sustainablehouse.com.au » Energy

Off the grid electricity data for Sydney’s Sustainable House

Michael — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 03:27:14 +0000

Since 31 March 2015 when the new battery and new solar panels were installed on my house we’ve been collecting data on the Tigo solar panels and Alpha Ess integrated battery and inverter systems.

The data is essential to reviewing the promises about the products’ performance and the best design to stay off grid.

Unfortunately, due to the Alpha Ess being brought to market before software had been fully tested, there are outages when no electricity was available to generate data.

Tigo DOES offer downloadable files, but in order to get hourly values, you have to download each day individually — that’s what makes Tigo time consuming. It’s not like the Efergy energy monitoring system, for example, where you can download hourly values for an entire month. Although that system is used in the house it is showing values 50% less than the Alpha and appears to be unreliable. The tedious, time-consuming task of downloading each day’s data from the Alpha and Tigo sites had to be undertaken; urk! My thanks to Marianna Verlage who endured this easily-fixed shortcoming. The other energy use monitoring system in the house is provided by Wattwatchers but for some reason it or the site which provides access to it, Our Green Home, hasn’t been providing data; perhaps the outages have affected it or the system has not been properly re-installed by the solar and battery folk when those systems went in. A work in progress here.

What the data tells me is I need another 2 kWh of available battery storage and another five more powerful solar panels with micro inverters to overcome shading and drops in panel power. That will go in next week.

Winter gives least sunlight so the data for this season, such as it is, is invaluable.

I’m sharing the data we have collected here with you to help you go off the electricity grid. There’ll be more data in the next few months.

Enjoy.

Michael

64 sun lovers bulk buying solar

Michael — Fri, 19 Jun 2015 09:34:10 +0000

We have 64 people who have completed the survey to qualify for the opportunity to reduce individual costs of buying any one or more or all of solar PV panels, inverters and batteries.

Here is the email I’ve sent to the folk to inform them where we’re up to with getting reduced prices:

Hello again, sun lovers

There are 64 of us now in our bulk purchase group; well done us!

In the next few days Casey and I expect to complete our tender assessment and recommend reduced prices to you from our preferred services provider.

When we write to you next we will provide the typical, no reduction, costs and compare them to the price reductions we have achieved by buying as a group.

When we make our recommendation we will ask you to choose one of two options:

to buy one of the options at the prices offered, or
to buy an option that’s not there but would be designed by the preferred service provider to suit your individual need

NOTE: individual options designed outside the ones for which prices were sought in the tender still qualify for the reduced price because of the bulk purchase arrangement. This means if you don’t wish to buy, say, batteries, or you wish only to buy batteries, your preferences can be satisfied

The service providers, and each of us in the group, need to know now how many of us will commit to buying clean energy systems as a group member.

So, soon, each of us will be making a decision to buy or not to buy.

Casey hasn’t been able to call every member of the group as there are now so many of us. But please call Casey if you wish to.

Thank you for your patience; we’re trying to make sure we get the best offers possible.

And just to confirm my disclosure at the beginning: as some compensation for our costs and time I’m asking the successful tenderer to pay a total of $1,000 to Casey and I to share equally once all the systems are installed to our satisfaction.

Kind regards

Michael

I’ll post another progress note soon.

I hope what we’re doing will be copied by others.

Gotta love that sun,

Michael

Meet R2Me2, my off the grid battery and inverter

Michael — Tue, 16 Jun 2015 05:43:56 +0000

R2Me2, my off the grid battery and inverter on my verandah

At the tour of Sydney’s Sustainable House on Saturday 27 June we’ll look at the new off the grid battery on my verandah, called R2Me2.

There’ll be a confession or two by said gizmo as to misdoings, bad conduct(ing) and circuits unknown.

What a bzzzzzzzzz . . .

What solar panels should I buy?

Michael — Sun, 14 Jun 2015 08:12:55 +0000

“What solar panels should I buy?”

I’m asked this at least a couple of times a week. It’s time to share the answer.

My answer is in three parts.

Part One:

You’re not buying the panels, you’re buying the power. What’s promised by the panel seller or installer or maker may not be what you get. Sure, you’ll get the panel, but does it give you the power you were promised? So the first part is to focus, not on the panel, but the promise of the amount of power it will give you.

Back in ’96 when I put mine in I was promised x but after a year it was clear the panels were delivering – x.

Once the panels are on your roof and the installer has moved on it’s difficult to get them back to answer your question, ‘But I”m not getting as much power from the panels as you promised?” There’s no money in that exchange for them.

So be clear with whomever you buy whatever panels you choose: say this to them: “What power will they produce? Will you install them on condition that the balance of the payment will be made when you and I agree the panels are delivering the power you promised me they’d produce?” If they won’t do that deal then I’d not buy from them.

Why do I say this? Aside from my experience, and the experience I’ve heard from others, its clear both from a survey by CHOICE and word of mouth that there are many fly by nighters out there selling shonky panels who will not be there for you when they’ve got your money but the panels aren’t producing.

Part Two:

Only buy and have installed panels from a business that’s been going for at least five years. Many installers only last a couple of years and many won’t be there to honour warranties and guarantees.

Part Three:

Ok; which panels?

Truth is, it’s hard to keep up with the growing number of new panels so my answer about brands is limited by the fact that, although I live and work in the renewable energy sector, I’m not across all those that are available. And CHOICE has not done a technical comparison of them, nor, amazingly, has any body representing the solar industry! (Note: I rarely use exclamation marks.)

So I’m not going to go on and give a full list as I just don’t have that recent data. I would recommend Tigo as:

I’ve had them on my roof for a couple of months and they are producing more energy than they are rated to produce;
they have a terrific phone and email alert and data service that is the best I”ve seen;
they have “microinverters’ that allow each panel to produce the power it gets or does not get from the sun without dragging down other panels which are not getting as much or are getting more sun.

But there are many more that I have not mentioned.

If you’re putting your own panels on I’d definitely go for Tigo; they are well-made, but expensive.

Just my thoughts,

May the sun shine on you and yours,

Michael

Please qualify for reduced price solar / battery power with my survey

Michael — Thu, 28 May 2015 05:56:35 +0000

Hi.

We had a terrific information night at Sydney’s Sustainable House on Monday about making solar power cheaper.

As promised, the survey for anyone to qualify to join the group bulk buying to bring down the price of solar and batteries has been published.

THE SURVEY – If you’re interested in filling in the survey, click to fill it in here.

If you return your survey by Tuesday 2 June we will provide cost information and more news.

Let’s go!

Our lovely, generous sun awaits.

Michael

Cut your solar buying costs and buy in bulk with me and 30 others

Michael — Tue, 26 May 2015 07:39:37 +0000

The stylish black integrated inverter and battery system on the balcony of my house

It’s all solar systems go.

After the solar info evening last night, we’re going to do it – over 30 of us from across Australia will buy in bulk to bring down individual prices for solar power systems for schools, houses and offices.

A solar power station or three is in the making, those already with solar are keen to try out the new battery technology and we feel stronger by buying and working together.

The conversation took place in this room where the metal fixing that once held the main grid line to my house now rests on the wall as a sculpture

Forty four people came to the evening. Everyone was keen to act, keen to do, to get beyond talking, to forsake complaining and blah – just to get on with it.

Yes, the sculpture looks like a futuristic cockroach but it gives me a childish delight and sense of achievement. Every house could have one . . .

Several already have solar systems that are grid connected and are keen to add batteries.

And we’re keen to add social capital to our spending money by investing in social enterprises such as powering remote communities. If we’re going to buy solar why not use our money at the same time to invest in adding value to, say, another part of society which can benefit from the transactions? Now, that’s a real return on investment.

It’ll all be lawful.

Legal questions and answers about how to install solar energy, how to go off the grid, how to sell your power are in a website I’ve set up and the legal advice is generously funded by the NSW Government; it’s here.

Thank you to Larissa and Marianne who prepared the data and presentation, to Paul, Brom, Laurie, Judy and John, Richard and so many who brought food and laughter and ideas.

But most of all – thanks to all of us in Australia who, in moments like these, give ourselves permission to be the leaders and shape our own futures. Who would remain bored waiting, waiting for political leaders to lead when they just don’t?

It’s just plain fun. Epicurus would approve.

How efficient are solar panels on my house after 19 years?

Michael — Thu, 05 Feb 2015 05:35:49 +0000

To check the efficiency of the solar panels on my house after 19 years of use, and to obtain regular reports on them, I’m receiving a report from Solar Analytics.

The first report is here as a PDF and you’re welcome to download it and read it for yourself.

SA-Report-Mobbs_Chippendale-01.2015

Of fridges, solar power and getting the most out of them

Michael — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 06:03:19 +0000

Yesterday’s tour of Sydney’s Sustainable House was packed both with people and the interesting stories and questions they asked. One email has come in from one of people on the tour, Peter, and here it is as it’s got useful information about using solar panels efficiently and meeting the energy demands of that gas guzzler, the fridge:

Hi Michael

It’s Peter, and together with son Simon and two friends, was in your clutches for the tour yesterday Saturday 6th.

Once again many thanks for putting the time and effort into sharing what you’ve done. Very impressive.

The doing of it is admirable but the sharing bit is really special, some of the seeds you are planting with each little tour will surely grow…

We spoke briefly about the solar side and it seems you haven’t changed a lot from day 1, that’s not a criticism, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it etc., but it did sound as if you were on the verge of updating and including battery storage, so for what it is worth and from a total amateur…

I’ve been living in a little bus, urban-camping around inner and Eastern Sydney and rely heavily on solar panels to run a fridge, induction cooktop, laptops, lights and vitally a cappucino machine. I did a bit of research when migrating from an older vehicle with 12 volt panels charging a 24 volt battery bank via a first generation controller. The system in the newer vehicle is way better, the solar panels are marginally more efficient but the major change is inserting an MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking, whatever that means) controller between the solar panels and the batteries.

MPPT is the generic name, there are heaps of manufacturers, they are all over eBay and prices vary according to capacity – the maximum number of amps a unit will handle. The thing is typically about the size of a brick, mine cost less than $200 and has been running trouble-free 24/7 for three years. No heat or noise and it’s designed for mobile use, bounces around on the road and so is very rugged.

The MPPT should sit as close to the panels as possible to reduce voltage drop, but contains (I imagine) lots of electronics so needs to be indoors or heavily weatherproofed. Ditto the batteries should be as close as possible to the MPPT to reduce voltage drop. In a terrace like yours I would imagine the MPPT, the battery bank and the inverter to convert battery to mains voltage would all be happiest close together in the roof space beneath the panels.

To state the obvious, the inverter I refer to here is a totally different box to your current inverter which feeds your excess power to the grid, which I imagine needs to be exactly where it currently is, next to your street power box.

The MPPT thing beats first generation controllers in two respects – firstly, it manages the power delivered by the panels more efficiently. Heresy to you I know, but in no way have I measured this scientifically. I am however totally confident that my current set-up, despite having less-efficiently located panels on the roof of the bus, starts to register power to the batteries much sooner in the day and maintains a flow until later in the day than the previous set-up.

Secondly, the MPPT magically sorts out any differences between the panel and battery voltages automatically. This makes it very easy to wire the panels in series so, if I wanted to, I could connect say three 12 volt panels together to produce 36 volts into the MPPT and add or subtract panels at will. Likewise, the batteries downstream of the MPPT can be configured as 12, 24, 36 volt, whatever.

There may be limitations to the range of combinations, I didn’t explore much beyond what I needed, which was two 24 volt panels on the roof wired in series to produce 48 volts down a single pair of cables to the MPPT and thence to two 12 volt 200 amp hour deep cycle batteries in the vehicle, connected in series to feed a 24 volt inverter which produces 240 volt mains power.

My fridge as it happens is a very efficient 24 volt drawer (not door, so cold air does not ‘fall out’ every time the thing is opened*) item that has been running 24/7 for the last three years, directly from the batteries. This eliminates any (albeit small) efficiency loss that would be incurred if I ran a domestic 240 volt fridge through the inverter.

Connecting the solar panels ‘in series’ (in my case to produce 48 volts out of two 24 volt panels) is important, because as the voltage increases, smaller gauge copper cables can be used – or better - thicker cable can be retained to offer less voltage drop. Ditto between the MPPT and the batteries and between the batteries and inverter. Thick, short cables are the go.

Downstream from the inverter, 240 volt mains power is of course happy to travel through standard skinny mains copper cable with minimal voltage drop, and in my bus, to circumvent any need to have mains wiring certified, I simply run extension cables from the (insulated) inverter to wherever I need power.

There you go. I’m sure you are all over most of this stuff anyway, but I hope some of it may prove useful to you or a blogee.

Please feel free to publish/edit any of the above if you see fit but of course there is no such thing as a free lunch so in return, please keep me posted if you do anything interesting, especially on the battery side – as you pointed out in the tour, solar gear prices are on a downward trajectory, but lead/acid batteries are and always will be expensive and heavy. In my case the batteries amount to about 50% of the cost of the whole system and about 90% of the weight.

Finally, I don’t have the details to hand right now, but if you or any of your flock are interested, I’ll check if the people who supplied me with my gear and advice are still alive and in business. They operated out of Melbourne, have a real shop and could arrange for stuff to be shipped ex-Sydney to Brisbane at the best price I could find at the time. And importantly, their after-sales advice was every bit as good as their pre-sales spiel.

Regards

Peter

* as an aside, all fridges should be designed like this but very few are. Mine is a 24 volt Vitrifrigo, Italian, dear as poison, hard to find and possibly discontinued now. The only other alternative 24 volt drawer fridge/freezer I could find was manufactured by the sun-roof people Webasto for the marine market at an eye-watering price. 240 volt domestic drawer fridges are equally hard to find, but I did buy one a few years ago for a house I have in Qld, think it’s a Mitsubishi. You may consider that when you get around to replacing yours….

Peter, that’s a terrific lot of helpful information; thanks for your time and generosity.

Magic puddin’ pump pumps water 24/7 without electricity

Michael — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 22:57:43 +0000

It’s magic.

It pumps water up to 200 metres above itself without electricity.

Video Glockemann pump

It uses the energy of flowing water to pump the water.

I’ve stood in a very slow flowing creek at the bottom of a valley and seen it pump water up 65 metres to a rain tank at the top of the hill. It doesn’t pump fast but continuously.

Wonderful design, wonderful ‘eyes’ in the designer for the gifts Earth has for us if we will look for them.

Don’t you love good design?

Enjoy,

Commercial project taking carbon out of air to make plastics – and hope

Michael — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 22:53:27 +0000

This is what we and Earth need – projects to take existing pollution out of Earth’s air.

A new commercial project extracts carbon from Earth’s air to make plastic products.

The ‘biocatalyst” commercial machine takes carbon from landfills and other polluting sources and mixes it with air in a reactor and makes it into a liquid which pulls carbon out of air and makes it into plastic.

The two people behind the US business are Mark Herrema and Kenton Kimmel and their business is called Newlight Technologies.

They’re making chairs and cell phone cases, food storage containers, films and a range of things from air. It’s a market-driven carbon capture project that’s taking more carbon pollution out of the air than the process causes.

Cause for hope for us, our cultures and Earth. Thank you fellas,