August

[Capt Slog]

Well, I'm afraid the answer is, not a lot.

This is partly because I spent two weeks of it Spain.  Wow is that place made for solar power or what?  But surprisingly, not many Spanish take advantage of it.  I did see a few solar heaters for hot water, but even less than I see in Greece, my usual holiday haunt.

I wonder why it is that those in colder climates like the UK long for free energy, and those that have it don't use it?  There must be paper in that for someone.

What I did see there though was a fairly big windfarm, around 30 or so turbines, near the town of Casares.  In the UK these are usually fenced off and I've always found it difficule to get near to one.  In Spain however, where the spectre of health and safety is less prevalent, you can walk right up and touch it.  So that's what we did.  Blimey aren't they big?  And scarey if you're standing directly under the path of the blades.  While we were there we saw the blades change pitch as the wind altered, and could hear the machinery inside the tower making the changes.  It was impossible NOT to be able to hear the blades, but I didn't think it was very loud, nor was I able to hear any of them when we a few hundred yards away.

Back at home I've been getting ready for the switch over to inverter powered lighting.  This has involved changing some of the existing lights to cfl.  In one of the bedrooms there was a 4 x GU10 halogen fitting, that's 4 x 50w!  What the hell was I thinking of when I put that in?  The young Slog that occupies that room will often go out and leave the light on!  (sometimes all day!!).  Out it came and in went a single CFL in a lampshade, so 200w down to 11w there.

My bedroom has a three bulb fitting built in to the ceiling fan, that was 3 x 60w tungsten which has been replaced by 3 x 7w CFL.  180w down to 21w.

I'm now well on the way to conversion and saving in the meantime. I realised that I wasn't going to be able to keep up with the demand when it came to winter, the time when I'll need more light because there is less sun but will generate less for the same reason, so I've ordered a second panel today to make my solar up to 160w.

I'm now wondering what is the best option during the summer.  Does it make more sense to switch a panel off that's sitting in full sun or to just leave it on and dump the power if those are the only two options?

Cheers.

[DamonHD]

To your last point...

Switching it off is easy and safe for PV, but I use my extra to run my laptop (else it reverts to mains).

Anyway, my big question to you, leading from an interesting IRC discussion...

Was the noise little enough that you could live in the tower of a turbine?

Rgds

Damon

[Capt Slog]

When I mentioned noise, I was refering to that made by the blades(in this case the lack of it), which is usually complained about by objectors to the turbines when they are going to be sited in the UK.  The noise from the machinery was enough that I wouldn't want to share a room with it.  I couldn't hear it when standing a short distance from the turbine, perhaps due to the wind, but it was noticable on the steps.

I wonder now what I was hearing, because I think it must have been noise transmitted all the way down through the tower unless there is machinery at ground level.

[wooferhound]

I have a ceiling fan here in the living room that has 3 fixtures for lights on it like you have. I have 3 different color CFL bulbs in it: Warm white 2700º, Cool white 4100º, and Daylight 5500º. The degree figures are the Color Temperature. This combination of lights gives Excellent overall Color of white for the room.

[Capt Slog]

I was just pleased to be able to find some low-wattage CFL bulbs with an edison screw fitting.  It is possible to pick them up at low prices sometimes, but the moment I started looking they were £2.50+ each for sizes I didn't want.  Bayonet fittings are more common in the UK.  I've never seen any choice in colour temperature here or perhaps I've not noticed it.

.

[scorman]

Woof,

Isn't there any concern about CFLs and vibration??

Are they rated for that application as are special incandescents?

In my case all the fans lights are hooked into dimmers, so I'd have to consider removing the dimmer and just running CFLs at full blast.

Need to find shorter CFLs for the globe section of the fan light, since the glass hits the bulb.

Stew Corman from sunny Endicott

[Tritium]

The latest CFL's I purchased say they are Dimmable on the packaging.

Thurmond

[wooferhound]

I've never heard anything about vibration being a problem with CFLs. I have been using them in Ceiling Fans ever since I've been using CFLs.

[richhagen]

I took my 9 year old son to visit his grand parents near St. Louis over the weekend.  On the way back on Sunday we stopped by a wind farm just outside of Bloomington/Normal, IL.  The machines were in corn fields and were not fenced off.  You could, and we did, walk right up to them.  I took a picture kind of like yours at the landing of the machine.  

I could hear the steady wooshing of the blades through the air, and at one point the tower made a metalic popping noise that gave us a bit of a start.  It may have been the pitch control, or changes in the wind loading on the tower, I'm not sure.  I would not think it would be ideal to live in the base of one of these, but I guess one could get used to almost anything.  They fit nicely in corn fields though as there is no one around to complain except maybe the farmer that owns the fields.  Whatever complaints he might have are likely well mitigated by the $500 US or so per month per 1.65MW machine.  

I went to Spain in 2005.  At that time it was the land of the construction crane - they were pretty much building whole cities at a time.  Like you I did not see much solar power in use despite the seemingly abundant supply of sunshine.  It may just have been the locations where I traveled.  I saw a beautiful wind farm perched along a mountainous ridge line out from one of the train trips, I think it was when we were heading back to Madrid from Granada.  It was a grand site to see.  Rich

[frackers]

You can get deals on CFLs at 3 for $10 here in NZ. Thats about half your price in the UK...

No wonder I left!!

[Capt Slog]

The cheapest ones I picked up here were 1p each, yes, that's one penny.  A local supermarket was doing a green promotion and they were limited to 4 per customer, but there was no check on how often a customer could go through the till ;-)

.

[DamonHD]

Once chain here (Robert Dyas) seems to do a 3 for £1 deal, ie ~US$0.60 each, fairly regularly, and these are a good-brand-name bulb (Philips).

Rgds

Damon

[chubbytrucker01]

I read somewhere a couple of weeks ago that cfl's have double the lifespan if you put them in a fixture that breathes. Mine don't seem to get more than slightly warm. I have a light fixture in the kitchen that would eat about 3 60 watt incandescents a month due to the heat it held. I changed all of the bulbs in my house at the same time and all of them are still burning except for one in the fixture in the kitchen it died about a year ago. The ones in the ceiling fan are still burning bright after 5 years. The ones in the bathroom are taking a while to warm up and get to full intensity. I think they might be a different brand than the rest. The ones in the ceiling fan are visible and everyone seemed opposed to the idea of looking at them in the ceiling fan so I had to buy frosted shades shaped like flowers and the double coils of the cfl look like part of the flower.

[ghurd]

I think it would be well over double, maybe 50x sometimes.

I had to ventilate the (cup-with-3-screws-that-holds-the-glass) things with lots of 3/16" holes to get the CFL's tube cool enough to comfortably touch!

G-