Another home electricity generation report

 

As of October 1st of 2012 this sitrep will keep you up to date of what is setup at the Hemlocks in regards the local electric generation. I feel fortunate that there has been a bit of a drought right here (during this tune up time), like it is raining in a lot of places, but locally we are having less than our fair share of rain at the Hemlocks. Practically that means right now the electric plant is set to send up around 1/2 amp of electricity while still keeping the pond full just from the sandstone springs. Best case it has sent 0.89 amps, but not during a drought time. The distance is around 600 feet from the water turbine plant to the main house. This line is very “thick” to minimize electric losses from transmission.

There remains plenty of water for all the usual purposes, too, like drinking, cooking, washing, flushing, etc.

At this summer drought rate, I can keep the 7.2 cuft freezer working for 2 or 3 days, followed by 1 day on the solar setup (which allows the water turbine plant to recharge up the 4 big gel batteries). The solar plant has 2 12-volt deep cycle sealed batteries completely independent of the water turbine batteries. Plus I can keep the eneloop rechargeable batteries charged. Now to do all this I do have to manually do some unplugging/plugging of the solar plant when it is recharging its own batteries. And fortunately, again just for this tune up phase, the Hemlocks has had enough cloudy and foggy weather to make the test of the solar plant more valid. Clouds mean less electricity, and night time means no electricity generation when using solar.

All these batteries should be good to go until 2020. And the primary source of electricity remains TVA, and all is well there. And the purpose of the 7.2 cuft freezer is to extend the shelf life of food and seeds. And the water turbine plant has a fancy inverter that has a “search” mode that only turns on the inverter when the freezer compressor cuts on. The solar plant has its own inverter, and it is on all the time. When any inverter is on, it does use some electricity of its own.

Last, the solar panel is on a 25 foot cable, so I can chase the sun a little, but right now have chosen not to do so. Chasing the sun should make more electricity. And in the end, with this combination of water turbine and solar charge set up, I will probably stick with it just to keep the freezer working, and the rechargeable batteries charged. That will save some on my TVA electric bill, too, which is still the best deal, economically speaking.

 

PS I can provide a more geeky type report, but have chosen not to do so for this email.

 

Here's the geeky type attachement:
 

                1)  To measure the electricity amps, one must use the local VOM (volt ohm meter) and follow the turbine manual directions on how to do it.

            2)  The present setup (9/30/2012) has the 4 gel batteries in series, or said another way, in a 48 volt setup. Now that is the recommended setup based on the transmission distance, just under 600 feet. Now we could move to a 24 volt setup to get more electricity, but that will necessitate a serious rewiring on all the other wiring in the storage closet and under the house, plus depending on the transmission wire being heavy enough to minimize transmission power losses. So for now we are using the 48 volt setup.

            3)  There are three ways to change the setup at the water turbine plant right now (and hence the electric plant output, too.)  One is to follow the directions on rotating the turbine head. Second is to change the diameter of the nozzle in input one to the turbine. Third is to change the diameter of the nozzle size in input two to the turbine. The two nozzle diameters do not have to be the same. And as of today (9/30/2012) the second nozzle is shut off due to the drought and maintaining  pond level, which is normally spring fed.

            4)  The present setup, call it the drought setup, has all the water from the bottom three springs going to the RAM, and then the excess (like 92% estimated)  going to the pond to make electricity.  The highest  (vertically) 4th spring has gone dry as the water table has normally dropped. It should start up next April 2013 or later, building up to a pretty good flow by June. One can manually adjust the pipe hookup by hand as so desired. Best case, this upper spring plus the second spring has a pipe setup (if manually setup) to provide a higher water head to feed the second nozzle to the water turbine, and keep up. In this setup, the bottom two springs should keep the RAM running, and they have in the past.

            5)  The 7.2 cuft freezer is still in the kitchen, and full of frozen food and seeds for if we go to "times get hard" situations.  During solar day uses/setups, the Hemlocks uses a long extension cord to connect the solar plant with the freezer, which probably has its own electric losses.

            6)  The rechargeable batteries for day to day use are eneloop AA and AAA batteries.  The Hemlocks also has some adapters to use them in D cell and C cell situations.

            7)  Entertainment is a big deal at both the group and personal levels. Some of the electronic stuff is in an EMP protected setup in the main house closet.

            8)  The terms gel battery and sealed battery are code words for low or none  gas producing batteries that could generate gases that could explode in confined spaces.  The third kind of battery is a flooded battery, and they are not used in the Hemlocks electric plant installations because they do make gases that could explode in confined spaces.

            Now all batteries have lives, like humans, and these batteries are so new they should last until 2020 or so, when they will have to be replaced. That is an expense that should be planned for. The present setup has 4 gel 12-volt batteries (at 125 pounds each) and 2 deep cycle 12-volt batteries at an unknown weight, thought they are very heavy.

            9)  Inverters have been chosen so the Hemlocks does not have to convert  basic things, like freezers, to DC electricity or gas. Now if we drill a successful natural gas well (there is a good probable successful site here), then that idea needs to be reviewed as to what makes sense in the long term.

            10)  The present solar setup has a high tech 100 watt solar panel on a 25 foot cable to connect to an MPPT solar controller which connects to the batteries.  The present max length solar cable I could buy is 50 feet, or so I think ( I have not done so so far). Hence chasing the sun is somewhat restricted by the "tether" in the present setup. A shorter tether usually means less power loss.  And right now the present solar setup is to connect the 1100 watt inverter directly to the batteries (two  deep cycle 12-volt batteries in parallel)  using the inverter alligator clips provided. The alternative is to use the load function on the MPPT controller, but I have tried that using 8 AWG wiring, and since moved back to using the alligator clips  directly wired to the battery setup. By the way, the two batteries are hooked in parallel using 4 AWG cables.