three years out the eldest should be off to college, and we want to be debt free including the mortgage in 4 years if we can stick to the plan. That would leave us with just 2 kids to cram into a smaller off-grid house.

 

[3930dave]

They don't make it clear if the 1,200 cycles are deep cycles? We're expecting to get over 3,000 shallow cycles from our lead acid bank, but we do very few discharges below 60% capacity. We might be ready for new batteries in about 2024, so it will be interesting to see what is available by then.

Yes, I definitely want to see more data too, but much of that will be tied up under NDA at this time I would think. Goodenough has forgotten more about battery design than most people will ever know..... I think this chemistry will be one to watch.

We are due for a new battery chemistry, but it does take time. I was using lithium batteries in the 80's, but it was a very long time before the rechargeable ones became mainstream. Things cycle faster now; if Elon picks this up, things may change faster than most would guess....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Awesome read! You're where my wife and I want to be in a few years. We're in NY and I hate the laws, taxes, etc. We've been looking for land in PA as it's close to friends, but we want enough land that people aren't too close. Would love to do off grid and not rely on the power companies or have those bills. Internet is the challenge as I'm a remote IT worker so I need it to pay the bills. Trying to work out our heating plans as well. Were thinking geothermal with wind and solar to power the pumps and compressors. Radiant floor heating would be nice since we only need about 80F for that from what I've read (higher is not comfortable to walk on). I'm hoping that would mean less heating resources (wood, gas, heat exchanged) needed to meet the heating requirement. Probably a wood stove as backup or to cook on. Tesla's PowerWall has me intrigued if the price comes down.

Wife wants to build our house too, looking at cob, straw bales, earth bags, etc. However, she's disabled due to back injuries so her ideas mean more work for me. haha Trying to figure out a compromise. We also have 3 kids addicted to electronics so they play into it. Three years out the eldest should be off to college, and we want to be debt free including the mortgage in 4 years if we can stick to the plan. That would leave us with just 2 kids to cram into a smaller off-grid house.

See the recent How Much Dirt Have You Seen Moved by Hand thread..... Save money (turn the electronics off and cancel the gym memberships) - Put the kids to work digging !

JK - many of the practices listed in that thread (that toughened us up physically and mentally) would probably get parents jailed today.....

Rgds, D.

 

[Zerk]

See the recent How Much Dirt Have You Seen Moved by Hand thread..... Save money (turn the electronics off and cancel the gym memberships) - Put the kids to work digging !

JK - many of the practices listed in that thread (that toughened us up physically and mentally) would probably get parents jailed today.....

Rgds, D.

I do believe in equipment, especially as body gets older. But I also find running a chainsaw or cutting brush with lopers, to be great exercise, and I don't get bored. Sometimes I cut brush that doesnt really matter, but I enjoy it.

Swinging a weed wacker too. I am not giving up my riding mower though.

 

[Zerk]

I forgot to mention Internet. The internet has become a big expense for us, much more than propane. We are using Exede satellite for internet, at $150 a month. That is in addition to the Verizon bill for cell phones and whatever data we use on our phones.

I am only $70 a month, with Excede. Are you able to watch tv with you package? I don't have cable. Though $150 is alot for me. I'd be more tempted to just add GB to my phone, so I can use it at home at camp, for my situation.

 

[FatTire]

Awesome read! You're where my wife and I want to be in a few years. We're in NY and I hate the laws, taxes, etc. We've been looking for land in PA as it's close to friends, but we want enough land that people aren't too close. Would love to do off grid and not rely on the power companies or have those bills. Internet is the challenge as I'm a remote IT worker so I need it to pay the bills. Trying to work out our heating plans as well. Were thinking geothermal with wind and solar to power the pumps and compressors. Radiant floor heating would be nice since we only need about 80F for that from what I've read (higher is not comfortable to walk on). I'm hoping that would mean less heating resources (wood, gas, heat exchanged) needed to meet the heating requirement. Probably a wood stove as backup or to cook on. Tesla's PowerWall has me intrigued if the price comes down.

Wife wants to build our house too, looking at cob, straw bales, earth bags, etc. However, she's disabled due to back injuries so her ideas mean more work for me. haha Trying to figure out a compromise. We also have 3 kids addicted to electronics so they play into it. Three years out the eldest should be off to college, and we want to be debt free including the mortgage in 4 years if we can stick to the plan. That would leave us with just 2 kids to cram into a smaller off-grid house.

Sounds like you have a great plan. One thing that may help with the internet is that Exede is launching a satellite (Viasat 2) soon which should enable them to dramatically increase their monthly data cap. We believe our 30 G/ month plan could go up to 75 or 100 /month. These companies know their market share depends on overcoming the low data caps, with the current Viasat satellite speed is not horrible, but the data cap is a killer if you stream any video or work with graphics, etc. There is also a Viasat 3 in the pipeline. However, there is no cure for the latency issues, even with fast data rates there is a long delay.

Straw bale works really well in our dry climate. I'd be nervous about it in PA. One risk is getting bales wet during construction before stucco. Our schedule was complicated, I was burning vacation to stack bales so I didn't have a lot of flexibility, and the stucco crew was late finishing their previous job, and then we got several days of heavy rain while waiting. I had tarps up to minimize damage, and then we had about two week of dry sun, but I did end up tearing out several sections of wall because I feared the bales were damp internally. I don't know how you'd ever get them dry enough in a humid climate, although I recognize there have been a number of successful projects in the northeast.

Another interesting alternative which can be thermally efficient if done right is cord wood. There are a few structures around here but I didn't see them build so I don't know about their R values. One of them used a lot of blue bottles for light in the wall, it looks pretty cool when the sun hits it. It looks like you can have a good combination of thermal mass and R value if you do it right.

 

[FatTire]

Oh yeah, wood cook stove, go for it! We wanted one but we just didn't have space for it -- long story. One of our neighbors has a beautiful Heartland cook stove, the previous owner fired it up every morning fall thru spring to make coffee and take the morning chill off. She moved away a couple years after her husband passed away, the current owners burn propane instead of wood. A lot of propane.