Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Free Energy, Power to Burn.

Generator season is long past now. I haven't started that thing for a long time now. It gets it's use in the winter, but it is now spring. This is my first spring in the new house with the new power system. I am quickly finding that I do most certainly have power to burn. The other day I purchased a little 2 burner electric stove (hotplate). It seemed a waste to burn propane to fry my bacon and eggs in the morning. Or to fry anything anytime for that matter. I fried some chicken with it tonight.

This is my whole supper cooked using free electricity. The rice and vegetables were cooked in the microwave.
The battery bank was charged right up to 100% State of Charge before cooking supper. Actually it was at 100% quite a lot earlier in the day. Probably around noon, I'm not sure as I didn't pay much attention to it today. This is what the State of Charge read after all that high electrical power cooking session. I used a small fraction of my battery bank cooking supper. This was a little later in the evening, and the sun was still doing a bit of charging, but for the most part the charging day had ended.
Then I thought, what the heck, use some free energy to heat the dish water. I very easily could have turned the tap on, and had as much hot water as I wanted, but that would be burning propane. Why would I burn propane when my free power is right there and waiting to be used. It's not like I have to stand there and hold the kettle or anything like that. I just do something else till the water is hot. By the time this task was done, my battery state of charge was at 98%. So it does use some power, but it sure won't take long for the sun to put that and more back into the batteries tomorrow. Unless of course the sun don't shine tomorrow, and if not, it don't matter, I have enough power for a few days without any charging going on, depending of course, how I use it.  
I have lots of options when it comes to cooking, and I always choose which ever one makes the most sense for the kind of day it is or the season etc. This time of year seems to be good using electrical powered goodies. Microwave, electric burners, toaster, I just may have to look into a crock pot or toaster oven or something like that possibly in the future.
         In the winter the green coleman campstove gets used a little more as the days are a lot shorter and a lot of times it is cloudy, snowy or just too much snow on the solar panels. Also, the furnace runs at times consuming power, depending on if the wood stove is lit or not.
I do usually try to use the woodstove as much as I can in the winter, and if it is in use anyway, I usually utilize it for most my supper cooking, whether by using the top of it or the inside of it. So anyway, I'm not bragging about my system, just merely putting this out there for your information. My battery bank is a bit of over kill for what I actually could have gotten away with, but I'm glad I have it just the way it is. I wasn't sure how much extra power I was going to end up with, but now I can see that it is lots. This helps me decide things like what type of fridge to get. Propane fridges are expensive and burn propane, d/c powered fridges are very expensive for what you get in my opinion. I think I will be leaning toward a normal ac powered fridge, but only on a smaller scale for now. This will be used in the summer time anyway, possibly in the winter too, but  not real sure at this time. Could have a different plan for that season as the great outdoors act just like a deep freeze most of the time anyway. This winter I froze jugs of water outside that I would put in my cooler. This worked really good. When the winter days got too warm to freeze the water outside, I would simply set the whole cooler outside on the deck overnight. That worked good also. I kept all my frozen foods in the freezer in the RV and just left it shut off. However, when the weather had a warm spell, I would simply start the fridge and it would keep all the frozen goodies frozen. Life is so good at times. I know I could run an a/c fridge in my house year round, and I would just have a little more generator charging to do, but usually when I leave the house for long periods of time, (which don't seem to happen very often anymore), I like to shut my power right off. I guess if I plan on going somewhere, I would just plan on not having much left in the fridge, so I can do just that. So anyway,8 or 9 months of the year, power to burn, 3 or 4 months of the year is generator season.
 
A quick run down of my power system, is 12  L16  6 volt batteries, 6   Sharp 240 watt solar panels, magnum 24 volt inverter/charger, outback 60 mppt charge controller, and miscellaneous other parts and accessories. The generator I use is a Honda eu2000i. The Honda does get the job done, although a little bigger sure wouldn't hurt. This whole power system with the generator costed me roughly $12,000.00. The price I was quoted to get grid power put on my propery was $9000.00-$12,0000.00 if I remember right. That was 4 years or so ago. It is likely more than that now, but I am not sure.  
 
It would be really neat if I could store the summer power to use in the winter. I can't do that, but I can sure use more power in the summer and less propane to help balance things out a bit.
  
April 10 2013. It was a pretty nice day today and if this keeps up, this snow will be gone in no time. I still haven't done much more building lately. I have been busy with other things and the days have been really flying by.  
 

12 comments:

  1. You are really able to get a lot out of your solar system. We are to the point we need to start thinking about replacing some of our batteries. They have been in operation for ten years now. I'm not sure what is so different about your system, but you seem to be able to get more use out of your battery bank than we do. - Margy

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    1. Hello there Margy. I do have a lot of batteries and they are pretty big. $4500.00 worth, and 1440 watts in solar panels. I think 10 years of use from your batteries is pretty good. I hope to get 10 years or more out of mine, and I think I should as I am actually quite careful how I use them, even if it don't seem that way. I think being further north can also be a benefit in the summer time for sun shining hours in the summer time, but not so much in the winter. Could be wrong though.

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  2. Cool - love to read about solar power satisfaction. Well done :)

    Yeah - winter time is the b*tch. We're probably going to get another couple of panels to supplement our lack of ray intensity during the winter months.

    For comparative purposes, we've currently got 7 X 135watt panels, Outback 60 charge controller, 6 X 2 volt batteries and a 1000 watt inverter. In hindsight, we shoul've got the Outback 80, 12 X 2 volt and a minimum of 2000 watt inverter...

    Definitely cooking with electricity is OUT in our house, so in summer it's the solar oven or the bbq. Winter - the small caravan stove and the wood fired stove.

    But, one learns to live with less - and less is comfortable, enough and good :)

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    1. Hello Dani. Ya, winter is a biatch. I hope all winters are not like this last one. Lots of snow. Lots of snow covered panels. I just accept the fact that winter here is generator season and the summer is free power, for the most part. I knew I had lots of power here, but I didn't expect it to be quite this good. I cooked breakfast this morning with electricity and I was charged right up by around 2:00 this after noon again. It was pretty cloudy for awhile this morning and it was actually snowing, so the system kind of proved itself to me right there. I can't remember if your outback 60 charge controller is the a flexmax 60 mppt type charge controller or not. My inverter is 4000 watts. So far it runs anything I have thrown at it. I sure have learned to live with less, and I like it. I learn to use power when the sun is shining and when not to use too much. Eventually it's all automatic habit.

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    2. Yup - Flexmax mppt 60 :)

      Yeah - sunshine hours are the time to work - after dark t'is only the fridge (on a timer) and the TV and lights. As you say - being careful of power consumption becomes a habit... :)

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    3. It's all fun to do though I find, and ya, all automatic after while.

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  3. Hey Mark! That's great that your power system is working so well and thanks for posting a breakdown on what you have in solar equipment. That was very informative. Jack and I have been looking into solar for some time but power may be a bit in the future still for us. We do hope to install solar hot water very soon though. Good to see you are still kicking and enjoying things so much. I'm glad for ya!

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  4. Hi Annie, long time no see. The systems working pretty good, but I am totally sure there will be bad times in weather too. Today is kinda nice, but crappy forcast for a few days, so I pumped my water pumped, doing laundry, pumped the sewer, charge things, generally get all the big power things out of the way for now, and I should be good for the crappy weather weekend. lol. Always gotta be planning, but it keeps the mind good. I think. Solar hot water would be a good thing too. I'm thinking of putting a small electric hot water tank in front of the propane water heater. I would switch it on on a real sunny day when I have extra power and have a shower once it kicks out.

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  5. Glad your system is working well, I am suffering from battery envy, that is a killer bank you have.
    Just thought to mention that using that panel power to heat water should work well. I have just hooked 3 195 watt panels in series to give me a voltage (max power point) of 110 volts dc. I am going to drive a 3000 watt element( 19 ohms)in my tank to heat the water that I had been heating by the wood stove. There ready to go up but the snow just wont stop.....maybe by next week I can get them hooked up and will find out how well it works, anyway, work that system hard, and let everyone know what you find! Just remembered I think I have seen a fridge (10-14 cuft)at homedespot that used 280kwhrs a year, 767 watthrs a day....

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    1. Hey John. Ya, I thought I'd get lots of battery power more for running the furnace if a man should be laid up or something in the future, and to burn wood would be a chore. Never know. I'm pretty sure heating water with an element would work ok, as long as there are other options. I would only turn it on for short feesible periods. I'm running 3 strings of a little over 70 volts dc from my panels. I've been looking at fridges at home depot and other places. Not quite decided as to what exact size I'm after. Too big, and may put a bit of a damper on my electrical cooking you know. lol.

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  6. Hello! I am new to your blog. I actually found you linked on a Homesteading Pinterest board, and spent a day reading your blog from start to present! Right now the hubby and I are looking for land to buy, and planning/dreaming/prepping to eventually have a homestead of our own. You have raised my confidence level that it is all possible, you just have to keep plugging away. I can't wait to see your continual progress. Thanks!!

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    1. Hi C.Huber, welcome to my blog. I'm glad you like it. It really is quite possible. I am glad I took the plunge and have absolutely no regrets about the way I live here yet. Enjoy, my friend.

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