[p2p-research] Living with solar energy (learning notes)

[marc fawzi]

I'm currently staying at a ranch near the Arizona-Mexico border urrounded by
amazing mountain views with no sight of any human artifact (besides the
ranch itself)... Illegal Mexican immigrants cross the border near the main
town here and the border patrol has been having gun fights with drug
traffickers. The ranch where we are is inaccessible on foot and only way to
get to it is by trucks with really good suspension. The postal address is a
single mailbox located 10 miles away on Route 80. Everything runs on solar
except the hot water and stove which run on propane.

I'm upgrading the current solar energy infrastructure with the 'latest
commercially available' solar technology for about $15,000, which isn't
economical. The cost makes solar economically feasible only where no other
cheaper source of power is available. This may explain why I see a lot more
houses (or ranches) with solar power here than in Florida, which is another
state where the sun is abundant.

I will have some pictures soon to post to this thread.

Running on the existing system, which uses standard lead-acid (wet cell) car
batteries and silicon-based solar panels, the system is no way able to
sustain normal daily usage so all appliances (currently just one
refrigerator) are on 6 hour/day cycles (in 15 min intervals) and still the
batteries can be drained by 4pm.

Using a generator to charge the batteries is painful since the generator
does not automatically shut off when the batteries are charged and
overcharging can be dangerous. The charger for the new "gel cell" system has
automatic shutdown and I suppose I could build a switch to shut off the
generator when the charger shuts off.

The new batteries are 24 X 2V "gel" cells, which are supposed to last much
longer than wet cell batteries in terms of their lifetime. They are also
supposed to hold much more power so we can hook up the freezer, which is
currently not possible.

Yesterday, we had clouds all day so the batteries were depleted by 4pm.
Today, same deal and I can't do much about it until the new system arrives.

This thread shall be continued with more info and photos.

Losing power any minute now ... which sucks.

Marc
p.s. very weird that i had spent 3 months thinking about p2p energy and now
i'm actually faced with what it means in practice
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