Author Topic: Range with Induction Cooktop  (Read 23357 times)

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Volvo farmer

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Re: Range with Induction Cooktop
« Reply #33 on: March 17, 2012, 11:35:57 PM »
Quote from: ChrisOlson

I never said anything of the sort.  You were the one that disagreed with what me and my wife CHOSE to do.  I might feel slighted and annoyed because we chose to do things with electricity, and I built a system that can do it, and yet it's not "efficient" by your standards because it cost a lot of money to do it our way.  You're reducing efficiency to money.  For me, efficiency is getting away from fossil fuels.

Okay, we might have different definitions of efficiency. I actually think it's pretty nifty that you have built a large enough system to do everything with electricity. In some ways I agree with you. For instance, I believe that it is better to use electric refrigeration in an off grid system than absorbtion refrigeration on LP gas.  But I have to admit, I base that decision on economics.

Once you are making dozens of kilowatt hours per day, it makes sense look for the most efficient electric appliances you could buy, and I suppose I can't argue that an induction range top cooks with less electricity than any other.

However, I still believe that economics plays a role in the decisions we make as off-gridders. For instance, if it cost forty thousand dollars for that range, would it be better to buy it, or to put up another wind turbine and live with less electrical efficiency?

I suppose that economic efficiency is more important to me than electric efficiency.  I respect your position though, and I believe it is generally a wise thing to try and reduce our use of fossil fuels.  However I think that one has to take into account the embodied energy of the things we use to produce renewable energy, because mining copper and lead and making glass and silicon wafers are processes that are still largely done with fossil fuel energy. 

In some cases, maybe it is more efficient to burn some gas directly under a pot of water than to burn it in an electric turbine that powers a factory two hundred miles away that is making copper wire to make induction ranges and wind turbines so that we can harvest "free" electricity from the wind.



« Last Edit: March 17, 2012, 11:39:50 PM by Volvo farmer »
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ChrisOlson

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Re: Range with Induction Cooktop
« Reply #34 on: March 18, 2012, 12:37:22 AM »
However I think that one has to take into account the embodied energy of the things we use to produce renewable energy, because mining copper and lead and making glass and silicon wafers are processes that are still largely done with fossil fuel energy.

Yes, these are factors too.

It is impossible for the industrialized world to just flip the switch and stop using fossil fuel energy.  The very existence of civilization as we know it depends on fossil fuels.  I think that is a bad position for civilization to be in.  My wife is Swedish.  She is VERY much into all this because Mona Sahlin (Sweden's Minister of Sustainable Development) announced in 2010 that Sweden will be the first petroleum free country on earth by 2020.  In the US when some politician says something like this, it's all election talk and nothing changes.  In Sweden it is already well underway.

All the economies around the world that depend on oil will fail when the price gets so high that it smothers everything else.  It's already happening in the US, and refined petroleum products here are artificially cheap (compared to Europe) because of government subsidies.  The government makes a lot of money off oil and all its products, at the expense of the consumer.  Anything that comes out of US politician's mouths relating to "reducing our dependence on oil" and "renewable energy" is pure BS - spouted only so the stupid general public will vote for them.  When the general public finally has enough common sense to revolt and get rid of this government (which is our constitutional right) that supports Big Oil because it controls the global economy, then we can start over and get someplace.  Otherwise this nation, and most others on earth, are on a dead end street.

It's probably more than I should have said because it's a different topic.  But it's one of my pet peeves and I'm married to a woman who firmly believes that crude oil is the root of everything that's wrong with "modern civilization".  Therefore, we choose to take a different path because my wife wants to be like her home country - and I agree with her 100%.
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Chris

wpowokal

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Re: Range with Induction Cooktop
« Reply #35 on: May 13, 2012, 08:25:18 PM »
Just found this thread, it is interesting in so much as it highlights load scheduling, Chris I know you have a decent size system, as I do.

Here in my part of Australia a 45 Kg bottle of LPG costs $150 delivered, but I have, well most days, considerable surplus power so boiling the billy on LPG makes no sense, I use an electric jug to boil my water.

My batteries cost as much as the next persons, mine are sized in amp hours to suit my needs, I also know that they began slowly dying from the first time they were filled with electrolyte, and  I know I am anal about their care. With all this "I know" I should be brilliant, why is this not so?

Despite all the above, and assuming one has been able to afford a correctly sized renewable energy system then using electricity is a no brainer, it is about when one uses it.

Living off grid is not hard, nor more expensive if one is honest about what things cost, it is just a lot more rewarding NOT getting a windowed envelope in the mail every month that demands payment of a government inflated fee for energy supplied via wires.

Now where is that step ladder so I can get off my soap box.

Allan deep in the jungle, or I should say oldest rain forest in the world.
A gentleman is man who can disagree without being disagreeable.

ChrisOlson

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Re: Range with Induction Cooktop
« Reply #36 on: May 13, 2012, 09:22:09 PM »
Allan, we heat all our water with electric, we have an electric clothes dryer and an electric range.  We have 9.7 kW of installed wind and solar generating capacity (with everything running full bore).  We have a 58 kW battery bank, 8 kW inverter capacity and 9 kW standby generators.  Our generators are auto-start and the inverters have the capability of starting the generators for what's called "peak load management".  The inverters can carry larger than 8 kW loads long enough to start and bring a standby generator online to help out with the big load until it goes away, then shut the generator off.

The range is no big deal, really, for a decent sized off-grid system.  It's a very heavy load for a few minutes while the heating elements come up to temp.  But then it's an intermittent cycling heavy load that is quite easy for a large battery bank and inverters to handle - without starting the generators for peak load.

Water heating is also no big deal.  We generate enough excess, on average, to heat our water with.  We have Classic controllers on both the solar and wind turbines and they have what is called a "Waste Not Hi" mode where they turn on 240 volt water heating elements as required to maintain bank voltage during absorb and float.  On any normal day we dump up to 7 kWh into the water heaters and we have 110 gallons of storage capacity so we got enough hot water on poor days.

The electric clothes dryer has to be managed.  My wife never uses it in the summer because the old clothesline works perfectly fine for drying clothes.  But in winter time she has to manage when she uses it and wait until the bank is in float, and we got at least 5 kW incoming power capacity to be able to run it without sacking the bank and/or the standby gen coming online to help out.
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Chris