Off Grid Electric Power if Public Electric Power goes out for an extended period of time

First Draft

Off Grid Electric Power if Public Electric Power goes out for an extended period of time

I’ve been working on this capability for quite a while, like years.  Patience was a virtue.

And I pretty much used my own personality, my Georgia Tech engineering education, my own experience, and my own budget.

First I knew to come up with my own objectives, and my own assumptions. That demanded being brutally honest, a trait that I had developed in my past.

This task is even more difficult and time consuming in any kind of Family situation, but still must be done first in all cases.

I assumed that the electricity I might make here locally in east Tennessee would probably be more expensive than the public electric power TVA provides and the local co-op (VEC – Volunteer Electric Co-operative) delivers (both do a good job, by the way).  Said another way, I did not plan on saving money as much as having a fall back system if public electric power goes out for a long time. I planned on using my assets that included around a square mile of land, a vertical drop of around 800 feet at the edge of the Cumberland Plateau, lots of spring water for over a century, and even the various online wind and solar studies.  After all that I came to the following conclusions and objectives:

1. I wanted to live better than Abraham Lincoln did. He did not have any electricity for lighting (during his youth I believe); and one of my assumptions was that without public electricity getting about anything pumped that makes light would eventually run out, and I would have to make do as best I could. Even manual pumps have to have something to pump in the end, like something to make some light at night.
2. I decided to go “off-grid”, like never connect to public electricity. That is a course of action for some, and there are widgets that detect when public power dies, and then switches over to the home power setup that the owner has generally already done, like built.  I call this approach the Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) approach, a reflection of my own experience. So my goal was to make an off-grid setup (weather resistant) and not deal with public power, which often includes making local electricity and selling some it back to the public power company.  I had already researched that, too, and knew the old rates (like 10 cents on the dollar) were just not of interest to me. I don’t know what the present rates are, but still just did not want to deal with any government agency (like federal, state, or local).
3. I had to be able to maintain (without any major effort) whatever I just built, or had earlier built.  That had a major impact in how far down (the escarpment) I wanted to drop the water (for example), which does generate more “power” if I do that. Longer walks to check water lines and do maintenance work in foul weather and nighttime is just too inconvenient for me these days.  And where was I to install the large inverter, and the load controllers, for another example.
4. My budget had to be able to support my system, both in building it and then running and maintaining it. For example, most home systems include a battery bank, and batteries can be both expensive (both now and when being replaced), and have shelf lives and their technologies, too.
5. If necessary I could live like Abraham Lincoln. I want, but don’t really need LED (light emitting diode) lights at night. I need clean water and food and waste water things, for example.  Now do I want lights at night, of course, but the key word is that I want it, but don’t really need it. Security can even occur using solar power and rechargeable batteries if planned well.
6. I have a lot of education on this kind of subject to include my two decades in the Marines. I learned a lot both in school and out of school, and used it in this project, too. One of my surprises was having beavers move in from a lake around a mile and half from here. Now they had never done that before (like for a half century), but their damming up the input pond spillway caused problems I did solve, but again never anticipated. The beavers are gone now, by the way.
7. So it turns out I use a micro hydro turbo plant (made in Canada) as my primary backup, with a solar powered backup to that backup. Since most things I do can be dual use, the solar plant will charge my many rechargeable batteries, and also help my once a month haircut service just like in the Marines. Girls would probably call the haircut service a beauty service in my mind and imagination. And cutting hair is both a health and sanitation issue, and is good for morale, too.
8. My water springs that provide the water for both my water requirements and then the electric plant turn out to be more seasonal than I recall and estimated (as to flow), so they only provide enough power for industrial use (like power a freezer compressor) around 9 months a year.  Bummer, but that is just the way it is. Since I could not always measure things accurately, I gravitated towards using estimates and experiments to see if I could get want I wanted.  Sometimes I had to adjust some of my objectives, too.
9. I just dropped the idea for a wind turbine in favor of water power and solar power. Said another way, wind power got beat out where I live.  Having even been to places (like Altamont Pass in California)) I know there are good places for wind; just not here where I live.
10. And with around a square mile of land, whatever I did could not impact any of my neighbors, which was not very difficult in this rural area.  But that did have to be taken into account. Having a GIS (basically a computer topo map) of the place helped, too.
11. So then it came time to start putting the setups together.  The time to set my objectives, and to determine reasonable assumptions, was over.  I had made my peace, to include setting priorities, like always having water to drink, etc., before it could be considered for generating electricity. Once I had my assumptions and objectives determined, things got a lot easier in the “execution” of the plan of getting there. And getting there was complicated as there is a lot more than making electricity to think about (but this article is about the electricity part of the overall effort).

Now it was time to start planning on building the things, and sometimes modifying the work as we progressed.  Semper flexibilis (always flexible) as we use to say in the Marines.

And again I had choices as to courses of action.  What I chose to do also follows.

For the water powered plant I could:

1. Contract it out to a professional hydro plant builder. The trouble with this choice is the land varies from one project to another.  The land influences a lot of what one does.
2. Have a local contractor build it. While this took a lot longer, it also kept my money more local, and kept me honest with all the local building “codes” and inspectors.  The hardest part to this day is learning the new language and abbreviations required to learn when you go hydro, solar, or wind power. Things like load controllers and phrases like “low voltage disconnect” were new to me, too. I am still learning some of this and so is the contractor (who is a smart person). Even surprises like heavy rain getting debris in one of the water plant’s two nozzles (and we had to cut the nozzle diameters from tables) are still being worked out. I had not planned on this when I started.
3. Build it yourself. The trouble with this approach is the time it takes, to include trying to get contractor prices on a lot of the things you need.  My own experience was mostly 9^th grade woodshop, and jack leg home maintenance experience.

In the end, I went with number 2 on the hydro plant. That was a few years ago. And today my freezer compressor is running off of locally made electric power.  And today, the design of the system is still evolving some as the contractor (a good guy) and myself learn and refine our way. Now remember it is my job to maintain the setup, too (and teach someone else how to do it). And the contractor built most of the Hardees in this region, too, so he knows how to build things well, and also knows most of the “codes” and inspectors who sign off on the safe operation of this setup.

Now for the solar plant; I built it myself (or most of it). And I used (at retail prices) Marine deep-cycle batteries and heavy duty cables which are very heavy even though they do hold a lot of electricity.  In fact, through experiments I gave have up on moving this rig around to ‘chase the sun” as the thought of this very heavy rig tipping on the movers of the rig was simply too much for me (and assuming I can’t get gas and oil for my ATV). Said another way, the grounds and driveway were just too rough and bumpy to use routinely. So now the solar plant is immobile (and on a porch and somewhat out of the weather), and I am back to experimenting to see if it will work out OK as to its present location. (Chasing the direct sun provides the most electricity for the batteries). I think the present location will be OK (even with indirect sun part of the day), but that is what experiments and setting objectives are for (and being brutally honest about it). And right now the solar plant uses three high powered solar panels, an MPPT solar controller, a DC/AC inverter, and 6 Marine deep-cycle batteries.

And so the saga continues, even as we (me and the contractor) close in on a final setup.  And more has gone on than I anticipated when I started, including getting older. Now I have to find a younger person to learn all this, and to maintain all this, too. Plus I have to budget for replacement batteries in 2020 or so, if I can even get them (including their technology from 2014). And I still have to glass clean the solar panels periodically to maximize their solar collection. That was another unanticipated surprise to me, too.