Green energy

[tonycrow]

I just purchased a home with a barn on a separate piece of property on it's own electrcal power supply. We heat 10 water buckets for the horse stalls and paddocks, have a water supply well pump in a heated room and have incandescent lighting. Being from the north, it is tough to get flourescent lighting to work in really cold weather. There is also a heated stock waterer between a couple of the pens. I would love to go green with this barn, but don't know where to begin. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dave1949]

Since the barn has its own electric service, I assume it has a meter for the barn only. If so, that is excellent because after a couple months use, you will have an accurate reading of how much power you use/need. That is where you need to begin--how much power is needed on a daily average.

 

[tonycrow]

Yes, a separate meter. I know that my water buckets total about 1500 watts, light bulbs when all are on at least that much including yard lights. I also plug in my tractor when close to or below freezing. I don't know how much energy the water pump uses, or the in ground stock waterer either. I am expecting my first billing any day now.

 

[BeezFun]

I feel your pain, we also have horses. Heating the water is the big power consumer, you can cut that down by using insulated buckets, or at least setting them on a piece of 2" foam. I enclosed our larger trough in a plywood box that's insulated on all 4 sides and has a horse snout sized cutout in the top, that cut the bill about in half. I also have two frost proof waterers that don't require electricity, they work like a frost proof hydrant. Only problem is horses can't use them with grazing muzzles so they aren't much use other than at night.

They make little devices you can plug in to measure the power consumption of a device, one is called Killawatt. They also make clamp on devices, but they're pretty expensive.

They make cold start fluorescents, mine work pretty well down to about 0, below that they're pretty slow to turn on. You might try CFLs, I've found the ones that have a globe over the twisted bulb work well below zero and start reasonably quickly. If you just get the kind with the twisted bulb they start out with barely a glow and take forever to brighten up.

 

[dave1949]

Yes, a separate meter. I know that my water buckets total about 1500 watts, light bulbs when all are on at least that much including yard lights. I also plug in my tractor when close to or below freezing. I don't know how much energy the water pump uses, or the in ground stock waterer either. I am expecting my first billing any day now.

I forgot to say Welcome!

Your actual usage from the bill is more useful than ratings. For example, a water bucket heater rated at 1500W may have a thermostat that turns it off and on as needed. When it is on, it may not actually use 1500W.

I think you are going to have a challenge with off-grid (no utility service) solar electric energy in the cold parts of winter. You need overnight power, and the only way to get that with solar electric is to use batteries. Batteries are most efficient at ~72*F. You will lose a lot of capacity if they are freezing or below. People usually try to locate their battery banks in a heated area, which I guess you don't have in the barn.

Heating a small room built for the batteries, by the power from batteries, is probably a lost cause. But maybe some super-insulated battery box within the barn might be worth considering. The battery box usually needs to be vented due to the danger of hydrogen gas build up. In any case, needing a battery bank adds a lot to the cost.

If grid-tied systems (some solar power, some utility power, no batteries needed) are possible in your location, then you produce what you can, and buy the rest from the utility.

 

[tonycrow]

I don't have insulated buckets, but I could build boxes for the outside ones that sit on the ground. The ones in the stalls, hang from the walls, so they might be tougher.
I have never tried the covered CFL's. I have tried the regular coiled ones and they are not good in cold weather.
Thanks for the input!

 

[tonycrow]

Thanks!
Good point on the buckets having thermostats, I would suspect that they do. I do have access to a heated room, and may be able to put the batteries in there. It has limited space, but with some organization I am sure I can do something. How much venting would I need then?
I would love to go off grid, but would need a significant array of solar panels to do so, especially in winter. I have approached the federal government and am waiting on a package from them which may include grants and other incentives.

 

[dave1949]

You don't need a lot of venting. The battery boxes I have seen, with 8 large lead-acid batteries, are built with a hinged lid that is higher across the back than the front. A 2 or 3 inch pvc pipe is enough at the high side on top and similar sized screened vent holes at the bottom of the box on the sides. Hydrogen is lighter than air, so it just needs a place to escape.

The economics of replacing existing grid power with an off-grid system with batteries are against you. I would be surprised if you can come close to justifying the cost. Once you have a couple of months of billing/usage history, you can design a system to meet that requirement and price it out. Winter is a good time to do that, since that is the worst-case--highest usage and lowest power production--time of year.

In the mean time, you can research battery choices. I know of people who use deep-cycle golf cart batteries and others who use top of the line monsters.
Batteries: Flooded Lead Acid

There are lots of sites like this: Off Grid Calculator that help you calculate system sizes.

Serious off-griders usually assume they will need to get through a 3-4 day sunless period and size their battery capacity for that. Or, plan to fall back on a generator if you want to minimize the system capacity.

 

[tonycrow]

Thanks so much, all great info and the calculator will help as well. I do hope that our government up here wants to help the environment too. I may not be able to completely replace the grid, but if we all do a little, we are doing our world some good. Now if I could economically convert manure to replace some fossil fuels. Then the generator if needed becomes a part of the system too. Thanks again!

 

[Biggreenavalanche]

I would love to go off grid, but would need a significant array of solar panels to do so, especially in winter.


Would a dual pronged approach be feasible up there, ie...make use of wind power along with the solar ? You may want to check into a wind tubine generator...also, for long term consider a methane powered generator, get the methane from the horse excretement...lot of plans for the methane generation on line...just a couple of thoughts...

Rich