Self Sustainability and Energy Saving

Actually the federal government (U.S.) did have a contract that they wanted a company to bid on that involved energy savings. A few large cities (also U.S.) were looking at the same thing. The retrofit would pay for itself. There are some government entities that actually have a surplus of funds and are forward thinking but they are in the minority by far. A city I lived in S. California was such an entity.

 

Over the Years, I have seen energy saving, life preserving plans, initiated, only to be shelved, when Budgets get tight.
Many times, they are never reactivated when new budgets come in. Being ruled by Accountants, who never seem to understand health/ safety, has taken away, a lot, of Forward thinking. To say, they are supposed to create savings, they never seem to want to spend, to create an end product, that will produce, a saving and preserve life, where water is needed for Fire fighting. Many times, I have heard the money men say, well we have never needed, these contingencies before and we have the Annual Convention to finance. Best we shelve Plan, B/C & D till next year, Of course next year, never comes and the Money gets Diverted.


JP

 

Interested in Ph solar power??? Read this

 

BUMP! "There was a sustainability thread started a while ago , with some stuff about solar , would be great it was in a little spot that could be easily found and added to , so instead of separate threads we could keep the info housed in one area for reference ability , the name of the thread is ;
Self Sustainability and Energy Saving

If you can't find it follow this link ;Self Sustainability and Energy Saving

It should just bring you back to this site , but on the sustainability thread straight away , see you there , regards Tony"



If you want a thread to come back to the activity page, just make a post in it. I usually say "bump".

 

Denpet , if you are doing a solar system , we would really appreciate it (out of this world) if you could document it on this thread as you go , with pictures and costs . It would be a great reference for the rest of us , please consider it

Tony

 

Yes, no problem. I just copy and paste a post I did in another thread, to keep it all in this one.

I have just ordered a 30kW system from a danish guy in Toledo.
This is to power Eden Resort. We currently spend 60-100k on electricity monthly. With this, and some power saving devices, we expect to get that down to close to zero.
For the panels we spent 1.3M pesos.
The have an economic lifespan of 25 years, and comes with 15 years warranty.
Inverters and installations not yet decided. It depends a bit on what option we goes for.
All in all I expect to have the investment paid of in ~5 years, and then have free electricity for 20. Given the price of electricity will likely increase the savings will be even more in the future.

 

We are currently investigating different options for inverters. I have found out there are two different technologies for inverters (those that convert solar power DC to 230V AC, 60Hz). The string inverters, where you connect many panels to each inverter, or microinverters, where you have one per panel. The latter is more efficient, and, as you might guess, more expensive as you have one inverter per panel, and hence deliver 230V from each panel.
The efficiency you get by utilising each panel 100%. With string inverters you only get what the least efficient panel produce. E.g. if you have 20 panels connected to a string inverter, and one is shaded and produce only 20%, you will only get 20% of the other 19 as well.
These are all grid connected. That means you hook it up to NORECO and use NORECO when you are not generating, and sell back to NORECO when you generate more than you use. We use on average 10kW continuously on Eden, and I estimate the panels to be about 30% efficient over a 24h cycle. So by generating 30kW during sun hours, we sell back during the day, and buy back at night.
A drawback of this, especially in Dumaguete with frequent brown outs, is that the grid inverters only work when there is power from NORECO. They rely on an external puls to synchronise with. So, in absence of 60Hz clock puls form NORECO, they shut down.
I am now investigating how to circumvent this. There is also battery backed inverters, which will operate independent of the grid. I'm looking into having one of these hybrid inverters that are grid connected and battery backed, just to get a clock pulse during brown outs. Not sure if it will work. A small generator could also be used but that is a bit awkward having to run a generator just to generate solar power.
At present it's regulated in law that the electric company has to buy back excess electricity through a net metering set up. You basically have one meter measuring what you buy, and one measuring what you sell back. The price is different and I think you loose about 20%, i.e. you sell back for 20% less than what you buy, or you have to produce 20% more than you need to break even.
As laws are soft and you never know what happens in the future, (if a power generating company's daughter get married to a law makes niece, in a fart they can set any price they want on what you sell, and you have no other buyer).
So, I think I will go for a hybrid system, just to be able to set up batteries in the future if it will be needed. As the expected life span is 25 years, lots can happen, and I don't want to invest it all in a system that can only be grid connected, when you don't know what happens in 10 years. Batteries might also become cheaper and more efficient in the future.
So, I basically know very little at present, but learn as I go. Will be happy to keep posting in this thread as we progress.

 

Denpet , that was a fantastic informative post , there have been a few of us waiting quite a while for something like this to come along on the sustainability thread , a friend of mine has told me that the best batteries are actually made in the Philippines , unable to confirm or deny , but I think it is on an earlier post in the thread .

Tony

 

Solar Power

I am considering installing solar panels and wind generators on a house. Could u give me the name and contact # of the Danish guy in Toledo.

 

I have a friend in Victoria who's Business is Solar and is also on Facebook under KC Solar. As far as I know he sources his stuff from Taiwan as it is better quality than previous stuff sourced from China which ended up getting him into a lot of trouble as the branded stuff he bought turned out to be counterfeit.

I will be looking into Solar also when I am back and have just had Solar Lights sent to the Family there via a friend here in Oz who is from the Philippines and is married to an Aussie.

The Security Lights have time and distance adjustments, and have separate Solar Panels on them where you can locate the Panel on the sunny side of the House and fix the Security lights anywhere you like... They are LED lights and throw an alright bright light, but not as bright as the 240V 150W Spot lights you would normally get...

The set lights normally affix to the guttering and have an On/Off Switch and operate as soon as the Sun goes down. I sent Ten of these to the Family to place around the home so at night during the hours they are up and about they will provide ample lighting making it safer to walk around as well as I hope a safer environment.

When I was younger, my old Boss up the Coast had a rural property where his Son and I did a lot of work for him in the early stages of building his Home.

Initially we built Cabins using cement Block and local redwood timber, we dug the holes for the Water Tanks by hand, one Cement Block Tank was 14 feet deep and 12 feet across, we used a milky liquid in the cement mix to water proof the Tank and rendered the inside using a sandy mix with cement and this milky liquid. In the centre of the Tank we built a column then laid marine ply supported by a dozen or so cut Gum trees to support the weight, then poured the Lid with a Man hole cover to access inside the Tank for cleaning or whatever purposes, and ran the piping from the Gutters to the underground Tank.

The greatest feat was when he began building his House, the entire front Veranda/Patio area was about 20 metres wide and 30 to 40 metres wide, he used a Back Hoe to dig out the sandy soil and built a Cement Block Tank that was 3 metres deep, had support Walls inside with openings so even when 3/4 Full you could swim through to reach the far end. He then poured a slab over the Tank which was the Floor to his outside Veranda. On the hottest of days that area was ice cool and was great to sit on to cool off, the water that came out of the Tank was Ice cold also!

Again he used the same milky substance to render the inside of that Tank as well as using it during its construction. Being underground meant the earth held it firm and internal walls gave the ceiling (veranda floor) support and strength.

Back then (late 70's) Solar Hot Water was in its infancy and he constructed his own setup using Black plastic Piping at first wound over the top of his roof, then he later constructed a sealed Box with Glass (or Perspex?) and used that for showering. Toilet and Washing water came from a Well with a high lime content which he pumped into an above Ground Tank behind the House set up on the hill so gravity fed the water down to the House.

I am sure had Solar Electricity been around he would have used that also as he had LPG powered VW's in Holland before coming to Australia in the late 60's so he was a step ahead of us here in Green technologies for where we were at.

I would like to do similar if possible once I am back and settled in...