Solar Baby

posted by katlupe on Mar 18

This week our weather has been beautiful here in upstate New York. Our sun has been out and bringing in power to our small solar system. It was so beautiful in fact, that my husband connected the two brand new solar panels to the rest of our solar array temporarily to use that power. He was waiting to get them up on the barn roof but has more work that needs to be done before that move is possible. So for the time, they are out front with the other panels.

Sun hitting the panels yesterday!

The most amps our system has ever brought in with the three older panels was 11 amps. These connected to the others was bringing in 19 amps yesterday and the day before! Some difference. Our system is small and so are our needs at this time. We are running three laptops almost all day. And a printer which is turned off until someone uses it, then it is used and turned back off. Since we have added a satellite connection for our internet, that has increased our power usage. The module that sits on the desk has little blinking lights on all the time it is on and it is connected to a router which is how are three laptops are connected to a wireless network.  They are energy hogs! Plus my husband’s new Lenovo laptop (W700) , uses much more power.  Like mine, it is a energy star model but it uses much electric since it is more powerful. It even has a 17″ screen. We have some electric lights in the kitchen that we use at night and that is about it. Our little night lights in the living room are like Christmas lights but tinier and are hooked right into the batteries and we never turn them off. That is about it for what we use around here for electric.

Our new satellite dish for faster internet!

If you need all the electrical gadgets and things then it would be really difficult for you or your family to live this way. I always knew that eventually things would change and improve here. But some people have no patience and cannot sacrifice for their future. They want it NOW and they don’t care if they have to pay for it to have it. So to them I say for them to just stay on the grid and forget about self-sufficiency. To some people being self-sufficient means gardening and raising livestock. Now to me, it means not having someone else directing my life. I try to grow as much of my own vegetables and fruits as I can. But will never raise livestock for killing. Hens for eggs is another story.

You can really see that sunlight hitting the panels there!

There is a tool called the Solar Pathfinder that will help you find the exact location to place your solar panels in to catch the sun. My husband has studied our property for over ten years day by day, hour by hour, season by season to come up with the perfect spot. That is how he came to know it will be on our barn roof. They are safer up there too. So we will see how it goes once they are in place. But for right now, he is happy with them at least bringing in some power out there with the others for now.

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

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posted by katlupe on Aug 18

If you are planning on changing over to an off-the-grid energy system, the first thing I would recommend is to start cutting your electrical power usage. Of course, the main energy hogs are the ones that use heat, such as electric heaters, electric hot water, electric stove and oven and the electric clothes dryer. Air conditioning, as well. These appliances use huge amounts of your electric power, eating up your watts as soon as they are turned on. Switching to propane or natural gas for water heating, home heat, cooking and clothes drying, along with more efficient refrigerators and freezers will offer much savings.  For an air conditioning alternative, there is evaporative cooling systems. Changing to these appliances will instantly cut off more than three quarters of what you usually use while teaching you how to get started.

Screw in light bulbs should be mostly compact fluorescent lights which use about one quarter the power of regular bulbs while giving the same brightness and color. Replace your big desk top computers with laptops. They use much less power. We run 2 laptops over 12 hours a day on very little power. A desk top (actually it is the monitors) uses as much in a few hours, as our’s do in a week. The monitors are what you have to watch though they have come out with more energy efficient desk tops and monitors now. Check them very carefully.

Newer gas cooking ranges have what is called a “glow bar” in the oven. It uses electricity, so even if your power is out you can’t use the oven.  This is an electric red-hot glow-bar pilot in the oven that consumes 400 watts all the time the oven is used! Instead, look for one of two types of pilot light ovens. An oven with regular gas flame pilot light is the simplest. Better is an oven pilot that lights by electric spark when the oven is started and goes off when the oven is finished. Propane or natural gas stoves with gas pilot lights need no power connection at all.

Another option would be no options! Yes, that’s what I did when purchasing my brand new Premier propane range, It has no timer, no oven light, no light on top and no clock. You can purchase a seperate timer for a few dollars just about anywhere. And most people already have a clock in their kitchen anyway. Same with lighting. Remember you do pay for all those little options. And they are electric users.

I won’t go into the refrigeration as I went into much detail on that on my previous posts. Both mentioning the Sunfrost and the Sundanzer.

It goes without saying that another big saving for any household is to hang your laundry outside. I do that. Even in the snowy cold winter of New York state. It is no big deal to me.  You could use a gas dryer and that would give you some savings but of course there is the price of the fuel and it still does use some electricity as well.

The Staber washing machine is also built with the off the grid family in mind. It is a simply designed machine with under 200 watts running power. With only a larger surge at the start of the spin cycle which means that 165 watts per load is way less than any other regular washing machine uses. It’s a double plus as it uses less than half as much water per load as other machines as well. Spins faster than others too. That  gives you a savings in more energy in faster drying on the clothes line or in your dryer. So if you do alot of wash each week this is a very good option.

There are some appliances that consume your power twenty-four hours a day even when you think they are turned off. Televisions, stereos, office equipment, garage door openers and many, many others. These appliances, really need to turned off when you are not using them. By turned off, I mean the plug pulled out, or on a outlet strip that is turned off. Remember little things count when you are trying to cut your usage back or to switch over to your own alternative energy system. Now YOU are in charge!

Copyright © 2009 Kathleen G. Lupole

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posted by katlupe on Aug 9

A charge controller is needed for your system. It is connected to your batteries and the inverter. Our charge controller in mounted on our wall. There are many different brands and types and it can get complicated. So I will do the best I can to explain some basics for you. It would be best to discuss your needs with the dealer of the brand you choose to purchase. First I will examine each type of controller available. You will need to decide what your future plans are and plan accordingly.

The series cycling charge controller is the easiest controller that averts the overcharging of the batteries by turning the solar panel’s current on and off based on the battery voltage. As the battery voltage rises to a preset point indicating that the full charge is nearly attained a mechanical relay or solid-state switch suddenly shuts off the charge. Simple! But if the battery voltage begins to fall…..if it gets low enough it will make the controller go back on. Battery voltage rises again and the cycle continues. On and off…… This results in battery voltage averaging somewhere between the high and low set points and that prevents your batteries from overcharging.

The constant voltage charge controller is most often what is considered 3-stage. What is 3-stage? A more precise control which gives you the  most charging that is possible for that day.

Bulk charge is the first stage. This is when the power is switched straight through from the solar modules until the batteries reach the preset maximum.

Absorption charge is the second stage. This is when the maximum battery voltage is held by reducing the charge current…….. enough to never exceed the target voltage. Reduced current is high speed on and off pulsing……when controlling on time versus the off time of each pulse determines the average charge current.

Float charge is the third stage. And this is when the battery voltage is reduced after the charge is completed. Avoids excessive evaporating of battery water and will extend your battery’s life. If you are using sealed maintenance-free, AGM or gel type batteries – then the three stage with float would be the safest method of charge controlling for you.

A Diversion charge controller does not mean that it is cut off from the charging source at all. What it means is that the battery charges to the maximum set voltage. Then the diversion control senses that voltage  which in turn causes it to absorb the excess current. That in turn will exactly off-set the excess charge. That will keep the battery voltage so it never goes over the preset maximum. This will be a small amount of heat in ceramic air heating resistors or water heating elements. Your control will adjusts its consumption rate to offset the excess charging exactly. Keeps the battery voltage at…. never exceeding the preset maximum voltage. When someone is  using a wind turbine or hydroelectric which does not have it’s own charge controller then they must use a diversion controller. Those particular  types of generators will be damaged by their charge not being absorbed into the batteries at all times. One diversion controller should handle the combination of solar, hydro and wind easily. Provided the total amps charged from all three together is within it’s amp capacity.

Our  charge controller is the Xantrex C-60 60 Amps, 12 volt and I think it sold for about $245. at Backwoods Solar in 2004. We have been very happy with it and have never had any kind of problem at all. Backwoods Solar will work with you, especially if you live off the grid! They have a great little catalog that is packed full of information. It is like a little encyclopedia for anyone that is trying to set up a system and they really go the extra mile if you know what I mean. Even if you live on the grid.

Copyright © 2009 Kathleen G. Lupole

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posted by katlupe on Mar 31

Since I have been living for ten years now in an off the grid home I have learned so much on how to conserve my power. In the fall and winter the time we call “dark days” of October, November and December it is essential to be very careful. Since we do not have what is called a “normal” house as of yet, many things that others take for granted I do not even own. So it is probably not that hard for me as it would be for someone else. Looking for energy efficient appliances should be the first thing you do when you are thinking about changing to your own system.

I am used to cooking on a wood cookstove, though I do have Premier Propane cooking range. What is so unique about mine is that it does not have any electrical parts. No timers, no lights, not even a oven light, no clock and most especially no “glow-bar”. Now what is a “glow-bar”? It is the reason so many people cannot use the oven in their gas cooking ranges when there is a power outage! It uses electricity, so even if your power is out, you can’t use the oven. This is an electric red-hot glow-bar pilot in the oven that consumes 400 watts all the time the oven is used! Instead, look for one of two types of pilot light ovens. An oven with regular gas flame pilot light is the simplest. Better is an oven pilot that lights by electric spark when the oven is started and goes off when the oven is finished. Propane or natural gas stoves with gas pilot lights need no power connection at all.

Ordinary AC refrigerators and freezers run on over 200 watts AC, and run many hours a day. Most have less than 2 inch insulation. Fortunately, special refrigerators and freezers are available which use less than 30% as much energy. Sunfrost refrigerator products have 4- to 6-inch insulation, and a quality compressor on top where it can’t put heat back into the box. The RF-12 model runs 50 watts for 12 hours a day, totaling 600 watt hours a day. Compare that to the standard models which use around 3000 watt hours each day. Just think how that would cut that electric bill down!

It goes without saying that another big saving for any household is to hang your laundry outside. I do that, and even in the snowy cold winter of New York state. It is no big deal to me, and I admit to liking the way my home looks with my laundry hanging on the line. You could use a gas dryer and that would give you some savings, but of course there is the price of the fuel, and it still does use some electricity, as well.

The Staber washing machine is also built with the off the grid family in mind. But what a savings for the family on the grid as well! It is a simply designed machine with under 200 watts running power, with only a larger surge at the start of the spin cycle. Which means that 165 watts per load is way less than any other regular washing machine uses. It’s a double plus, as it uses less than half as much water per load as other machines as well. Spins faster than others, saving more energy in faster drying on the clothes line or in your dryer. So if you do alot of wash each week, this is a good way to save on the electric bill every month. I have purchased a brand new energy star model made by Whirlpool under the name of Cabrio and it uses so little power that we don’t have to run the generator to operate it. It goes without saying that these energy efficient appliances are a little pricey. But worth every penny!

There are some appliances that consume your power twenty-four hours a day, even when you think they are turned off. Televisions, stereos, office equipment, garage door openers and many, many others. These appliances, really need to turned off when you are not using them. By turned off, I mean the plug pulled out, or on a outlet strip that is turned off. Remember little things count when you are trying to cut your usage back. Even if you never go off the grid but just dream about it, changing your appliances is a change that could really impact your usage and bills.

Copyright © 2009 Kathleen G. Lupole

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posted by katlupe on Dec 4

Setting up your solar system is not as easy as putting your solar panels in the sun and plugging them in. Too bad as many more people would want to do it then. You have to study your house and property to see where exactly you need to put the panels. When we first moved here we only had one panel. So we could go outside and move it around to follow the sun. That’s okay when you are starting out. Not if you have more than one or two though. It can get tiring after doing it every day in all kinds of weather. You wouldn’t want the panels to get blown over due to the wind or a storm. We were lucky when we got hit by an in line tornado in 2000. We had about six trees down on our house, but no damage. Most important was that there was no damage to our lone solar panel which was on the side of the house the trees hit. Didn’ get touched though.

A tool that can help you decide where your panels should go is called the Solar Pathfinder
It will give you the sun potential for the whole year! Good to use for setting up a garden as well. It also has software that you can purchase to help you in accessing your solar energy needs called the Solar Pathfinder Assistant Software

You really need the sun as much as you can get it. Our sun here in upstate New York is not as dependable as other places in the country. We are hardly getting any right now (December). We plan on putting our solar panels on top of our barn roof hopefully next year. If we were just setting this up though and had this handy tool, we would have just seen from the start that the place to put them was up there. My husband has observed every hour, every day, every month, every year that the place to put them would be the barn roof. It gets sun consistently.

Here’s the information you need to check it out. It is essential to use the if you are building a new home and plan to set up a complete alternative energy system. Tell me what you think about it.

Copyright © 2008 Kathleen G. Lupole

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