Off Grid Solar

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Paul Pilon on March 27, 2013 at 9:26pm

Rob, do tell. I've found a Whirlpool that gets me down to 295 kWh/yr with a capacity of 19 cubic ft. I know of a fellow who imported a Bosch from europe and just plugged it in. I don't see the 230/240V difference being an issue but going to 60 Hz from 50? He didn't add an inveter which would probably eat up any gains so he's running around 130 kWh/yr. I'm surprised the electronics were ok with that and it's to be seen as to how long the unit will last.

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Permalink Reply by Rob Baxter on April 1, 2013 at 12:12pm

The refigerators we work with are designed for super efficient living so they are not as big as the one you are looking at. But they might work well for Copenhagen/Amsterdam style living - where you pick up your groceries daily on your bike ride home from work. They are also top loading which makes them more efficient but not what everyone likes.

The 225 L model would use about 73 kWh / year. It is also DC powered so you save some power on inverter losses as well.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Pilon on April 1, 2013 at 9:12am

So far my daily kWh average by Month production is:
Jan 1.132
Feb 2.150
Mar 4.017

I ran the generator twice in March for a total of 3 hours. I'll run it once a month for 15 mins just to get the oil to circulate through the motor as per the manual.

Here's a video of the Generac 6kW Ecogen generator I'm using. It's rated at 52 db:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgji4MiZV6U

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Permalink Reply by Paul Pilon on September 23, 2013 at 9:48am

From march on our production kept up with an increase in demand as we started to used our appliances more, like the dishwasher. In June we added a water feature to the garden with a pump and LED lights that ran 24/7. Why not? There was more than enough power in batteries come morning, even when we had cloudy weather.

Monthly figures were:

April 4.52 kWh/day
May 4.67
June 4.82
July 5.07
Aug 5.19

But there were days when we used upwards of 7 kWh.

I just replaced the 5 year old fridge with a CEE Tier 3 Whirlpool. My meter showed it used only 0.9 kWh over a 24 hour period which calculated out to 328.5 kWh/yr. I prefer the bottom freezer layout of the previous fridge but I couldn't pass up dropping from 475 kWh/hr. Hopefully this will translate into running the generator less times or for shorter periods. I was disappointed to see the 5 cubic foot freezer using 0.8 kWh/day. I guess that it'll be next to go on Craigslist...

As far as the generator goes we used 200 litres of propane from Oct 2012 to March 2013 @ $0.65/L for a total cost of $130 and I'm expecting/hoping that will drop.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Pilon on October 16, 2013 at 10:15am

We went for the freezer, a 3.5 cubic foot Igloo (FRF-438) from London Drugs and it has used less than half the power of the 5 cubic foot unit over a 24 hour period. Both the fridge and the freezer seem to make more noise, or we notice a difference anyway but that's just the way it goes.

Still haven't had to run the generator so that makes a solid 7 plus months of going just solar. :)

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Permalink Reply by Paul Pilon on October 28, 2013 at 3:56pm

Well despite forecasts of sunny days we were completely enveloped in fog for too many days in a row and I had to run the generator for an hour on the 21st of Oct for the first time, then again on the 24th for two hours. I was hoping to get through to Nov and make it a solid 8 months but 7.5 will have to do.

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Permalink Reply by Randy Chatterjee on October 28, 2013 at 4:34pm

A damn fine performance, Paul! You are using very little propane as your very occasional back-up and you are by far the best of all of us at keeping your energy footprint low.

One project I would like take up soon is a self-reported carbon footprint contest among all the Villagers or Villages. I could probably gin one up using a spreadsheet on Google Docs. The goal is to find out how all of us are doing on energy use, share the best practices and experiences, and then compare us Transitioners with the general public.

I hope the comparison is dreadfully unfair and we can shame the recalcitrant into action! Among us, I don't really see this as a competition but more an exploration into what is very possible, and precisely how. Almost NONE of the government and energy company messaging tells us much that is truly actionable at any reasonable cost. Having friends and neighbours wiling to share information and know-how provides huge benefits.

Anyway, very good work. You'd be #1 not just on a low-carbon list but on many other Transition measures.

Randy

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Permalink Reply by Paul Pilon on November 12, 2013 at 10:20am

Hey a footprint tally is a great idea Randy. I hadn't kept any details on our rising NG consumption although that's easy enough to look up. And even though it has gone up we're still saving money each month compared to a fully electric reliant house. Just like becoming aware of our electrical usage I'm sure we can trim that. I'd love a rocket stove mass heater or just a wood burning stove with a radiator for heating or hot water, and we've talked about a cob oven in the back yard too. :)

We produced a daily average of:
4.55 kWh in Sept
3.02 kWh in Oct.

We're at the stage where the solar production is just barely keeping up to our usage, on the best of days, and those are few. Now our generator output is supplementing our solar production and eventually the roles will be reversed. Last Nov the generator ran for a total of 25 hours. This year I'm hoping to knock 30% off of that. Fingers crossed.

Cheers

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Permalink Reply by Paul Pilon on December 14, 2013 at 10:34am

Novembers numbers look good. We dropped our average daily usage from last Novembers 3.5 kWh to 2.7 and we ran the generator 4.5 hours less. The PV array made a snick more with an average of 1.5 kWh/day, up from 1.3.

December looks to be more promising because of the sunny weather we started with. I've got an average so far of 1.1 kWh produced compared to 0.5, but the rest of the moth could drag that down. And we're really looking forward to the winter solstice when the sun starts to climb again and we head towards generator free days again!

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Permalink Reply by Paul Pilon on January 1, 2014 at 9:11am

Happy new year!

December 2013 was much better for us. Our daily solar production average was up to 0.8 kWh with a max of 1.6 on two occasions and there were two days were we produced less than 0.1. Our daily usage average was down to 2.55 kWh, with a max of 3.0 and a min of 1.8, so to make up the difference we ran the generator for a total of 31 hours. That's a nice drop from the 40 hours we ran it in 2012.

We're going to pick an evening or two a week were we use no lights, computers, or television. Just candles, books, pen and paper. If I can't find a good acoustic bass guitar I can use a bass amp that runs off of a battery while ~L plays the acoustic guitar and sings. Strictly analog living. :)

Less electricity. More fun!

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Permalink Reply by Paul Pilon on February 4, 2014 at 12:25pm

I haven't compiled my data for January yet but it's Feb 4 and on a clear sunny day we're producing 2.4 kWh from the PV system. That's either matching our consumption or close to it. We haven't used more than 3.0 but I'm guessing the monthly average is close to 2.8. So that means I'd be running the generator far less unless we get some very dark days. Even when it is cloudy we're making 1.4 unless it's raining a lot all day.

I think I've moved the bar forward on being 100% before the beginning of March, by perhaps a couple of weeks, by changing out the fridge and freezer.

:)

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Permalink Reply by Paul Pilon on February 8, 2014 at 2:53pm

We did even better than 2.4 with a 2.9 and a couple of 2.7 kWh productions this week.

January numbers look better this year with an average solar production of 1.1 kWh and a daily average usage of 2.6. We also ran the generator 7 hours less than January 2013 with a total of 33 hours. I'm still running it 30 or 40 minutes a day to give myself some breathing room through the night. Even though the fridge and freezer use less electricity overall if they both come on at the same time the inrush current can really drag the batteries down lower than I'd like.

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