A white oneWhat is that in metric units?
Anyhow you ought to buy a huge tarpaulin and install it over the containers to shade them. That is at least as efficient as the insulation.
Crazy things you do with excess power
- Thread starter DougfromdaUP
- Start date
PawneeOffgrid
Off Grid out on the Prairie
Heat the walk in closet with an electric heater.
Electric heating elements give you better temp control. Also, It's a bit safer indoors, than running an open flame. lol
I'm a little more north than you. I'm off-grid. It's perfectly possible, but you have to design your house for it. Heating with alternatives like wood (modern wood gasification boiler) and some bio-diesel you make over summer for the generator in winter. My place runs in winter on average with 5kWh a day, and that's not sacrificing any comfort. With a 60kWh battery, I have 12 days of autonomy. I'm expanding to 100kWh this Spring. The only times I need the generator are November, December and January - when I run it once a week at most.
rin67630
Solar Enthusiast
Even being quite north: when you have enough sun to have excess power, you mainly don't need any heating.
rin67630
Solar Enthusiast
It's all about how many sunny days you have in winter. And designing the whole house around off-grid requirements is not accessible to many of us.
?? Doesn't the distillation process require heat?
Q-Dog
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm running the air conditioner today.
rin67630
Solar Enthusiast
Ooops! I overlooked that. Sorry!
With the last 2 days being socked in weather, and today starting off with snow drifting down, it is the other side of SAD (solar affected disorder). My batteries are at 20% SOC and not long before needing supplementing. Gone are the exuberant use of electricity to be replaced with rationing the little left. My mood is as bleak as the weather outdoors.
My solar counselor when informed of my depressed state of condition is prescribing higher doses of lithium.
My solar counselor when informed of my depressed state of condition is prescribing higher doses of lithium.
You would still get a % of power from your panels just depends on how much "excess" panels you installed. You would be in trouble however if your panels are covered in snow and you can't clear them off. Most calculations for "days of autonomy" assume zero input for all those days but if you even just cover base loads during those cloudy days you drastically increase the "days of autonomy".
rin67630
Solar Enthusiast
Higher doses of lithium is not a source of energy. It needs to be charged as well. And -you can count on that- you usually start long periods of snow with already depleted batteries from a few weeks of overcasted cloudy days.
He’ll have sun tomorrow. NW Arkansas doesn’t get the weeks of cloudy weather like Germany. He’s just being a whiner. Pretty
Firstrapid
New Member
Get a dehydrater and jerk off!
hugemoth
Solar Enthusiast
30 years ago thinking about how to use excess power I decided to produce hydrogen and burn it for cooking. I made a hydrolizer from a plastic barrel, a bucket, and some motorcycle parts. I filled a couple cheap air mattresses with hydrogen and tied them down to my fence with the idea of stacking some weights on them to force the hydrogen into my stove. It didn't work out because I couldn't get the pressure right to operate the stove but it did get the attention of my neighbors who wondered why I had floating air mattresses tied to my fence.
wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
Is there an easy way to use surplus electric power to heat my hot water? I've got a solar tank with a single 4500W element in the top and a solar loop that preheats the bottom, and I've been contemplating an external tankless heater with circulation pump and proportional control, though there are obvious concerns about scalding if I have too much power...
wattmatters
Solar Wizard
Oh, the humanity...
I have a smart PV diverter for our water heater. It uses excess power generated by the grid tied PV system, ramping up and down the delivery of power based on what's available. Here's an example showing our PV output (yellow), water heater consumption (red) and excess exported to the grid (purple). You can see when diverting it maintains a small level of export to the grid.
Once water reaches the temperature set point the thermostat controller open the water heater's contacts.
wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
Ah, so you set the maximum temperature limit on the thermostat in the hot water heater, and control the power to the unit with another device? Is that diverter a COTS device or something you put together?Oh, the humanity...
I have a smart PV diverter for our water heater. It uses excess power generated by the grid tied PV system, ramping up and down the delivery of power based on what's available. Here's an example showing our PV output (yellow), water heater consumption (red) and excess exported to the grid (purple). You can see when diverting it maintains a small level of export to the grid.
Once water reaches the temperature set point the thermostat controller open the water heater's contacts.
wattmatters
Solar Wizard
Yes, the tank's thermostat operates as normal.
The device I use is just one of many resistive element PV diverters available to purchase here. In my case I went with a locally made product (Catch Green) but there are several options available in this space. Some PV inverter manufacturers also have them and they integrate with the PV system (e.g. Fronius Ohm Pilot).
They are smart enough to know if/when supplemental boosting from grid power is required, although I have that disabled as I know my tank has enough capacity to ride through multiple days of poor solar PV. That said, I do have automated alert to my phone in case it's been a few days without a full heat cycle being completed, just so I can invoke an off-peak boost for legionella control.
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