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How much of your power is currently coming from renewable energy?


By la7qz, Section Homebrewed Electricity
Posted on Sun Apr 29th, 2007 at 02:22:17 AM MST
Are you just playing around, or living totally off RE?

Hi

I thought it would be interesting to see how much of their daily power needs people here are getting from renewable energy. By that, I mean REAL renewable energy. In other words, if you are living off grid, but generating all your power with a generator burning fossil fuels, the answer would be 0%. For the purpose of this poll, a generator running on biofuel will be seen as RE.

I am totally off grid on my sailboat, but I do occasionally have to run my diesel engine to charge my batteries, so my answer would be <> 90%. Hopefully, I will get to 100% when I get my wind generator flying.

If like me, you are sometimes generating electricity or heating water etc. as a byproduct of propelling your home, you'll just have to use your own judgement as to how much of that power you would have to generate from fossil fuels if you did not need to motor your home (in my case, mostly just in and out of harbour).

For the purpose of this discussion, we will not count the fuel used to move your home or other vehicles/vessels.

(I wanted to have separate options for 90 - 100% etc, but there were not enough options allowed in the poll.)

Please feel free to comment this poll and mention the specifics of your system.

PS. I'm not sure which section this would belong it. Feel free to move it.

Regards,

Owen Morgan
Yacht Magic
Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
How much of your power is currently coming from renewable energy? | 16 comments (16 topical, 0 editorial)

Re: How much of your power is currently coming fro (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by la7qz on Sat Apr 28th, 2007 at 08:26:33 PM MST
(User Info) http://home.no.net/naomij

Hm.. This was supposed to be a poll, but the poll questions never appeared?
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.


Re: How much of your power is currently coming fro (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by la7qz on Sat Apr 28th, 2007 at 08:29:57 PM MST
(User Info) http://home.no.net/naomij

Found them now. Must have been a problem loading the page...
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
[ Parent ]


Re: How much of your power is currently coming fro (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by rossw on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 04:24:53 AM MST
(User Info) http://house.albury.net.au/

Depends on the day and season.

In summer, without wind, I make 36% of my average daily needs from PV
With a good wind, I make 100%, but that is rare.

In winter, without wind, I only come to about 10% on a good day from PV
On days like today, with good wind, again 100%.

Hard to calculate exactly, but I think my annual average at the moment is about 20% (the rest comes from burning propane to charge batteries and drive peak load. The waste heat from the genset gives me household hot water, and heating of the house)

I'm waiting on more PV, which should increase summer to about 95% and winter to about 60% (windless), or about 75-80% yearly average.


[ Parent ]



Re: How much of your power is currently coming fro (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by mtbandy on Sun Apr 29th, 2007 at 05:06:44 AM MST
(User Info)

Less than 5%, which is quite pathetic really considering all the time I've thrown into it, and not helped by 'bargain' solar panels off eBay that never made more than .84 watts despite being sold as 5 watters!

I'm hoping to get a 50-100 watt array up and running soon with a charge controller / data logging setup that charges the main SLA from the grid if the battery capacity falls to critical. Hopefully then I'll be up to at least 50%



Re: How much of your power is currently coming fro (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by Nothing40 (phattymo (at) gmail (dot) com) on Sun Apr 29th, 2007 at 04:18:45 PM MST
(User Info) http://www.users.qwest.net/~ptaylor/

Well,I just measured about 8W coming in from my 10W Solec panel.
Not much,but it's a fun start!


Re: How much of your power is currently coming fro (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by DanB (danb@*no spam*otherpower.com) on Sun Apr 29th, 2007 at 04:44:45 PM MST
(User Info) http://www.otherpower.com/

I figure were in the 80 - 99% catagory because we do occasionally run a generator - very rarely though.  After putting in a 240V transformer recently we can do everything including pumping water - and welding, without needing a generator.  We've been 100% wind powered for almost the last year  - I have 600 Watts of PV but they've been unhooked since last July.  We'll likely get those back online soon.

It's been great fun to be wind powered with home-built machines.  For the last year it's been pretty reliable.  We run an electric fridge, washer, drier - all the 'normal' stuff and usually have power to spare.  I expect the total cost of our system has been around $10,000.  This stuff really works out well and since we built our own stuff/shopped for surplus batteries the cost is pretty reasonable.
There are a few folks up here in our community are 100% (but they don't have internet so they won't be voting).  About half the people up here don't own a back up generator and only have their PV and wind turbines which they've also built themselves up here.



Re: How much of your power is currently coming fro (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by la7qz on Tue May 1st, 2007 at 08:45:40 AM MST
(User Info) http://home.no.net/naomij

Hi DanB

Thanks for your reply. We have 40 votes at the moment and it's a shame that more people didn't also post comments describing their setup. Also a shame that it is not possible to make a multi question poll.

I would be particularly interested to get some info from the person who is running 100% RE. What is his/her power usage as compared to a "normal" family living on the grid? I'm wondering how cost effective those last few percent are. It's nice to strive for 100% of course, but a system that is capable of supplying your every need all the time must be producing more than you know what to do with most of the time (unless you're pumping it back into the grid and being paid for it).

It must be quite difficult to get to 100%. I mean, even using an oil lamp (on non-RE lamp oil) would drop you down into the 80-99% group.

Thinking that over, I just realized that I will not get to 100% even when I get my wind turbine flying because I'll still be cooking on propane. I will be getting all my electricity from RE though, and that is a good start. I'm not sure there is a cost effective way of cooking on RE only on a sailboat. A microwave would reduce my dependence on Propane, but a microwave doesn't go well with my style of cooking. I suppose a 12V drop-in heat coil could be used to boil water for my morning cup of tea, but I'll still need the gas flame to fry my bacon and bake my bread.

Owen Morgan
Yacht "Magic"
Falmouth Harbour anchorage, Antigua
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
[ Parent ]



Re: How much of your power is currently coming fro (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by DanB (danb@*no spam*otherpower.com) on Wed May 2nd, 2007 at 06:39:00 AM MST
(User Info) http://www.otherpower.com/

Hi   -
well yes, I suppose if you put it that way then I dont know of anyone around here that's quite 100% - most of them cook with propane and have propane refrigerators.


[ Parent ]


Re: How much of your power is currently coming fro (3.00 / 0) (#14)
by 3rd Charm on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 06:14:50 PM MST
(User Info)

I guess I can say 100% even though I'm "on the grid". It all comes from hydro electric dams in this province.  My reasons for getting off the grid have nothing to do with enviromental concerns, I just hate paying "the man".  When your whole house is electric, it isn't cheap, especially in the winter.

[ Parent ]


Re: How much of your power is currently coming fro (3.00 / 0) (#16)
by la7qz on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 06:56:13 PM MST
(User Info) http://home.no.net/naomij

Hi

I thought about that after I posted the poll. Maybe I should have asked about RE that the members are producing themselves, but the way I phrased the question, I suppose we have to allow RE from the grid. I don't much like putting waterfalls in pipes though.

I'm from Norway (but am now cruising in the Caribbean). Norway is pretty much 100% hydropower for the whole country with lots of beautiful waterfalls running through pipes. Some people (including my mother) chose to use oil furnace or wood heating because the oil and wood is cheaper than electricity though. (Norway has loads of forests and is the biggest oil producer in Europe.)

Regards

Owen Morgan
Yacht Magic
Falmouth Harbour anchorage
Antigua

If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
[ Parent ]



My Use (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by Off grid in Tonopah on Sun Apr 29th, 2007 at 11:06:39 PM MST
(User Info)

For the three months in summer June thru August I'm using the generator 14 hours a day to cover my AC needs the rest of the year it I say I'm around 70 percent RE.

                                           Bob



Re: How much of your power (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by wpowokal on Tue May 1st, 2007 at 10:43:43 PM MST
(User Info)

Alright for what it's worth, for domestic use I genreally use between 3.5-4.5 Kw/day, there are exceptions of course. We use gas for some of our cooking, microwave and electric apliances can be concidered Re.

Some hot water comes from gas heating, so all up domestic wise say 85%.

But I also use the power in my fruit packing shed, for around 6 weeks in mid summer I run a coolroom which pushes my total consumption to 20-22 Kw/day, coolroom/processing equipment/lights & domestic. I process and pack fruit for 9-10 months of the year, the lights over the packing table are under review, they use some 250 watts. There are quality assurance concidederation there so it's still in the musing basket.

Continual improvements yield more Re, all solar panels are now on tracking mounts, by next summer I will have the conversion back up so that will give me 4 main wind turbines. I get some good overnight winds in the summer coupled with afternoon sea brezes.

I make up the short fall in peak of summer by using a 5.5 HP Chinese Honda with 24V alternator, so summer time next season say 60% overall.

I have 1.2Kw of solar and 2Kw of wind.

allan down under
A life lived in fear is a life half lived.



Re: How much of your power (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by TomW on Wed May 2nd, 2007 at 08:36:28 AM MST
(User Info)

Allan;

After reading this I wondered if some type of polarized or specific wavelength light may improve sorting? Lots of processing seems to use tricks in lighting to spot abnormalities.

Just a thought and likely pretty wild.

Cheers.

TomW

PS looking forward to your next IRC visit and I promise to make Ron be nice this time....

"Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned."--Mark Twain
[ Parent ]



Re: How much of your power (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by wpowokal on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 01:59:00 AM MST
(User Info)

Hi Tom you are not too wide of the mark actually, although my primary purpose was to reduce the power consumption from the 6 x 40 Watt fluros.

Incandesant light shows fruit in its natural colour, as oposed to the fluros. I was hoping to use down lights @ 24v. Lights in the shed have to be shatter proof, next audit is due this month so I will run the downlights past the auditor.

allan down under
A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
[ Parent ]



Re: How much of your power is currently coming fro (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by nanotech (darrin(dot)moore(at)gmail(dot)com) on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 01:04:05 PM MST
(User Info)

A question before I answer the poll:

Does heating with wood that you grow in your back yard count as RE?
__________________________________________
My ship finally came in, but it was the Kobayashi Maru!



Re: How much of your power is currently coming fro (3.00 / 0) (#15)
by la7qz on Thu May 3rd, 2007 at 06:47:14 PM MST
(User Info) http://home.no.net/naomij

Hi

Good question. Since it's my poll, I reckon I get to play God here... :)

I suppose the deciding factor would be whether it's plantation wood or you are chopping down trees and not replanting. If you're replanting, then I think we should allow it as RE.

Regards,

Owen

Yacht Magic
Falmouth Harbour anchorage
Antigua
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
[ Parent ]



How much of your power is currently coming from renewable energy? | 16 comments (16 topical, 0 editorial)
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Poll
How much of your daily power needs comes from renewable energy?
100%
80 - 99%
60 - 80%
40 - 60%
20 - 40%
10 - 20%
5 - 10%
Less than 5%.
I am not using any renewable energy, but am planning to do so within a year.
I am not using any renewable energy and have no plans to do so within the next year.

Votes: 47
Results | Other Polls

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