Solar Archives - Page 3 of 13 - Living Off the Grid: Free Yourself

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No debt

No Debt

As I watched this video, listening to Karen and Bob describing their life in the home they built themselves, the one phrase that really jumped out at me was “no debt”. That was their main motivation. I know (from personal experience building our own place) that they did most if not all of the work themselves, which is one of the biggest money eating parts of building, you would have to buy the materials anyhow, but doing the work yourself means YOU know what is in your place, no one else has cut corners unknown to you, I think it’s great!

I love the look and style of their home, it is warm and inviting. Watch and enjoy.

(ADDED Jan 21, 2016)
I received a message from Karen, it’s in the comments below, but I thought it best to add it here:
How cool our video got shared to this great channel! feel free to share our email and phone number if people want some more info. karenk@usa.com 520-366-1984 We are also open to visitors. There is a off-grid,alternative building get together the first sunday of every month from about 10:30 am to1pm at a friend of ours who did and earthbag dome. for directions email m_m_gibbons@yahoo.com all are welcome!!!!

https://youtu.be/EBN4R2XhU6c

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January 9, 2016 7 Comments

Community

Solar myths debunked video

Solar power myths and outright lies, learn the truth here.…

November 29, 2015 No Comments

German battery company launches scheme to sell your surplus solar energy to your neighbour

Community

Sharing solar power in Germany

BERLIN, Nov 25 (Reuters) – German battery maker Sonnenbatterie has launched a scheme to connect households with solar panels together with their neighbours, and other consumers. the aim is to better distribute surpluses of renewable energy and help members to become more independent of conventional suppliers.

The start-up company hopes the scheme, called “sonnenCommunity”, will boost demand for its batteries which store solar power, allowing owners to use the clean energy even when weather conditions are not favourable.

“SonnenCommunity allows all households that want to determine their energy futures themselves the access to affordable and clean electricity,” said chief executive Christoph Ostermann at the project’s launch on Wednesday.

The initiative comes at a time when battery technology, long seen as expensive, is approaching a point where ordinary householders can afford it.

By storing solar power and releasing it on demand, households can avoid having to buy more expensive power off the grid to supplement their production. The batteries could also help solar power households cope with a phasing out of subsidies currently paid when surplus power is sold to public grids.

Sonnenbatterie has sold 8,500 lithium battery units, saying this makes it the European market leader.

Germany has around 25,000 batteries in operation that can store solar power – still a small number given there are around 1.5 million solar production units, mostly located on roofs of family homes – but year-on-year sales are growing rapidly.

U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla is also looking to enter the market. It plans to start delivering wall-mounted batteries that can store solar power to Germany in early 2016.

SonnenCommunity takes the storage idea a step further, allowing solar power to be shared among its members.

Sonnenbatterie said the scheme would initially target the 1.5 million solar power producers who, if they sign up to the community, will receive a battery storage system with a starting price of 3,599 euros ($3,812). But eventually, the offer will also be open to non-producers, it added.

If the idea of battery-powered buildings takes off, it could pose a challenge to traditional utilities such as RWE and E.ON, which still derive the bulk of their power from big centralised power stations running on fossil fuels.

($1 = 0.9442 euros)…

November 28, 2015 No Comments

Editorial: Don’t hit small solar with new fees in California

Those solar panels you’ve seen glinting on your neighbors’ rooftops throughout California? If the state’s investor-owned utilities get their way in negotiations with the Public Utilities Commission,, you’ll be seeing a lot less domestic black silicon in the future.

That’s because big utilities are petitioning to radically alter the rules about net metering, the system by which homeowners, schools and businesses that generate excess electrical capacity on a sunny day sell their unused power back to the grid, the same as the utility companies sell it to the rest of us.

Our big power suppliers have the same right to operate under a fair business model as the small homeowner who makes an investment in solar. Few of the latter, except isolated cabin owners and the like, are ever really “off the grid” entirely. They make use of electricity sold to them by Southern California Electric, PG&E and the state’s other large private firms as well, or buy it from the city-owned utilities in cities such as Los Angeles, Pasadena, Burbank and others that operate municipal, taxpayer-owned nonprofit power companies. It’s the big utilities that have to operate the grid — the complex system of power lines, from the big ones coming down from Tehachapi wind farms, Utah coal plants, dams with hydro plants and the like to the small wires that come into your own homes.

But even though those big firms still control 97 percent of the electrical power market in California, they are worried about the tiny but growing group of homeowners and businesses in the state that have chosen to generate some of their own power. So they have a proposal before the California Public Utilities Commission targeting net metering by making it more than twice as expensive for the little guy through fees and smaller payments.

Those electrons are sold back to the rest of us at the same rate as electricity made by the utilities. So even though it’s true all of us have an interest in maintaining the grid, the proposals are not only not fair — the solar-panel installation industry says it would deeply harm their own business model. And this is not just about staying in business. As U.S. negotiators prepare to head to the Paris talks on climate change next month, all of us have an interest in creating a country with fewer carbon emissions that lead to global warming.

When a similar measure to the one before the PUC was approved in Arizona recently, the solar industry said it saw an immediate 95 percent decline in its business. Homeowners said that it no longer penciled out for them to invest the $15,000 or so it costs to go solar and recoup their invest- ment through energy savings over 10 or so years. Hawaii just passed an anti-solar bill after intense lobbying by that state’s largest utility, and …

November 11, 2015 No Comments

Budget solar install

I love seeing how other people do their solar systems, especially those who create and maintain their systems on a shoestring budget, which is how we do things around here.

A quick search on YouTube for solar power netted this video called “Solar Power on a Budget”, sounds like my kind of system. This is a good way for most folk to start out, learning as you go, building and enlarging as needed, replacing what isn’t working with something that works better.

These 4 videos show the transformation from a very simple starter system, so a more expansive system.

https://youtu.be/MksP1SnBr5M

https://youtu.be/GRayQpxpzsg

https://youtu.be/1hjmjQeqyy4

https://youtu.be/AvcgW8uz6js

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July 14, 2015 1 Comment

Sizing your solar, batteries and inverter

Thanks to Dustin Real for this video just added to our YouTube Channel. His solar power video is a complete solar power primer and explains to people how to size each component of their system; batteries, PV array size, charge controller and inverter.

Its full of really practical tips on what kit to buy when setting up your Solar array, and how much to spend.

Dustin and his wife recently quit their careers, moved to the country, started new jobs and an off-grid life.

They are living in a pole barn, camper/military tent right now while they build their home.

Dustin built a water catchment system and off-grid solar power system so far.

Dustin says: “I am not a solar power guy by trade so much of what I learned was from multiple sources on youtube, rv forums, off-grid forums and trial and error by my brother and I. This video should help people build a small/medium off-grid solar system step by step.”…

July 6, 2015 No Comments

Unplugging from the grid – an ambition or a real choice?

2015 JUL 3 – Sydney, Australia, “A new wave of social and academic discussions is sweeping the web, about the possibility of installing PV-battery systems and ‘leaving the grid’ or ‘living off-grid.”

The recent rapid decline in PV prices has brought grid parity, or near grid parity for PV in many countries. This, together with an expectation of a similar reduction for battery prices has prompted research from R. Khalilpour, School of Chemical & Biomolecullar Engineering, University of Sydney, “This, if uncontrolled, has been termed the ‘death spiral’ for utility companies. We have developed a decision support tool for rigorous assessment of the feasibility of leaving the grid. Numerous sensitivity analyses are carried out over critical parameters such as technology costs, system size, consumer load, and feed-in-tariff. The results show that, in most cases, leaving-the-grid is not the best economic option and it might be more beneficial to keep the connection with the grid, but minimize the electricity purchased by installation of an optimized size of PV-battery systems. The policy implication of this study is that, from an economic perspective, widespread disconnection might not be a realistic projection of the future. Rather, a notable reduction of energy demand per connection point is a more realistic option as PV-battery system prices decline further.”

The research concluded: “Therefore, policies could be devised to help electricity network operators develop other sources of revenue rather than increasing energy prices, which have been assumed to be the key driver of the death spiral.”

For more information on this research see: Leaving the grid: An ambition or a real choice? Energy Policy, 2015;82():207-221.

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July 3, 2015 2 Comments

Hawaii – energy costs are high; folks wants own power

With power costs triple the national average, Hawaiians are flooding to embrace off-the-grid energy…

June 24, 2015 No Comments

Battery desulfator review – update

“How many blinks do we have?”, “It’s time to change the panels…”, those are common phrases around here, if you hear these statements, we are talking about our solar system. It’s a small system, very small by most standards, but it’s just fine for us, of course I’d love to have a mega system, but don’t want the mega system headaches or the mega price tag.

The blinks are referring to our charge controller, a Xantrex C35, it blinks a green light to let us know how much of a charge we have on the batteries, it starts at 1 blink and goes to 5 blinks then to a solid green light when the batteries are full, it delights me to no end when I have a solid green light up there :)

When we talk about changing the panels, some of our panels (not all of them) are on a manual tracking system, we can tilt them to catch the morning and evening sunlight, the rest of our panels are fixed in place on the roof and get whatever they manage to get.

Our newest addition to the solar system is our permanently attached battery desulfator. I have had, used and reviewed other battery desulfators, and they worked but they were designed for use on one or two batteries at a time, this battery desulfator is the first of its kind designed for larger systems, for those of us who live off of our battery banks and need something that will desulfate all of our batteries at the same time, not just one or two.

This is the Battery Extra battery desulfator model “EX02 12-48-400“, this work for 12-48 volts up to 1500 Ah, there is one above this unit, it will handle up to 120 volts and 3000 Ah.

You can read more about this desulfator in the first part of my review here: https://off-grid.net/energy/i-finally-got-it

I have been using this for a few months now, one thing I really like about it is it shows me exactly how much of a charge my batteries have, the digital readout is clear and can be seen from across the room, day or night. Another thing I like about it is it’s quiet, the previous desulfator I had made a high pitched humming noise, it wasn’t loud but you could definitely hear it. It does have an internal cooling fan, I have never heard it make a sound, it either hasn’t been hot enough to come on, or it’s just that quiet. This unit is well made, sturdy, easy to hook up and set up.

Bottom line, I have very happy with this desulfator and this company, I recommend that you visit their page, even if you aren’t in the market for one of these desulfators though if you are using lead acid batteries in this capacity, …

June 16, 2015 No Comments

Solar system balancing act

Life with a small solar system is a balancing act. We have lived 8+ years now with our small solar system, tweaking it, adding to it, improving it, trying to balance our system vs the power load. Of course we are running a small load most of the time, a couple of laptops, the wireless network for said laptops, a few lights, a 12 volt water pump, a small radio, and the fridge, THAT is what takes up the most power at any given time.

Our fridge is very efficient, it started out life as a small chest freezer, we use an external thermostat (originally designed to turn small chest freezers into kegeraters), we set the temp on refrigerator temps, when it detects the correct temp inside of the box, it cuts off the power to the unit, you can read more about that here. This last winter, we pushed the fridge outside to the front porch, which meant the box didn’t have to work as hard to keep the cold temps inside.

The biggest balancing act for us is the day length vs the outside temps. During the winter, we have shorter days, which means fewer hours in which to charge our solar system, but since the outside temps are cold, the fridge doesn’t have to run as often, sometimes not at all.

During the summer months, it’s warmer outside, making the fridge run more often, but with the longer day length, there are more hours of sun to charge our batteries, so all in all, it works out pretty well, as long as we pay attention to the upcoming weather and moderate our power useage as necessary.

With the warmer temps usually come our rainy season or monsoon season, a few months where we tend to get rain nearly everyday, having overcast skies also limits the amount of solar power we get, though our panels do get some charge even with clouds present, just not the full amount of charge as a sunny day.

I have some exciting news, I have been given the opportunity to review another battery desulfator, I did a review last year on the Whizbang Plus battery desulfator (part one and part two), they worked, but were small, you pretty much have to have one per battery, this other company’s claim to fame is their second generation battery desulfators are designed to work in off-grid situation on larger battery banks, there is much more to this system. I’ll keep you in the dark about it for now, but be looking in the next week or so, as soon as I get the desulfator, which is on its way here now, I’ll do a first impression review, hook it up and let you know what I think about it, I will say that it has many more features that are going to …

March 27, 2015 2 Comments

Community

Mobile, stealthy, off-grid, vandweller

I think I got all the descriptive words covered there in the title, I am talking about Brian, also known as AdventureVanMan on YouTube. In his late 30s, single and hard working, he became disillusioned with life as he was living it and decided it was time to make a change.

Brian left his 2 bedroom apartment, sold most of his possessions, bought a cargo van and began living a life that makes him smile. He designed the inside of his cargo van to be simple, almost spartan, but it’s genius is useability and functionality. He lives in town, using a gym membership and friends & family for showering and other bathroom functions, so he doesn’t need a shower or major toilet system, he does have a backup toilet just in case, but doesn’t use it for the most part. All he really needs is a place to sleep and hang out when he’s not working.

Brian, being nowhere near retirement age, still works, so during the week, he stealth parks near where he works to save on fuel and time, on the weekends, he stays closer to the ocean in California, where he can catch a wave when he wants to, or just wake up to a beautiful sunrise glinting off the water.

I really appreciate his solar system setup, he put a lot of thought into it, utilizing the roof of his van to mount a RENOGY 100 Watt solar panel, he is able to tilt it to catch more sun, he uses two 6 volt deep cycle batteries wired together to make a 12 volt system, he uses a small inverter to power his laptop and other goodies, he also has some items hooked up directly to his batteries (12 volt goodies) so he isn’t losing power by converting from 12 volt to 110 watt. Some might deem to call Brian “homeless”, I don’t think that is the case, I feel like he made a reasonable and responsible decision to downsize and simplify his life, he wasn’t forced onto the streets, he chose to live this way.

You can view more about his solar system here:

You can learn more about Brian here
https://adventurevanman.wordpress.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/TrueBypassTheory/

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March 24, 2015 1 Comment

Community

A wonderful off-grid couple

There are many off the grid tutorial videos about nearly anything having to do with off-grid life, there are a precious few about the people themselves, the why instead of the how. I enjoyed watching this video about Teddy and Kathy Carns and their off-grid life. Not only does it show some of the how, but it shows the why as well as their journey they are on. There is reality too, Kathy quit work to join Teddy living off-grid, but they soon discovered, much like us, that there needs to be some income coming in to pay for the things that you can’t barter for, things like taxes and such. I love it that it is Kathy who went back to work, in a field she obviously loves, this mirrors our life in so many ways, even down to the saving and dividing their trash into things that are biodegradable and those that are not, they don’t get rid of what isn’t biodegradable, they clean it and save it for future use.…

February 25, 2015 2 Comments

All you need to go off-grid

Solar

No debt

Solar myths debunked video

Sharing solar power in Germany

Editorial: Don’t hit small solar with new fees in California

Budget solar install

Sizing your solar, batteries and inverter

Unplugging from the grid – an ambition or a real choice?

Hawaii – energy costs are high; folks wants own power

Battery desulfator review – update

Solar system balancing act

Mobile, stealthy, off-grid, vandweller

A wonderful off-grid couple

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