Personal solar power zenith

Friday, 15th March 2014 it was a cool day - full sunshine, but the air was cool. Those are ideal conditions for solar panels.

When solar panels overheat their efficiency drops.  Which is completely opposite to what one expects.  Certainly what I thought.  I figured the sunnier / hotter the day, the more the solar panels would generate charge to our batteries.

But, when there is a cool breeze blowing, the panels are able to perform at optimum, and the 28th March was just such a day :)

This is the Outback remote control unit which
is located inside our house, and which
keeps us updated as to the wattage which is
being generated by our solar panels and gives
 us a total kWH produced at any given moment

And we had a record kWH harvest.  5.7 kWH / 430 AH to be precise!

The Owl electricity monitor showing our current
(with or without the pun LOL) kWH draw of 290 watts,
our daily draw from the batteries (2.97kWH) and
the temperature inside at that time 20.5°. 

At 18.42p.m. that day we had only used 2.97 kWH so that means we had a surplus of 2.73kWH!!!

We were happy, happy puppies that day :)

By the way, you can tell from our energy consumption on the photo of the Owl electricity monitor that we were drawing 290 watts - that equates to our fridge (180 watts), TV and satellite box (103 watts), and 1 X 7watt light.

Now, not to confuse you, the Outback remote is showing a total charge of 12.3volts.  That is because we were drawing 290 watts at that precise moment.  The batteries were at a full charge of 12.5 volts.  But that shows you how any power consumption affects the battery charge.

Once the fridge timer clocked in and switched off the fridge for an hour, the draw fell to 187 watts the CC value rose accordingly.

We always remember to turn off lights when we leave a room... ;)

1000 KwH of solar power

On Saturday at 3.15p.m. we hit a total consumption of 1000.9KwH on our Owl Electricity monitor.

The number in the bottom right corner indicates
we have consumed a total of 1000.9 KwH of solar
produced electricity

That equates to .9 tonnes of green house gases which were expelled into the atmosphere.  I forgot to take a photo of that on Saturday, so here is one from 48 hours later which shows .9027 tonnes

In the bottom right hand corner of the Owl
electricity monitor you can see our total
green house gas emissions from the electricity
produced by our solar panels - .9027 tonnes
today

We have taken 9 months, 20 days and 18 hours to consume what we would've used within 2 months in our town house.  Using 500KwH a month over the same period of time would've cost us ZAR4785.00 which means we are R4785.00 closer to having free electricity - with no increase in the electricity price amortised in :)

Escom's excess power warning

And we never have to worry when this warning comes on to the TV screen - Escom's warning that South African's are using more power than this parastatal can provide.

Love it - we just absolutely love it.

Through using only the power which has been produced by our solar panels (and stored in our deep cycle batteries) for lights, PC, printer and laptop, charging phones and cameras, fridge, TV and MNet decoder, plus charging the one deep cycle battery which runs our converted car radio / CD player...

The LED lights above my kitchen sink

...and the 7volt 12Amp battery which provides power to the LED lights above my kitchen sink, using my solar oven, manual appliances, gadgets and human power, life has been extremely comfortable, and, apart from the occasional wait for the batteries to reach sufficient charge on those overcast periods, life has carried on pretty much as normal.

Doing without a vacuum cleaner, hair dryer, chest freezer (the only thing I miss to be completely honest) electric toaster, kettle, geyser and iron, all those electric kitchen implements and food processors, to name just a few that I can think of on the spur of the moment, has been a breeze.

My hand operated coffee, herb and pepper grinders

An old fashioned  broom and mop, hand operated kitchen implements, using my solar oven to cook in and the small old caravan LP gas stove for heating tea / coffee water / cooking food / making toast under the tiny grill - yes, they all take a little longer, but - what's the rush?  I actually think that I have more time in my day now, than I ever did in the town house with all those aforementioned modern appliances which have supposedly been invented to save you time.

Do you know anyone who has time to spare?  Makes you think, doesn't it :)

RMan summed it up the other day.  He said to me that he is very happy and very comfortable here.  With both of us in the same mindset, it doesn't get better than that :)

Farm safety

RMan and I spoilt each other at Christmas.  Something that would allow us to roam the land LOL in safety.

Of all the wildlife visitors we've had, I not scared of African Duckbills, or Blue Cranes, or Hoopoes, or Sunbirds.  Nor am I scared of hares, fallow deer or...

Mandy spotted this small tortoise crawling through
the grass from about 25mtrs away

... tortoises.  Mice - they give me the heebies - literally goosebumps everywhere.

But, I am v-e-r-y cautious regarding these guys...

Can you see what we saw?  At the top of the wood...?

Can you see her?

Hiding on top of the wood?

I had specifically lent the wood against the house so that it would not be a hiding spot for anything dangerous.  I didn't think of something that would slither it's way up it...

No longer dangerous

 This is apparently an adult female boomslang.

I don't feel that guilty - after all the Book describes
Serpents as non-desirables

Roughly 180 cms in length.

Now, if you add this to the cape cobra which we discovered in December 2011, you'll understand why I am not keen to go traipsing round our property.  Yes, we have invaded their territory, and yes, it is a good mouse catcher.  But I'd rather have owls and bullfrogs perform that chore.  Fussy, aren't I?  :)

I reckoned that we should've moved it down to near the stream, but our labourer said, "nope -they move too fast", and we had nothing to catch it with.  So he dispatched it to the next life - down below.

With that in mind, we bought ourselves these for Christmas...

WGuy and MKid trying mine out for size

 ... quaddies :)

Now we can safely move around the property without fear of becoming something's victim :)  And MKid is in kid heaven - all he wants to do now is grow up quicker so that he can ride one on his own...

Temporary solar power

I feel terrible.  Our solar power system has not generated enough power for me to blog regularly.  And I have only been able to catch a few of all your blog postings.  Sob - I miss my Adsl line...    Parked in front of the business PC I could catch blogs at any time of the day.  Now - if I dial up and you've posted within the past two hours I can read your latest news.  Please forgive me - I'm not being rude - I honestly just haven't had the internet connection nor the spare power.  We still don't - but that's another story...

But, back to where I was - the limited solar power caused our first few weeks on the farm to be extremely "interesting".

You remember that I purchased an Owl electricity monitor for RMan a couple of years ago.  Well, it was actually intended for the farm, so that we could monitor our power consumption.

And that little Owl has been brilliant!  At any time we have been able to see what power we are draining from the batteries.

For instance...

Fridge

The fridge actually demanded 161 watts of power, but, if you take a gander at the specifications below, you'll see...

... that it's only supposed to draw 100watts!  Oh boy, that little fridge sure had it's work cut out.  I often battled to find space to cram another item into it.

Crammed to capacity

Apart from charging cell phones, and torches, the other appliances we used were the laptop...

The laptop on charge only

On charge only the laptop consumed 64 watts, during use it rose to 97 watts.

As  you can see from the Owl on the 29th July
we had consumed 29 Kw of energy from the
sun - for the entire month.
The 258 watts is what the PC draws.
And the temp, which I've bored you all
to tears with, was 13.2oC - inside - at 10.30a.m.
in the morning.

And the PC.  The biggest drain on our limited power was by far and away the PC.  I have to use the PC (and printer) for the business, as the program I am running is not longer supported, nor licensed, by the manufacturers which means I can't load / re-install it onto the laptop.

We even tried adding 3 X new 135watt panels to the existing 75 watt panels.  They are to be installed on the new garage roof, but until we are able to do that, we tied them to window frames and secured the fronts with tyres so that the North Westerly wind which blows in winter, couldn't take them for a spin without our permission.

Not an aesthetically pleasing picture, but, heck,
whatever works, and is only temporary, is fine
for a limited period of time...

The washing I managed to do by hooking the machine up to the genny.  Sometimes I got too clever, and the weather didn't play ball.  So, before the Dover started smoking badly, RMan rigged up a rail, and between that and the chairs in front of the stove, we managed to dry the clothes.

Laundry in the kitchen LOL  Idiot me -
I only see the kettle now - all
that steam couldn't have helped...!

And, at night, when there is no charge entering our damaged, fragile solar batteries, then the genny and our kerosene (paraffin) lamps did the work for us :)

The past meets the future...
... and it created a wonderfully warm "gemutlich" atmosphere

BUT - we have now got the new panels in situ on top of the new garage roof (pics to follow as soon as I can upload them / create the blog posting), and I finally have my normal fridge - with freezer.  Happy days!!

As we switched over from the 3 x 75 watt
and 3 X 135 watt panels to the garage
mounted 5 X 135 watt panels I took a consumption
reading.  We had used 69 Kw in 2 months (the
pic was taken on the 4th September).
Heck, a couple of years ago, we were using that
in one day during the winter months,
and the in-laws were visiting and we had
oil heaters on all night in their room.)

 The old trusty, meets the older trusty LOL

It didn't take me long to fill the bigger fridge LOL
Leftovers are my worst nightmare...!  As you can
see RMan has an entire shelf for his liquid refreshment,
so now he's happy too :)

The LG double door fridge / freezer states a rated input of 150 watts, but actually consumes / displays on the Owl an amount of 242 watts!  Huh?

But, a freezer means...

...we don't have to drive 60kms every 2 - 3 days in order to purchase perishables.  Because now I have fridge (freezer) space.  And it also means that I can finally have ice in my glass of rosé at the end of the day :)  And not a day too late LOL  Who wants to drink warm rosé in summer?

Things are definitely improving.  "Cheers" :)

Thrifty ways which help the planet (and our bank balance) ...

A while ago we decided that, in addition to not using our electric stove / oven, we would also ditch our electric kettle, and switch off our geyser.  

I used the solar oven extensively last summer, and changed all our light globes to CFL's.  We also sold off / gave away all our power hungry gadgets.  Who needs power hungry gadgets when you have manual implements which work as well, if not better, and all it takes is a little bit of human power to achieve the same result!?

The geyser has been set at 50oC (100oF) for the past 16 - 20 months - switching off the geyser, in summer, was a breeze LOL as the water in the geyser heated up in the roof of our house to the point that we didn't have to switch it on at all!  In winter, we switch it on for one hour just prior to showering.  As we don't have a handy isolation switch, this involves climbing on a chair to reach the main distribution board - a hassle!

For cooking purposes in winter we pulled out an old (about 25 years old!) two-plate gas cooker, and RSon invested in his own LP gas barbecue, which, until he moves into his own place, we are using as an oven.

Two plate gas stove with bbq
"oven" in the background

We boil our water in a whistling kettle on that gas "stove" - and ensure that we only boil as much as we need.  And the whistle tells us exactly when it is ready.


I also got rid of our two electric heaters, and now, if we are cold of an evening, we either light a fire in our fireplace, or heat up a bean bag in the microwave (it takes 3 minutes on high to heat two bags simultaneously - in place of having a heater on all evening!). Snuggling under a blanket with the warm bean bag, we are toasty as can be whilst we watch TV / chat of an evening.

Bean Bags filled with Pearl Barley

But, with all the steps we have taken, I have had no way of establishing how much power we have saved, as we have only received estimate accounts since January this year.  Today, finally, I received the account.


In comparison to the same period last year, we have saved 1755 kWh of electricity!  A whole bunch of coal fired pollution has been saved from contaminating and drifting up into the atmosphere!  And, financially - it equates to a saving of ZAR2843.45 (approximately US$271.79 or €191.68) in six months!


Bearing in mind that we run a business from our home, so we are here 24 / 7, and the kettle gets switched on a zillion times a day, I am well pleased with our efforts.

Owl electricity monitor

Thinking out of the box has paid off, and, we don't feel like we have impaired our lifestyle in any way whatsoever.  I can honestly say though, this would not have been that easy without our Owl electricity monitor. Whenever we notice that the readings are suddenly higher or increasing we immediately walk round the house to see what unnecessary power we are using can happily be switched off.


Be aware - that's all it takes :)

Involve the family in making a difference

I think it is safe to say that in 90% of households, womenfolk lead the way in trying to make a difference in what is sent to landfill, how to reduce power consumption in the home and in teaching our children how we can help heal our planet.

What would the world look like in 100 years if we don't all do our bit?  Would there, in fact, be a planet left - a planet which is still able to provide for man and all the living creatures which inhabit this planet?

These are just a few of the ways that we are trying to "do our bit"...

Recycling - waiting for collection

We, in Cape Town, are extremely fortunate in that we have a weekly collection of our refuse and a separate collection of all recyclable goods.  Separating recyclables from general refuse is easy, and it takes no more time than walking to the dustbin to throw out the garbage, because our recycling bin is next to our dustbin - so no excuses for throwing away something which can be recycled.

I have taken recycling one step further too - I try and re-use all plastic containers which pass through this house. Unfortunately, the suppliers in this country are trying to cut their costs, which means they package their goods in plastic jars / bottles, more than in glass. I re-use plastic milk bottles for my seedlings, and any other plastic jars are used for storing dry goods - I even store seeds in them, once they are thoroughly dry.  And, in place of shelf liners impregnated with an insecticide, a sprinkling of bicarbonate of soda on the back of the shelves or a sprig of Bay Leaves placed inside the container (and replaced every 3 - 4 months) will keep the weevils at bay :-)

Our small compost bin - for all the kitchen scraps

Grow your own produce - if one practises an organic approach, your homegrown fruit and vegetables are guaranteed to contain no chemicals, and will retain all the goodness for which they are grown - goodness which will not leeched out in the time they have spent being transported from farms to markets, and then sitting in supermarkets fridges / shelves waiting to be purchased.  Also, I think it is safe to say that if one grows ones' own vegetables, then one will also have a compost heap.  Which means each week less refuse goes to landfill, where it produces methane.  A well managed compost heap will not emit anything near as much methane as a landfill site, and whatever is added to the compost heap (vegetable scrapings, shredded paper, egg shells, egg cartons (for those of us who don't have chicken - yet) coffee grounds, tea bags and tea leaves, lawn clippings, garden trimmings) will break down to become the most wonderful addition to the soil of your garden.  It is easy to create a spot in your kitchen for all the compost ingredients - this is what I have:

A small container for the vegetable peelings
(with a lid to keep the flies away)
and another to collect the recycling goods - right
next to the draining board

Once that is full, off to the compost heap with it :-)

Why should each and everyone of us avoid using chemicals in our gardens?  Do you really want to add unnecessary chemicals to your diet - which are indisputedly harmful to you?  Have you tried an eco-friendly solution of boiling chillies and garlic in water, taking that boiled water and diluting it down and adding a drop of dishwashing liquid and sparying that on your affected / munched plants?

In addition, whatever chemicals we carelessly add to our lawns or beds, a large amount of it is washed down into the drains where it is captured into our water system when it rains.  Not to mention the animal / plant life that we are unconsciously affecting.

The knock on effect of what we selfishly do, will live on far longer than our time on this planet...

And how many people are aware that the water provided to households in Cape Town since December 2010 is recycled effluent?  Should we be proud of that achievement?  Another reason to install a rain barrel to catch all the water from your gutters - ideal for your garden, and, in an emergency, if it is properly sterilized prior to consuming, it can support human life too!

Owl electricity monitor - instant reading
of your current power consumption

Have you tried monitoring your electrical consumption through the use of an electricity monitor such as the Owl - the less electricity we use, the less has to be generated, and in South Africa most of our electricity is produced by coal fired power stations, or the dreaded nuclear power station at Koeberg, near Cape Town.  We have reduced our electricity consumption in our household by approximately 45% since I purchased our Owl as a Christmas gift for RMan in December 2009.  It is soooo easy to install and it monitors every watt consumed by your household every second, 24 / 7.  I kid you not - EVERY second!

Damp curtains create an air-conditioning effect

There are also various methods one can employ which don't involve using electricity - for instance, in summer when the heat becomes unbearable, we don't switch on our air-conditioning (we don't even own such a device) - all we do is hang wet towels at the windows, or dampen the curtains hanging at the windows / doorways - the draft wafting through the wet items immediately cools down the interior temperature.

We have even used the damp towel method
whilst driving in our car - it works a treat!

We switch our geyser on for 4 hours every three days - and the water stays more than hot enough to last the three days.  Obviously, in winter this will not be possible, but now, this last summer, we have reduced our electricity consumption by 9 - 10 Kw each day we didn't have the geyser on!  We have also turned our geyser down to 50oC (122oF) - add no cold water in winter and it is the perfect temperature for having a shower.   Unfortunately, as much as I'd love one, we are not in the position to install a solar geyser - maybe next year...

And you all know how much I use my solar oven :-)  My conventional oven has not been switched on for the past 10 months!

Similarly, in winter - an extra jersey and warm socks - even a beanie - they do the trick.  Save the heater for when you really need it - don't switch them on at the first sign of cooler weather.  We have all become so selfish in our use of electricity, that we think it is our right.  Yes, we pay for the use of it, but do we ever stop and think of how the planet is paying for it too?

I have also enjoyed sharing most of what I have learnt / researched with RMan. His understanding of my motivation and compliance in the process, is helping us achieve something amazing, but, just like a naughty child, I can still on occasion find plastic bags in our kitchen dustbin, not the recycling bin... :-)

I'm personally very chuffed that our refuse
is down to two small shopping bags in the dustbin a week.

But, what I am most proud of is I am doing as I say - which is the greatest teacher of all. Lead by example, your children will naturally follow, and, hopefully, their friends will follow them, and ...

I have touched on just a few ways of making a difference - I will share more in the weeks to follow.

How do you / are you trying to make a difference?

Our "Owl" is watching us...

I mentioned in an earlier post that I initially bought the Owl electricity monitor for the farm, to monitor how much power we have used and thus enable us to work out how much power we have left in our future deep cycle batteries.  Admittedly, we will not be using a huge amount of power - mainly for our lights and our future TV (in the evenings). Our water (bathroom and kitchen) is heated by our 10lt Kexin gas heater and I have found a solar powered 12vlt freezer, which, once we purchase it, will freeze our food (chicken, preserves, hubby's beer which is just not cold enough and needs a quick chill, etc) as well as 5tl bottles of water, which will be replaced on a daily basis, in order to keep our large cooler box at fridge temperature. Through our frequent trips to the farm we know this system works!

But, until we have our wind turbine and deep cycle batteries, we are using the Owl at home.  It has been tremendous.  On a daily basis we can see, at any given time, how much power we are consuming, what it's costing us, and how much green house gas our electricity consumption is causing.  Each of us, in passing the machine, which is located on our kitchen counter, has said - "wow, we're using that much - what can we switch off?"

The Owl monitor showing (top) energy consumption (the dishwasher was on and (bottom) green house gas emissions

I have kept a spreadsheet of our electricity consumption for the past 3 years - below is a summary of the average electricity consumtion for the month of March in those years:

March 2007 36.414 kWh / day @ 30.05 cents / kWh
March 2008 29.464 kWh / day @ 32.21 cents / kWh
March 2009 22.042 kWh / day @ 47.38 cents / kWh
March 2010 20.862 kWh / day @ 64.44 cents / kWh

Scary to see the price increases - and we have a minimum of 24.8% increase ahead of us - effective in July.  But it has been very rewarding to see our consumption coming down.  It wasn't that difficult :


- I cleaned out and switched off our chest freezer "(out of date' food tends to collect at the bottom anyway and we have two fridges which both have freezers)
- the number of lights we have on in the evenings have been reduced and all our lights globes have been replaced with CFL's
- our geyser is turned down to 50oC (I still have to get a geyser blanket)
- we stopped leaving sundry equipment on standby
- the pool motor now only runs for an hour in the morning and another in the evening - and the pool is sparkling!


This is all good practice for our future farm living - being more aware of everything can only benefit us in the long term.


And it is educating our son, who still lives at home, about his own future place and the real costs of living.