Alternative Energy projects

[CuzCumminsGuy]

Something you may consider, which I am looking into. I have a friend up in Indiana who has a business, as his entire business is off the grid. He uses three 48 volt forklift batteries, you know, the big heavy-duty lead acid type batteries that are about three feet long by about 2 feet wide and 3 feet high, the ones that take an overhead crane to lift. But just using one of these with some panels and an MPPT inverter (he has two inverter's on his system, one that is 120 volts and the other a 220 volt) could power quite a bit. You may can pick up one of these batteries from a salvage yard, or locate a company that is going out of business. His solar panels are stationary, but you can look on You Tube to see how to build an X and Y axis frame which will track the sun, and produce more power during the daylight hours, then will return to the east for when the sun rises the following day. The last time I was up there about 2 years ago, he had added a small wind generator to supplement his system, and he also has a diesel back up generator just in case. But he powers his warehouse lights, computer systems as well as his cabin with all of the comforts of home. And the good thing about this is, when the power company shuts down from a blackout due to bad weather, you will still have power! So you have to weigh out the cost here as well, as a few days without power could mean more loss of not being able to pump water during the summer for a garden, or to lose what may be in your freezer, as everyone's needs are different.

 

[3930dave]

Something you may consider, which I am looking into. I have a friend up in Indiana who has a business, as his entire business is off the grid. He uses three 48 volt forklift batteries, you know, the big heavy-duty lead acid type batteries that are about three feet long by about 2 feet wide and 3 feet high, the ones that take an overhead crane to lift. But just using one of these with some panels and an MPPT inverter (he has two inverter's on his system, one that is 120 volts and the other a 220 volt) could power quite a bit. You may can pick up one of these batteries from a salvage yard, or locate a company that is going out of business. His solar panels are stationary, but you can look on You Tube to see how to build an X and Y axis frame which will track the sun, and produce more power during the daylight hours, then will return to the east for when the sun rises the following day. The last time I was up there about 2 years ago, he had added a small wind generator to supplement his system, and he also has a diesel back up generator just in case. But he powers his warehouse lights, computer systems as well as his cabin with all of the comforts of home. And the good thing about this is, when the power company shuts down from a blackout due to bad weather, you will still have power! So you have to weigh out the cost here as well, as a few days without power could mean more loss of not being able to pump water during the summer for a garden, or to lose what may be in your freezer, as everyone's needs are different.

Starting from just basic lighting in a shack at one extreme, to every mod-con you can think of (some of which I still don't have) in a large modern home at the other extreme, people have made off-grid work well for a long time.

What's changed in the last 35 years are the cost vectors. PV panels have come way down in price; same with inverters. Efficiency of both are better. Labour costs obviously are up - still an advantage to the DIY'er today.

People get hung up on batteries, for a few reasons. Many people don't want to maintain anything today, and prefer to just ignore their car battery till it dies. So, when that group of people sees a large battery bank, it instantly gets classed as something they don't want to deal with. Even though the maintenance requirements of even traditional FLA batteries are minimal - keep the terminals clean/greased, and the cells topped up.

Some people don't want to allocate space for a battery bank - shouldn't be an issue with a rural property though.

Many people balk at the cost of a battery bank. That decision is largely gated by personal priorities and whether or not someone is oriented towards/capable of paying up front - many consumers today are not.

Sweat equity can still gain you a lot, in terms of the system you end up with. You raise an excellent point about industrial battery sources - you can gain access to well built high capacity batteries, for a fraction of their selling cost, by spending the time looking for options. An old timer I was talking to about 15 years ago scored some excellent large batteries that were brand-new - they'd been rejected for some minor spec variance (physical case sizing, or something like that) by a major utility customer. The distributor sold them to him for not much more than pennies on the dollar, as they were effectively scrap.

Some people point to battery life as a deal-breaker. Obviously shorted cells have to be dealt with, but what people forget is some of that "life" rating is tied to capacity loss. Personally, I'd never under-size a standalone battery bank, so a slight loss in capacity 10-15 years out would have no impact in my case.

Off-grid used to be the exclusive domain of back to the land, birkenstock wearing DIY'ers. Today it is relatively common to find electrical contractors for hire for off-grid and obviously intertie work - that turnkey ability opens up the market more today.

More people today are starting to pay attention to the numbers...... esp. if you reside in an area where utility costs are spiraling out of control.

The traditional top reason for off-grid (remote property, not yet serviced) is even more attractive today, as line installation costs have climbed to the point where that alone can pay for most or all of the alt nrg hardware - often with money left over.

Rgds, D.

 

[buickanddeere]

So if I make 12,000 kwH and assume something like $0.15 per kwh (estimating utility fairy-tale fees....) if purchased, that's $1,800.00.

Add HST at 13%, and you'd pay $2,034.00 to replace that power. Assuming just a marginal 30% income tax rate, you'd need to make $2,905.71 to pay for that power.

Rgds, D.

lets consider you paid income tax on the money used to purchase the PV equipment .
Utility power is 24/7, using it when you need it.
You can not effectively use all the solar power when it is generated in the daytime and still have to generate or use batteries at night.
The 12,000 KW hr is the annual total production. During the months of December, January and February the electrical output from the PV panels is near nil. One month was less than 100Kw hr. What will your electricity cost you through Dec to February ?

 

[buickanddeere]

Starting from just basic lighting in a shack at one extreme, to every mod-con you can think of (some of which I still don't have) in a large modern home at the other extreme, people have made off-grid work well for a long time.

What's changed in the last 35 years are the cost vectors. PV panels have come way down in price; same with inverters. Efficiency of both are better. Labour costs obviously are up - still an advantage to the DIY'er today.

People get hung up on batteries, for a few reasons. Many people don't want to maintain anything today, and prefer to just ignore their car battery till it dies. So, when that group of people sees a large battery bank, it instantly gets classed as something they don't want to deal with. Even though the maintenance requirements of even traditional FLA batteries are minimal - keep the terminals clean/greased, and the cells topped up.

Some people don't want to allocate space for a battery bank - shouldn't be an issue with a rural property though.

Many people balk at the cost of a battery bank. That decision is largely gated by personal priorities and whether or not someone is oriented towards/capable of paying up front - many consumers today are not.

Sweat equity can still gain you a lot, in terms of the system you end up with. You raise an excellent point about industrial battery sources - you can gain access to well built high capacity batteries, for a fraction of their selling cost, by spending the time looking for options. An old timer I was talking to about 15 years ago scored some excellent large batteries that were brand-new - they'd been rejected for some minor spec variance (physical case sizing, or something like that) by a major utility customer. The distributor sold them to him for not much more than pennies on the dollar, as they were effectively scrap.

Some people point to battery life as a deal-breaker. Obviously shorted cells have to be dealt with, but what people forget is some of that "life" rating is tied to capacity loss. Personally, I'd never under-size a standalone battery bank, so a slight loss in capacity 10-15 years out would have no impact in my case.

Off-grid used to be the exclusive domain of back to the land, birkenstock wearing DIY'ers. Today it is relatively common to find electrical contractors for hire for off-grid and obviously intertie work - that turnkey ability opens up the market more today.

More people today are starting to pay attention to the numbers...... esp. if you reside in an area where utility costs are spiraling out of control.

The traditional top reason for off-grid (remote property, not yet serviced) is even more attractive today, as line installation costs have climbed to the point where that alone can pay for most or all of the alt nrg hardware - often with money left over.

Rgds, D.

Off gridders are common enough in remote country where there is no grid. Hunt camps, cottages and other temporary season locations . Tends to be a lot of LP tanks hauled into those self reliant off grid applications.
Or off gridders are somewhere where the utility was 10's of thousands to run a service to a remote property in the middle of a swamp .
Off gridders where there is a utility connection and the utility prices are not extreme due to subsidizing commercial wind, solar and natural gas installations. These off gridders with access to low cost utility power are either hobbyists with a tinker project, tin foil hat types or wide eyed fanatical environmentalists.

 

[3930dave]

lets consider you paid income tax on the money used to purchase the PV equipment .
Utility power is 24/7, using it when you need it.
You can not effectively use all the solar power when it is generated in the daytime and still have to generate or use batteries at night.
The 12,000 KW hr is the annual total production. During the months of December, January and February the electrical output from the PV panels is near nil. One month was less than 100Kw hr. What will your electricity cost you through Dec to February ?

All those costs have to be assessed, for sure. Who will pay what ? That's an individual choice.

I (and many of the people hanging out in this thread) are well aware of the basics of alternative power systems. Some know a lot more than just the basics....

Low season output has to be accounted for - cloud cover is an obvious issue. What some people don't know is that PV output is actually higher at cold temperatures, so that aspect of Winter here is actually a bonus.

A commercial utility array that stays panel-covered-with-sticky-snow for most of a day or longer will lose significant output for the duration. If I owned the array (rural ground mount), then the first thing I'd do is clean the snow off that day. Ground snow cover can actually increase incident solar energy quite a bit - people have found this out the hard way, prototyping arrays on sunny winter days w/o adequate voltage regulation in place - having to scramble to disconnect, or add extra loading quickly. Modern panels don't need full sun to generate power, so cloud cover doesn't diminish output as much older panels did.

Personally, I wouldn't own an off-grid system w/o a back up generator. For that matter, I won't live on-grid w/o a back up generator - I currently own 2.

30 years ago I lived in an all-electric house (meaning heating too). Present govt is trying to push people back that way, but I can't see myself going that route.

Rgds, D.

 

[Travelover]

..................Alte has off grid shed and house systems, from lights only on up. I can pick it up to avoid shipping.

Off-Grid Solar Power Systems - Cabins, Cottages, Lodges | altE

Off-Grid Solar Power Systems - DIY Solar & Off-Grid Living | altE

Generally these "kits" are overpriced compared to the cost of buying the components separately, though the kits are convenient. Check out Solar Blvd for panels and controllers. For a shed project, two 6 volt golf cart batteries from Costco or Walmart would work fine.

 

[CuzCumminsGuy]

Well Dave, you certainly have your ducks in a row, so to speak! With this in mind, I have a question.....Where can I find a really good PV panel which is of the modern type, as compared to the older designs of say 20 to 30 years ago, which will produce more power per day even on cloudy days? I sometimes get ready to make a purchase, look on places such as eBay and am overwhelmed at this person stating this or that one stating that about their quality panels, that I just exit the site, with hopes I will run into someone I can talk with on a one to one conversation of where to purchase a great panel at an affordable price? I have written several companies, as there aren't any around this area of Southeast Georgia that I am aware of, and besides, they aren't interested in talking to a DIY person unless they will be both selling and installing the complete system.

I first became interested in solar power when I worked in the Mojave Desert at a solar electrical generating station as it was being built, as I was a welder in the solar field who welded together and installed the 13 foot long 2-1/2" diameter 2-1/4 chrome tubing which had a bellows on both ends with a 4" glass tube connected to the other end of the bellows for expansion purposes, as there was a vacuum pulled between the chrome and the glass tubes. A heat transfer fluid would be pumped in this smaller tubing, as this 13 foot long tube would be positioned in the focal point of an array of parabolic mirrors which would generate 800 degrees, as this HTF was pumped to a heat exchanger where it produced steam to turn a turbine to produce electricity. BTW, the 13 foot sections I welded together were at a cost of between $1200 to $2000 each, or so I was told.

When I went to this site to take their TIG welding test, I was proficient at welding thinwall stainless steel tubing, as I asked the QC inspector what test I would be welding. He pointed to a test coupon on his desk, as it looked like bubble gum for a weld around it! He said that was a good weld, to which I replied, "No problem". He then said their good welds to bad rejects were around 15:1, as they would manually inspect them using a bore-scope. In the almost 4 months I was there, I had one bad weld, as this was when one of the owners of the company came into the fab shop and accidentally stepped on my TIG torch hose, cutting off the argon shielding gas to the torch head, and I came unglued! I chewed this guy out, pointed at what he had just done and explained how he had just ruined a couple of their 13 foot sections of tubes. He looked at the other co-owner and told him "We had better get out of here"! My General Foreman came over and asked what I was yelling about, so I told him, then he told me I had been yelling at the big guy, the owner, who we were working for! The owner returned the next day and apologized to me, but I did to him as well. He told me he was impressed that I cared as much as I did about making a good weld, and I was interested in doing him a good job, looking out for his best interest.

Solar Powerplant in the Mojave Desert in California from SciHD's "Machines!". (2) - YouTube

But this plant is completely different from the PV panels, controllers and battery banks. I am interested in finding a really nice system that can be upgraded as time goes on, as I have the room to locate a battery bank area and to build a frame for holding PV panels. We hardly ever get any snow down where I live, but I've had my share of it when working in Northern Maine during the winter, as I had a couple pairs of Sorel's with extra felt liners (size 15) and the largest Carhardt's I could find (I am 6' 6" tall), as I have had to work in 50 below weather, driving 25 miles to work on icy roads thru no-man's land, all of which was beautiful to me. Our main thing these days is having to deal with power outages from these hurricanes, which I believe is gonna get worse as time goes on.

Any suggestions of where to purchase well made PV panels, connectors, MPPT controllers and the like from? By the way, thank you and the other folks for responding to this, helping an older Southern boy to have one more project for the future to keep me busy! lol I love to work and to fabricate things!

 

[3930dave]

^ I like that welding story :thumbsup:. Always good to be around somebody who takes pride in their craft. I like the relative simplicity of solar->steam; for one, the back-end after that is just traditional (large-scale) generation.

Wish I was up to date enough to suggest - Contact this Distributor, and consider model X or Y or Z panels.... but it's been way too long since I went shopping....

Some of the big players may still be in the game (Siemens, Kyocera.....), and now the Chinese are huge in PV production - the obvious challenge being zeroing in on their high-end panels at a glance...... I hear you, there's almost overchoice today......

It'll take some reading, but 2 general suggestions that may help:

Spend some time on Homepower.com if you haven't already. I've always liked the structured and disciplined approach they use to present site installations - detailed cost breakdowns, trouble and failure reports, and in some cases, follow up notes a year or more later. That'll give you some direct grass-roots feedback from end-users, and some pointers on lots of things including building up systems in stages.

Homepower has been writing about alt nrg for a very long time. Unless they've priced them crazy high of late, spending a few $ for their How To, or Best Of, or Annual Buyer's Guide downloads would be worthwhile, as well as their general back-issues. If they're not open-access now.... (?).

Again, more reading, but I'd also cruise through some sailboat forums. Engineering-wise, I personally like to see things beat on extra-hard, to see what stands up well. Personal sailboats have used PV panels for a very long-time - it's a critical use/uptime application, that is often pretty harsh (minus sub-zero operation, hopefully). Will take some sifting their too, but you may get some sense of what manufacturer's panels are standing up well on boats.....

There's a few cool projects on TBN here, I'm thinking of one guy, SW USA IIRC....... got pissed off with what a utility company had quoted, and did a pretty serious off-grid build on his new homestead...... if I can track down that thread, I'll post a link here.

Have fun, and pls post what you get up to....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

High end system, deliberately over-sized battery bank.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/rural-living/367749-check-out-my-new-battery.html

Rgds, D.

 

[Garandman]

//Again, more reading, but I'd also cruise through some sailboat forums. Engineering-wise, I personally like to see things beat on extra-hard, to see what stands up well. Personal sailboats have used PV panels for a very long-time - it's a critical use/uptime application, that is often pretty harsh (minus sub-zero operation, hopefully). Will take some sifting their too, but you may get some sense of what manufacturer's panels are standing up well on boats.....

Interesting you bring that up. The cruising sailors I know are the best prepared folks around, as they have to perform their own medical treatment, have diesels and DC power, and the weather to contend with. And maintaining stuff in salt water is a challenge.

Maybe half the boats we see on moorings these days have solar panels to keep the batteries topped off, as bilge pumps are almost always wired direct: better to have a dead battery than a sunk boat! Weight isn稚 a big concern and many cruising boats have two or more large storage cells down near the keel.

Sail magazine has an article currently on wind turbines, which are also common. There are a dozen manufacturers. The power generated varies as the cube of the speed, so as a practical matter most start generating power at about 10mph and peak at about 25. These days they are almost always rigged in conjunction with solar panels. The benefit is that they can generate power on cloudy days and at night, providing a more consistent supply. Costs have come way down: $1,000-2,000 for marine units. Some of the manufacturers are also making small home systems with higher outputs (peak output for sail systems is around 400W, as the blade diameter can稚 be too large).

Approaches to protecting them from very high wind speeds vary. Some have flexible blades, some variable pitch, some internal brakes, and one design turns itself perpendicular to the wind direction.

Installing solar and wind power on your boat

Wind generators - buyers' guide - Sailing Today

Changing from Wind to Solar Energy - Sail Magazine

ASK THE EXPERTS: Wind Power for Charging Batteries | Home Power Magazine