Green-Trust.Org

Shell is investing heavily into fuel efficiency and alternative energy solutions. Please comment on how you perceive the traditional oil companies are moving towards efficiency and environmentally friendly solutions. Read more about Shell’s Alternative Energy Projects.

A while back, Robert Saunders sent us an article on a steam turbine he was working on. Then he sent another on solar energy steam electric. Well, here is his third chapter in this continuing quest. Hope you enjoy:

http://www.green-trust.org/wordpress/2008/12/07/solar-powered-steam-generators/

We finally got the AIR-X (400 watt) wind turbine raised today, just in time for a windy mini blizzard. It sits on 30′ of 3″ galvanised pipe, bolted to the side of the house. We used a backhoe to pull a rope, connected to the tower at the 20′ mark, over the top of the house, as we didn’t have the manpower to pull it ourselves. We put two other ropes on either side of the turbine to keep it from sliding perpendicular to the direction we wanted to to go.

I don’t have my anemometer up to check wind speeds, but the turbine is peaking at 300 watts and singing like a stool pigeon. I have the output of the turbine (the negative) running through a shunt connected to my FLEXnetDC battery monitor, so my Outback Mate tracks the power the turbine collects. My solar panels connect to another shunt, and my inverter to the third shunt. This gives me detailed information on my production and usage.

I have some of pictures of the process posted at http://sspence65.jalbum.net/AIR%20X%20Install/ and more coming shortly.

The Whisper (500 watt) is the next unit to go up, followed by the rebuilt 24 volt (was 12v) 1000 watt Axial Flux Turbine.

Melvin Martin was over last night. He’s greatly recovered from his accident, but still has a ways to go. We were discussing home built NiFe (Edison) batteries and how to make your own. These batteries have the ability to last 50+ years, and we have a bunch of info on them in the files section at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/12VDC_Power/files/. We were also discussing human powered devices, specifically pedal powered water pumps, grain mills, and electrical generators. I have had a very good resource for this for 20 years called “Pedal Power: In Work, Leisure, and Transportation”, and just picked up a wonderful companion to it produced in 2008 called “The Human Powered Home”. Detailed drawings and parts lists for mixers, pumps, grinders, and many other projects where fuel or electricity may be in short supply, or you just need to lose 50 lbs. These books and more can be found it the Human Power section at http://www.green-trust.org/bookshop/.

The 24v AIR-X arrived today, and the Whisper 500 watt unit arrived last week. The Whisper was donated by Jim Juczak of woodhenge.org. Allan Smith, the creator of the Rocket Mass Heater came for supper, and we discussed his design, and alternative implementations. We will be building one of these soon. A ebook of the heater with video and Sketchup diagrams will be available from us shortly, as well as one with the wind turbine setup and installation. He has also added a couple more video’s on startup of the heater, and heat circulation. The manual wood splitter mentioned in the video’s is found at Bailey’s Online.

Today we are picking up two 10′ sections of telephone poles for the posts for the new solar array. The phone company removed a pole that was broken at the base, and gave us the rest of the pole, cut in 10′ pieces. We will dig a hole 4′ deep, drop in the post, and fill the hole with concrete. a rock at the bottom with some concrete put in first will keep the post off the dirt at the bottom of the hole.

The top of pole array mounts we received are too small for the new panels (there was a mix up somewhere), so we wll mount our old Mitsubishi 110 watt panels first, and then when the second array mounts come in, we will mount the new Sanyo 195 watt panels. In the meantime, we will put the Sanyo’s on the old wooden fixed array mount that currently holds the Mitsubishi panels. We have a second Outback MX-60 charge controller coming in to handle the second array. This will bring us up to 1720 watts of pv, from 550 watts.

The Pole Mount for our new solar panels just arrived. The UPS driver took one look at the panels that were laid out, and commented as he handed me the boxes, “Toys for boys?”. Oh Yeh!

The pole mount is from Iron Ridge, and will hold up to eight panels, but only six panels of this size. Next year, when we get another six panels, we will put up another pole.

The pole is a 10′ piece of used telephone pole, courtesy of our local phone company. It has yet to arrive.

Our new Photo Voltaic Solar Panels arrived this week while we were in Ft. Benning, Georgia. We were there attending our Son’s graduation from Infantry Training.

The six Panels are 195 watt Sanyo Hybrid panels. These panels have a amorphous layer over top the mono crystalline layer, and work well in cloudy and overcast weather as well as bright sunny weather. It was in the high 20’s last night, and the sun is low on the horizon, so a 1200 watt boost to our existing 550 watts will be appreciated. This will greatly reduce our propane usage and generator run times, and keep our house batteries fully charged for longer periods of time. I’ll be posting pictures and desciptions as we install them, and will be updating our DIY Solar Power Installation ebook at http://www.green-trust.org/ebooks/.

We use a multifunction display from Outback called a Mate to monitor the operation of our charge controller, our inverter, and our battery bank. We have another shunt coming in so that we can monitor the wind turbine and solar independently. But what about logging and historical performance. It would be handy to be able to compare monthly and seasonal performance. Our Mate has a serial port on the side for connecting to a computer, so we are evaluating 2 software packages that will allow us to track and record the complete operations of our system.

The first is WinVerter-Monitor OB from http://www.righthandeng.com, and the other is WattPlot from http://wattplot.com/index.htm. We will let you know about the strenghts and weaknesses of both.

Our guide to installing your own power system is finished, and available on our eBook page at http://www.green-trust.org/ebooks/

Covering Sizing, siting, installation, and battery maintenance, it’s a good guide to putting together your own inexpensive system. Includes private discussion group and free updates.