Burn it off

[Zwy]

My panels are generating over 60Kwh per day now. House is at 80°F during the day, I'm running a pair of 1.5Kw resistance heaters plus the heat pump. I'm still getting to full charge by 2 pm. This morning I was up before daybreak, turned all the resistance heaters up all the way and heat pump heated the house all night. I see it takes until 3 am for the house temp to drop to about 68°F which is where I have the thermostat set.

I'm burning off as much electrical energy as I can. I need more dump loads, probably add a small electric hot water heater ahead of the propane water heater. It's feast or famine, during mid winter it would have been nice to have some of this excess. I could buy an induction cooktop but really a stove doesn't take much propane.

I'd like to get some thermal storage for those cloudy/rainy days to heat the house. Doesn't take many btu's this time of year.

Hope you all have been catching some good rays, this time of year is always excess as there isn't any haze or dust in the sky and panels are usually clean.

 

[myles]

I just started to not use generator. We've had November gloom in February this year!

Some other things you can do to abuse your power.

Dehumidify a garage where you park winter vehicles.
AC that garage in summer

Put an electric patio heater load outside in winter

Generate multiple tanks of hot water and add a record pump to fill your propane tank with free elec hot water

Get an EV

Charge your neighbours or barter to charge their EV

Get some animals

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

There's a variety of distributed computing projects that could use computing power (think folding@home for example). I'm pointing some computing power at those whenever I have excess power.

Here's a list:

List of volunteer computing projects - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[42OhmsPA]

I enjoy this time of your. You actually feel like you are winning the neverending battle against the sun.
Both the roof arrays are partially covered in snow and I don't care, a month ago I would have been up there clearing snow off.

The numbers are off... The Victron is pulling in 785W from 2 NE Solar 370W.

 

[HighDesertOffgrid]

I'm burning off as much electrical energy as I can. I need more dump loads,

Perhaps an automated can crusher/metal foundry. Or maybe I'm projecting.

 

[Zwy]

I just started to not use generator. We've had November gloom in February this year!

Some other things you can do to abuse your power.

Dehumidify a garage where you park winter vehicles.
AC that garage in summer

I'm building another garage, the gasification wood boiler and 1400 gallons of thermal storage is going in there, 2 cars and space for my woodworking equipment plus another room for my wife. It will have a mini split plus radiant floor installed.

Put an electric patio heater load outside in winter

Don't have a patio that we use until warm weather. I can sit in the house sipping a cold one where it is 80°F. Maybe I should get some beach sand for an extra bedroom. Big screen with ocean view on the screen, it would be just like being there.

Generate multiple tanks of hot water and add a record pump to fill your propane tank with free elec hot water

I intend to heat plenty of water. Cuts down on the wood to cut,split and stack.

Get an EV

Not happening here in the foreseeable future. I have about 4 vehicles to wear out first.

Charge your neighbours or barter to charge their EV

My neighbor would like a cord ran across the yard for his heat pump.

He voted for the current president, he can afford to pay extra for his energy. I told him as such.

We get along just fine, I just like to rub it in on his voting preferences when I can.

Get some animals

No room for animals, I'm covering the whole 4 acres in buildings and solar arrays. Eventually I won't have any lawn to mow.

 

[Cronix]

You can get a freeze dryer and freeze dry extra food for 25 years of storage. Those suck up quite a bit of power over a few days. During the process it freezes food down to about -40F several times, along with a very strong vacuum pump which sucks quite a bit of juice, as well as heaters.

Harvest Right Home Freeze Dryers - The best way to preserve food

Freeze drying at home with a Harvest Right freeze dryer is the best way to preserve food for your family.

harvestright.com

 

[B-Mod]

My panels are generating over 60Kwh per day now. House is at 80°F during the day, I'm running a pair of 1.5Kw resistance heaters plus the heat pump. I'm still getting to full charge by 2 pm. This morning I was up before daybreak, turned all the resistance heaters up all the way and heat pump heated the house all night. I see it takes until 3 am for the house temp to drop to about 68°F which is where I have the thermostat set.

I'm burning off as much electrical energy as I can. I need more dump loads, probably add a small electric hot water heater ahead of the propane water heater. It's feast or famine, during mid winter it would have been nice to have some of this excess. I could buy an induction cooktop but really a stove doesn't take much propane.

I'd like to get some thermal storage for those cloudy/rainy days to heat the house. Doesn't take many btu's this time of year.

Hope you all have been catching some good rays, this time of year is always excess as there isn't any haze or dust in the sky and panels are usually clean.

Try burning off 2 days in a row of 340kwh per day, lol. It takes all kind of work to heat everything up, charge everything up, and make bitcoin.

 

[Zwy]

Try burning off 2 days in a row of 340kwh per day, lol. It takes all kind of work to heat everything up, charge everything up, and make bitcoin.

You certainly have a big array.

I'm trying to decide now if I should add the extra 4 Kw PV to the house or just use all 31 370W panels on the shop. I do intend to have the ability to shift PV to the house or shop depending on where it is needed. The current 8.4 Kw array is close to the shop so would take a minimum of wire to make that happen. I'll be over 20 Kw when I'm done.

 

[Zwy]

You can get a freeze dryer and freeze dry extra food for 25 years of storage. Those suck up quite a bit of power over a few days. During the process it freezes food down to about -40F several times, along with a very strong vacuum pump which sucks quite a bit of juice, as well as heaters.

Harvest Right Home Freeze Dryers - The best way to preserve food

Freeze drying at home with a Harvest Right freeze dryer is the best way to preserve food for your family.

harvestright.com

We can plenty already and the rest goes into the freezers. We have 2 freezers with the children grown up and gone but we do purchase half a beef a year for the 2 of us. I have to run the freezers anyway. I started growing tomatoes on a string this past year, the yield was exceptional. We were in a drought but the only thing irrigation of the garden cost me is the wear on the well pump, the electricity was all from solar.

If I want long term survival food, I'd go with pemmican. I have plenty of rendered beef tallow (use electric crock pot to render it) and plenty of wild game plus farm raised to make it. Fruit and wild berries too.

 

[B-Mod]

You certainly have a big array.

I'm trying to decide now if I should add the extra 4 Kw PV to the house or just use all 31 370W panels on the shop. I do intend to have the ability to shift PV to the house or shop depending on where it is needed. The current 8.4 Kw array is close to the shop so would take a minimum of wire to make that happen. I'll be over 20 Kw when I'm done.

And then idiot me has plans to add another 13.6kw of panels this spring.

 

[Watts Happening]

Same problem here, sun kinda came out of nowhere today and our battery bank is full, Tesla is now full and we’ve already done laundry, cooked rice and distilled water. Now we’re just tracking usage, the rest is unfortunately wasted today.

 

[Zwy]

Same problem here, sun kinda came out of nowhere today and our battery bank is full, Tesla is now full and we’ve already done laundry, cooked rice and distilled water. Now we’re just tracking usage, the rest is unfortunately wasted today.View attachment 196536

I did time it perfect today, hit full charge just as the sun started to wane. Resistance loads are off now, just heat pump running and it will take some time for house temp to fall off. I'm using about 40 Kwh per day to heat the house. The other 20 Kwh is normal household loads.

Total today since 6 am was 63.67 Kwh from PV of 8.4 Kw. Would have pushed it a little higher but some high clouds showed up in the afternoon and some haze.

 

[Subdood]

We had our best day of production, right at 12KWh out a 3.6KW array, our best day ever. Battery was charged by noon so we used the space heater all day to use up the extra power, along with a couple loads of laundry. We're on track to get 100KWh this month, never been above 90K.

 

[joaogti43]

hey there... today i've got 42.5kwh produced with about 11kwp... it was sunny day over here :-D

 

[B-Mod]

Had some clouds mid morning that took the total down some but ended up with 344.1 (new one day best) from 57kwpv. Did not do perfect management as I ended the day at 98% in the battery (got greedy on bitcoin, lol).