Solar Baby

posted by katlupe on Aug 22

The Present Solar System At Peaceful Forest

I have had many people ask me lately how they can change from using the grid electric to setting up their own alternative energy system. I know it sounds easy from the things I write. The difference for us is we were not hooked up to any other system and didn’t have to deal with the electric company. So I am trying to think of things you can do to get started. It is not that easy to go buy a solar system for your house if you don’t have much money. They cost money. But you can start with one 50 watt panel, a charge controller, an automotive inverter and a couple of golf cart batteries. You can just plug your lamp (with an LED bulb) into the inverter……..and there it is — not running on your utility grid anymore!  As time goes by, you can add another panel.

For the time being here are some things you can do to get started if you cannot afford the equipment. These may look trivial. It is NOT! You must learn to conserve your electric use if you truly want to live off-the-grid or partly off-the-grid.

• 1. Replace all your light bulbs first of all with LEDs.
• 2. If you need to replace an appliance, always choose the most energy efficient appliance you can afford.
• 3. If you are presently using an electric stove, replace it with a gas stove. I know, you thought you could use your stove for free………….well, you can’t. Appliances that use heat are always big drains on your system. In the long run, propane is cheaper. I use both propane and wood and it doesn’t cost too much. All winter I can cook with wood as we have two stoves going. Depends on what you are doing for heat too.
• 4. If you are using a desk top computer, replace it with an energy star laptop. My husband and I both use Lenovo ThinkPads and they have many energy efficient options. We use them plugged into the system and have found them to be very easy to use and are not energy hogs. I love mine!
• 5. Stop using your clothes dryer! They use a lot of power and it is better for your laundry anyway to hang it. In the winter I hang mine upstairs, but if you have a basement with a furnace, then that would be the perfect place to hang it.
• 6. Replace your electric coffee maker with a coffee percolator that perks on your stove. Better coffee too!
• 7. Take a look at your electric gadgets to see what you really need, and what you can get rid of. Like electric can openers, electric tea pots — really! Give me a break, how hard is it to heat water on the stove? I use an electric mixer, and that has been something I could use right from the start of living on our system.

I will be adding more posts like this one to try to help my followers/readers who are just getting started or want to get started. If you are an experienced solar user and have ideas to add to this basic idea, please let me know and I will add it to my next post on this subject. All ideas to help our readers get more independent are welcome!

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

posted by katlupe on Mar 14

As I posted in the fall we are planning on adding two more solar panels to our system and placing all five of them on our barn roof. This is not an easy job due to the weather and the high roof of our barn that my husband has to work on. He managed to get out there during the nice days we had this month to put the roof racks on the roof.  I am not sure in my own head as to how he is getting the panels up there as they are pretty big. So when he is doing it I will try to get some pictures of  him in action.

This is the battery room that my husband has added onto our cellar. Our main part of the cellar is a root cellar and he did not want to add anything that would change the root cellar environment as it was built to preserve produce from the garden. He dug this all by hand even with two bad shoulders and a crushed elbow. It was a slow going process but he did it little by little as he could.

This is the battery room as it progressed. You can see the cinder block walls here. It is a narrow room but will hold our batteries, our water pump and our pressurized water tank. It will also have a platform that will lift up and to the outside with our generator on it. That way the it can run outside yet be inside and safe when not in use.  Hopefully, we will not be using it as much as we do now with the panels moved to the barn roof.

Notice the pipe built into the wall at the top. That is where the electrical wire will run through into the house. The door there leads to the root cellar.

During the fall he dug a ditch to put the electric wire in encased in conduit. The ditch comes from the room in the cellar which we call the battery room. Our 24 locomotive batteries will be in there as soon as it is finished. The conduit will keep it safe from the elements in the ground. The wire was the most expensive part so far.

This is the part of the ditch that goes around our pitcher pump and into the battery room. That is where the cinder blocks are that you see in this photo.

You can see where the panels will go. One problem with our panels though is that buying them one at a time over the years they are not all the same dimensions. That is not good if your putting them on roof racks that you have bought. Not uniform. But I know my husband will find a way to make them fit.

Our five panels will all be going on the barn roof before long.  I am looking forward to that. Our sun shines all year on that roof. We are surrounded by state forest with old growth trees that are big trees but they don’t seem to block our house or barn roof  at all. More power means I will be able to use my washing machine at long last. Looking forward to it.

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

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posted by katlupe on Jan 9

In November we purchased two more solar panels and the equipment needed to FINALLY move them onto the barn roof. The barn roof gets the most sun all year long. If you study it as we have done over time you will see the areas of your property that get the most sun. We purchased two Kyocera solar panels from the alternative energy store. They did not have anything to mount them on the roof with though. My husband contacted their customer service and asked some questions and because our panels have been purchased over a period of ten years they are not all uniform in size, so nothing they had would work for us. The customer service rep was very rude with my husband on the telephone and wanted us to replace the older panels we had with new ones so they would be the same?????? Now what kind of advice is that? Must be in sales! He lost their company a sale that turned out to be over $600.!!! Which is what we spent at Affordable Solar for the roof racks.

These panels will give us almost double the power we have presently. They are Kyocera KC85T 85W 12V so will give us 170 more watts for a total of 350 watts of power. Plus putting them up on the barn roof will mean our panels will be have longer periods of sunshine even in the dark days of winter here in upstate New York. Unfortunately, our roof racks did not get shipped very fast from Affordable Solar and then all the parts came except for the parts that needed to go on the roof first. So by the time those parts came……our weather turned bitter cold and now we have our usual amount of snow and ice. So that is on hold and our two brand new solar panels are in our barn waiting for the much wished for January thaw.

We Purchased the Clicksys roof mounting system manufactured by Unirac.  Here is a link to it and no, I am not an affiliate of their’s. Just a customer.

http://www.clicksys-beam.com We wanted our panels to be secure on the barn roof as it is a high roof. On Unirac’s web site they said that the connections are secured with just a click and it completely eliminates the bolts and nuts you would normally have to use. Cuts out at least forty percent of the labor that the other types of roof racks need done. My husband was all for that! Saved time as well and he wants to get them up there and quick as possible as he does not relish the thought of doing all that work on the barn roof. On their site they say, “The new innovative design of CLICKSYS™ offers the most cost effective flush mount solution in the residential marketplace. Pricing starts as low as 10 cents per watt. Save time and money with the most revolutionary PV mounting system in the world!” My husband is building a front porch on the barn which will have have a walkway above it to clean off the panels when leaves or snow accumulates on them.

The Google campus in California had  9,000 panels to rack and a variety of roof styles to deal with so they had Unirac perform a custom engineering analysis of the site to make sure that the product they chose would work best for each of the individual roofs.  So a non-penetrating racking system was used for the standing-seam roofs which Unirac was able to provide. I like the idea of it being non-penetrating on my barn.

Copyright © 2010 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 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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