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Excess Energy Storage

upnorthandpersonal

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So most of you know I have excess power in summer and early autumn, and one way to store energy for winter use is using the excess solar to process wood (cutting/splitting). That way, no fuels are used and the sound levels while processing are much nicer as an added benefit.
One other way to use the available power is food processing. Pressure canning is one example of a method with a relatively high energy input requirement. Another one is drying - for example meats. In my case this year, I just finished a huge batch of mushrooms, here's a sample:

20210911_231226.jpg

These are Porcini (Boletus Edulis). I've also got a stack of dried Chanterelles. In principle, you could even make a business out of this (dried, wild, green, organic mushrooms). Considering that dried Porcini go around $50 per kg and dried Chanterelles go at something like $100 a kg or more, this could be a nice side project. Here in Finland you don't pay taxes on income generated from foraged food (clarification, not the dried mushrooms since that is considered processing, but regular mushrooms and berries), so could be a fun project to engage the kids in as well for some extra pocket money. The same can be done with berries of course.

Any other creative, fun and/or lucrative projects you run to use your excess energy (besides mining crypto)?
 
Last edited:
Lucrative...growing weed. :ROFLMAO:
Oops, forgot we have enough sunshine in summer and in winter when you would need the lights there is no sunshine :unsure:
 
So most of you know I have excess power in summer and early autumn, and one way to store energy for winter use is using the excess solar to process wood (cutting/splitting). That way, no fuels are used and the sound levels while processing are much nicer as an added benefit.
One other way to use the available power is food processing. Pressure canning is one example of a method with a relatively high energy input requirement. Another one is drying - for example meats. In my case this year, I just finished a huge batch of mushrooms, here's a sample:

View attachment 64170

These are Porcini (Boletus Edulis). I've also got a stack of dried Chanterelles. In principle, you could even make a business out of this (dried, wild, green, organic mushrooms). Considering that dried Porcini go around $50 per kg and dried Chanterelles go at something like $100 a kg or more, this could be a nice side project. Here in Finland you don't pay taxes on income generated from foraged food (clarification, not the dried mushrooms since that is considered processing, but regular mushrooms and berries), so could be a fun project to engage the kids in as well for some extra pocket money. The same can be done with berries of course.

Any other creative, fun and/or lucrative projects you run to use your excess energy (besides mining crypto)?

I’ve been thinking about this before and one interesting area and one of the purest and most accessible forms to “store” energy is to produce charcoal through pyrolysis of wood.

The process is super simple, you just heat up wood to 500-600 Celsius while not giving it access to (much) oxygen. The result is real charcoal that burns really easily, without a flame, that produces more energy than wood and for a longer time. A pyrolysis oven (or whatever it’s called, a stove that creates heat by burning charcoal, ie not making it) can burn for a really long time unlike the typical wood boiler. And I also think it’s fairly easy to sell locally made charcoal. To use for barbecues etc. There have also been some talks lately about smaller DIY ways of creating electricity from heat, but I’ve not gathered much details on that.

Is it possible to dimension a large enough oven that can heat wood up to the necessary temperatures with a larger DIY solar battery? I don’t think it’s totally unrealistic, but I haven’t done any math.

Perhaps you should get one of these? :)

Check out this product on Alibaba App bamboo wood sawdust charcoal briquette making machine
https://m.alibaba.com/product/60678...terKey":"7.8.2_share","cacheTime":"1800000"}}1642716690356.png
 
2D17E717-DDF1-416D-B475-AB3BB2C91539.png

How hot would it be possible to get something like this with like 25kwh from a battery + all energy the panels can produce during a couple of days? :)

Then all that is missing is a DIY coal power plant to reverse the coal into electricity during the winter. ;)
 
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