|
|
Post by smshogun on Aug 3, 2015 21:54:11 GMT -5
What is coming off grid? it may seem a simple question but the answer is much more complex and individual; my perspective is to contribute as little to large corporations and swap as much of my monetary transactions and use my own energy instead.
This began with my current property which is a few acres which is what I wanted so she could keep her horses and I could house all my classic cars together so we bought a few acres and this is an interesting story in itself and one for another day; on the site we actually found a house which was totally dismantled and the materials were stored in its vast cellars and covered with soil and this was due to WWII and the fact the property was nearly 500 years old and owned by some highly influential and very rich business men and instead of being demolished due to its unusual roof it was dismantled to prevent the Luftwaffe using it as a visual aid in their bombing raids.
The agenda was to grow a large proportion of my own food free of all GM seeds and all rubbish such as pesticides and commercial feeds and the toxins and poisons they contain and a proportion of the land was allocated to this, but finding a house, although dismantled threw up a quandary, do we just rebuild it in its inefficient stone and how are we going to heat it? this to me designing a geothermal heating system which is actually a deep bore geothermal system totally free of all power.
As the property was rebuilt thanks to some excellent designers at work and scale rendering of the brilliant A-cad systems we have I was able to establish that all the blockwork for the entire property was there and I could construct the shell from the original materials; and as one of our boring contractors was awarded a large contract along with the fact they were storing a number of their machines on my property they agreed to bore a deep hole for my geothermal system using HBR (hollow boring rods) which are 10" outside diameter and with a bore of 9" giving me a metal sleeved hole around 80 metres deep as this was the depth we got adequate temperatures for the system to work. With the property built I made a series of coils and pipework and fed them into the HBR and filled it with sand to conduct the heat from the pipe lining to the coils.
As my barns were reconstructed I used a portal frame constructed from waste formwork we supply for large concrete shuttering jobs on major concrete pours as this has no use and costs more to cut up than we would get as scrap value, and clad in highly insulated SIPS panels offcuts our roofing and cladding division use I had four barns to run the return water through to give temperature differential, this is in addition to the addition of two 50' poly tunnels added later, so free heating using only thermo syphon and two heated poly tunnels and four barns. No gas, heating still works, no electricity, heating still works, it just chugs away 24/7/365.
Electricity was a problem and salvation came from our roofing division; we install solar panels as an additional revenue stream and anyone knowing about them knows the figures are notoriously misleading and overstated, but using them as a 12 volt power source makes them much more efficient and several of our regular suppliers donated several working at 12 volts and cited them as "on official long term testing" and after a year they simply right them off against tax, they feed a controller and power four massive battery packs, again recycled from submarines and still under manufacturers warranty; but FREE, my favourite word. Everything was based around a 12 volt system and all my exterior lighting was built by myself and operates on 12 volts, my electric gates are 240/12 volt so operate on 12 V, my security cameras operate on 12 V, and I have emergency lighting in every room of my home even though it has 8 bedrooms and a massive staircase and even the cellars have emergency lighting. In the event of a mains failure my home is fully illuminated.
Fuel was an issue and this was dealt with by an ample supply of used vegetable oil so I actually bought my own transesterification plant and make my own bio diesel to run my 4X4, tractor, teleporter, and other diesel engines; it would also run a diesel generator but I never got round to buying one due to an exciting project at work. Simply filter the waste veg oil using a home made filter, put it in the machine, add the chemicals, plug in for 8 hours and you get 20 gallons of bio diesel.
Our exciting project was run in conjunction with a university and we designed a super efficient snail shell generator range and used a vortex tube to get even more efficiency as these can be run as low as a 1 metre head in any stream or run off water; and I have a stream running through my land so it was bypassed and a dam installed with a holding pond excavated, this is a depth of 2 metres so I get free electricity and instead of a bill I get a bill with a cheque with the surplus being fed into the grid at its appropriate tariff.
Other things I have done is install three salvaged stainless steel storage tanks under my ground to give a massive 90,000 gallons of grey water storage from my massive roof and a grey water grid providing water for my 6 toilets, irrigation of my ground, and powering things such as a jet wash.
I am currently building a small transesterification plant for turning larger quantities of veg oil into bio diesel, and built a small plant for making free "pucks" for burning using waste paper, sawdust, and cattle muck mixed together and stood for a few weeks then put into moulds then compressed using hydraulics.
Now I am self sufficient in fruit and veg, heating for my home, poly tunnels, four of my 5 barns; electricity in both 240V and 12V, diesel fuel, grey water, and even fuel for a wood burning stove, with a little ingenuity its surprising what you can do and my outgoings for such a large property are about that of an average 3 bed semi detached.
|
|
|
|
Post by John on Aug 4, 2015 6:49:12 GMT -5
If we'd have had the money, I'd have built a two storey home, half below ground with a large reinforced floor for the 2nd storey. Lower, below ground level would have been the main living area. During summer it would have provided a level of comfort from the oppressive summer heat and high humidity, plus safety from tornadoes during tornado season.
I'd have also used ground thermal heating and cooling to assist in keeping the house cool in summer and warm in winter. BUT, we just didn't have that sort of money.
My house is pretty warm and easy to keep warm in winter, we use a wood burning stove as the sole form of heating, floor plan is around 2500 square feet approx, "stick" built house that's pretty common construction mode in the US and Australia.
Walls are insulated, over 12 inches in the roof space, double paned windows, but will have to install a window mounted A/C unit, humidity gets to me when it reaches 85% and higher at 95F. Age I presume, as years back it would be just a very hot day.
I do have twenty solar panels to mount on the roof when summer comes to a close, and there are 20 large 6 volt batteries in the battery house, which will be connected in five banks of 24 volts paralled to supply two 4Kw inverters controlled by load controller. At the moment the batteries are connected as a 12 volt battery to keep in a fully charged state.
Although we don't get a lot of wind here, I have two wind generators, both are permanent magnet units, one has dual windings, the other a 500W is a single winding. The dual, in a stiff breeze is capable of 80 amps upwards to 140 amps, but would need a very high wind to provide that power. It has steel blades, very heavy unit.
I mounted the control gear, inverters, charge controllers etc on a home built steel frame mounted to the battery house wall. Floor is reinforced concrete around 8 inches thick to take the weight of the batteries, I even added fine steel mesh in the walls and ceiling, all earthed, to act as a Faraday cage...Just in case!!
|
|
|
|
Post by colly0410 on Aug 4, 2015 10:24:36 GMT -5
We've been thinking of going down the solar panel route, but not sure if it's worth it. It says on 'Money Saving Experts' site we'd save about £5/600 a year if our roof was south facing, but our roof is west south west facing so presume it would be less for us. They cost about £6/7000 so a lot of outlay for uncertain payback. If solar panel price comes down in future then it could be a different story..
|
|
|
|
Post by John on Aug 4, 2015 12:02:48 GMT -5
We've been thinking of going down the solar panel route, but not sure if it's worth it. It says on 'Money Saving Experts' site we'd save about £5/600 a year if our roof was south facing, but our roof is west south west facing so presume it would be less for us. They cost about £6/7000 so a lot of outlay for uncertain payback. If solar panel price comes down in future then it could be a different story..
The off grid system requires storage batteries to store the energy, which is used at night when there's no sun.
Storage batteries "aint" cheap!! I tried sourcing used batteries, ie telephone exchange standby batteries, but didn't find any.
Again, if I'd have had the money, I would have gone the Nickel Iron battery route. Why?? They last a lifetime or more, all you do is change the electrolyte every few years... Again, I searched high and low for used forklift NiFe batteries, hard to come by these days. They have either been scrapped of "snatched" up by companies that restore them and sell them as "new/used"
So sadly I went with the lead acid batteries. Maybe when I'm due for new batteries, NiFi batteries will have dropped in price, but I will need charge controllers suitable for NiFi's, you cannot charge NiFi's the same way as lead acid batteries. |
|
|
|
Post by John on Aug 5, 2015 6:21:48 GMT -5
Steve, I forgot to mention the third alternative module, it comprises of solar panels with built in mini inverters, the module plugs either into a power outlet, or wired into your breaker/fuse box. It synchronizes with the mains frequency and is fail to safety, ie no power the inverter switches off. What the do is supplement power used, reducing the amount you draw from the utility without all the fuss of permits and utility company checks.
|
|
|
|
Post by smshogun on Aug 5, 2015 7:10:13 GMT -5
Solar is the biggest con going at mains voltages and major problems are the overinflated claims of power production, here in the UK they cite the maximum theoretical output of the panel, but testing has proven the average output is only around 7% of this figure across the UK; here is the first problem. Consider that each panel costs around £1000 for supply and installation at the present time and you can save UP TO £600 per annum as they claim then you have to ask HOW MANY PANELS DO I NEED TO SAVE THIS AMOUNT and await there response as it is a play on words citing the best gains they have and not the average gains they have; and you will often find its around 20 panels but may vary according to which company is making the claims. If we translate this to cold hard figures you can see it costs around £20,000 to save £600 per annum and as most panels have a 10 year lifespan you save £6,000 or in other words you lose £14,000 over 10 years. This is fine if you are a company as you can offset this initial investment against tax over 3 years so for the same installation and make a £6,000 additional profit and will be guaranteed the feed in tariff, if you are a private individual you cannot offset the initial cost against anything.
Much has been stated about costs and the reality is that the feed in tariff is based on theoretical maximum output and on a sliding scale, if you produce smaller amounts you get the higher feed in tariffs and the higher the amount of electricity you produce the lower this feed in tariff becomes; hence why I stuck with a 7.5KW snail shell generator as this gives the highest feed in tariff. Next we have the issue of payment as the feed in tariff is much higher than what they can sell the electricity for and this is currently the topic in vogue as the Government are looking to reduce all the feed in tariff across the scale, basically you don't buy in at £2 and sell for £1 as its bad business and making a loss. Current proposals are to abolish the higher producers tariff all together and reduce the remaining tariffs to that below the level they can sell the electricity for which will skew the figures even more and make it impossible to make a profit as it will take over 50 years to do this with the current proposals and using panels with a 10 year guarantee.
At lower voltages they are better as you can get them as 12 or 24 volt systems which means you can store the power, used in conjunction with other technologies such as LED lighting makes them cost efficient.
This said, solar technologies are moving at a rapid pace and new technologies such as graphene have accelerated this. |
|
|
|
Post by smshogun on Aug 5, 2015 7:12:12 GMT -5
John:
They all have invertors somewhere as they have to have them to feed the grid, the best invertors are only 80% efficient so you lose 20% or one fifth of your output straight away. |
|
|
|
Post by John on Aug 5, 2015 9:54:47 GMT -5
John:
They all have invertors somewhere as they have to have them to feed the grid, the best invertors are only 80% efficient so you lose 20% or one fifth of your output straight away.
I'm not sure with the UK's rules, but the inverters here have to meet stringent Federal safety rules applicable to my above paragraph.
The mini inverters on modules, although the have to meet safety rules, don't require the same planning rules as a fully installed On Grid System, they are more likened to household appliances.
My inverters are "pure sinewave" output, with the inbuilt clock locking the frequency at 60hz, 120-0-120 volts output, low voltage detector to protect the batteries from discharging below a certain level. Load sensing, monitoring the circuit load to reduce power usage from batteries. In fact the controller will control up to four inverters, one master and three slaves, as load increases to near 4Kw, it will switch another inverter into service until the load drops, then switches back to the master to power the house.
Mine are the Magnum MS-PAE series 24 volt units. Peak rated efficiency is 93%. These have transformers in them and high current mosfets. |
|
|
|
Post by John on Aug 5, 2015 10:06:00 GMT -5
I'm not going off line, just the house, my workshop will still be on-line because of my wood working machines, welder and metal bandsaw, way too much load to take that off line, cost of batteries would be prohibitive.
We are also prone to severe weather where I live, tornadoes, ice storms severe winds.
We were without power for nearly a week a few years back, biggest ice storm in the utilities history, affected several states and millions without power due to downed lines and snapped power poles.
Linesmen were brought in from as far away as Canada and worked around the clock. Biggest problem was the roads were impassible even with 4WD vehicles, two to three inches of pure ice coated everything.
Just two weeks back we had powerful winds that brought trees down across the area, leaving us without power for over 24 hours, not bad, mid summer, temps in the upper 90'sF and daren't open the fridge or freezer!
That and future rising costs associated with our governments "war on coal" are the reasons we invested in the equipment. Costs per unit are forecast to rise 10% in the next year and as much as 50% over the next five years!! If our EPA get their way, there will be no coal fired power stations operating in three years time. That will lead to rolling power outages at peak use times, as we don't have the base generators needed once coal stations are closed down..
This is not snow in the photo, pure ice!!
|
|
|
|
Post by smshogun on Aug 5, 2015 21:18:14 GMT -5
This is my problem, welders, lathes, milling machines, pillar drills, etc. I have switched to invertor welders and they are much better as they consume much less power for a given output for a specific sized welding rod, basically my transformer plants ran around 130-140 amps for a 3.2 electrode, this has dropped to around 90-105 amps; now I can knock out 5mm electrodes from a mains supply at around 150 amps.
|
|
