Ah, winter.

Sorry to be so quiet- this is a crazy busy time of year for us; one of our crops is chestnuts, and guess when you sell them?

The sales window for traditional markets is small, and it can't be done "later"; only "now". Just for extra fun, of course, two of our vehicles, the farm truck and the family car, have decided that now is the time for them to die; or almost die. So lots of extra monkey business there.

And, last night winter finally, really, closed down on us; 8 inches of snow, overnight. On icy hard-frozen ground. The John Deere 4WD was slipping sideways quite a bit as I plowed out.

Supposed to be a time of rest for farmers. Ho ho ho.

Murphy, and his laws, keeps hanging around, too, lest we become complacent. One of the things you have to do to market your chestnuts is, wash them. That takes water. We're off the grid, so, having reliable supplies is something that takes a bit of forethought.

We just thought fore to the extent of installing a new 2,500 gallon cistern. Polystyrene, alas, but concrete pre-fab was way more expensive, and any custom concrete possibilities even more so. If I had my druthers, I'da dug the hole and laid up fieldstone for a cistern myself; but I don't have the luxury of doing work that slowly, at the moment.

The well pump is a plain Shurflo 9300, a pretty reliable, though slow machine with a good track record. We actually own 3, via the weirdnesses of off-grid living, 2 currently dead but rebuildable as backups.

And, we just purchased a new solar panel, to directly drive the pump; no batteries to be connected; sun shines, pump pumps, into the huge cistern. Theoretically.

You DO need a "pump controller", a little solid state thingy, to prevent the odd chance that your panels may suddenly put out more electricity than your pump can handle, which will burn out your pump. That's a real concern for us, since exactly that can happen on very cold sunny days. Unbeknownst to many, solar panels will put out 1% more current for every 3° C colder it gets. Since panels are "rated" at hot normal temperatures like you'd expect them to be in Florida in full sun in the summer- on a cold day in February in Minnesota; when the air temperature is 25° below 0 F, and the wind is blowing at 30 mph, so the panel is really that cold; and the sun is shining full blast- on a snow field that's bouncing even more light onto the panel- you can suddenly find yourself with WAY more power coming out of the panel than it's rated at.

I found that out by boiling my batteries, the first year I had solar panels. Sure, the information was available - deeeeeeeply buried where nobody ever sees it. Gosh, why is there acid bubbling out of the top of my batteries?

And our spiffy Shurflo pump controller; just purchased with the new panel- has lots of cool facts about it available on the web; except all the technical specifications (or at least, I couldn't find them).

So reading them, now that I've got it in my hands... yeah, yeah, x volts in, y amps in, etc, etc... oh, look "Operating Temperatures: +14°F to + 135°F."

Excuse me?

Unwritten subtext: "We designed your spiffy gizmo to work in Florida; don't try using it anywhere you have actual winters."

They left that part out of the sales brochures.

Sigh.

Ok, my point.

There's a LOT of our world that now works this way; machines, devices, and processes- are designed to work beautifully, within specific parameters.

But, they don't tell you up front what those parameters are. And finding a person, a live one, who truly knows what they are, and how much they can, or can't, be stretched- is often incredibly difficult.

My water system is currently going "pocketa pocketa queep".

And my major response is; I get to wait until Monday, when at 9 AM Pacific time, somebody may, possibly, get my phone message. And may, possibly, pass it on to someone who knows something.

Perhaps.

So, I'm going sledding, with Smidgen. Spice is off to check the electric fence for the horses; on snowshoes.

Baked squash tonight; the woodstove is cranking out the heat.

Complex systems may have lots of collapsible pathways; but fire is hot, and squash is good food.

A photon saved is a photon earned.

We're in the segment of the year when our house energy balance is always very, very tight.

I was just getting ready to do an "energy/building/planning" post when I got ambushed by Crunchy, who wants to claim that unplugging your fridge will cost more energy than it saves...

Such a silly head.  :-)

The discussions there are well worth reading- and actually, I don't think La Crunch and I disagree, in the end- it's more a matter of I was talking generalities, as in "for most families in the First World..." and she was talking "in MY household..."  Yes, by golly, if your Kitchen Boss is also Obsessive/Compulsive, you can use a refrigerator in a useful, non-wasteful fashion.  Many homes are not so lucky, however, and quite few refrigerators have operators on the other end of the "careful" scale.

Sure, Crunch, you do very well with your fridge- though I still want to see your ACTUAL energy consumption numbers- measured by a Kill-a-Watt or something, like Sharon uses.  I can just SEE you, standing in front of the open door of your EnergyStar fridge- and planning stuff- 8 times a day, for minutes at a time...   :-p   And how many times a day do the kids and hubby open the door?  Hm?  What the maker promises, and what you actually use, are not the same thing atall atall.

And, incidentally, the Inspector General of the EPA has just (Dec. 17) issued a report: industry scam on the Energy Star program.  Guess what?  It ain't all they say it is.  One clue- it's a program run by- the appliance industry (largely started so they could avoid real government regulation by showing "voluntary industry compliance" - but don't say that out loud).

In any case, fridges are not the only piece of the energy equation, by a long shot.  While I hope to do a "fridgeless" update in the near future, at the moment I want to concentrate on some aspects of being off the grid.

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Winter changes what is going on with your solar panels- unless you live on the equator.

The usual situation at higher latitudes is; you get weaker sunlight, because it has to filter through more atmosphere at lower angles; you get fewer hours per day; many winter months tend to be more cloudy (though not all locations are the same).  At the same time, however, the panels themselves put out 1% more power for ever 3°C colder- which can mean a LOT on a -20° sunny day, like 20% more current than rated for (boiled my batteries, first year).

Over all; you have less power available in the winter; though it's not as bad as most expect.  

And you have to include the effect on your system batteries; we've got only 4 lead-acid golf cart batteries, quite a small bank.  One of the management requirements for lead-acid batteries is they need to be "topped up" regularly; once a week at least, you need to push them to full charge.  It's really hard to do that using panels alone in the winter.  So- if you're like most off-gridders, you do have a backup generator.  We have TWO!  Just so you know.  Ok, 5; but 3 of them are broken.  The broken ones are older, the working ones are state-of-the-art, and carefully maintained.

Your goal, as an obsessive/compulsive home electric system manager, is to have to buy as little gasoline (house) or diesel (greenhouse) as possible.  So you really do want to get every last photon captured that you possibly can.  Every photon makes a difference.

At this point, in the Little House, we're missing a lot of winter photons; partly due to design compromises discussed previously here,  and partly due to the passage of time, with some unanticipated consequences.

If you'll look closely at the photo above (and I hope to heck that you can click on it and get a bigger view- sometimes Blogger does that, and sometimes not, and I haven't figured out why, and they're not telling) you'll see that the panels are shaded by tree branches (the trees are 200' away, but the sun is low) and, the panels are covered with frost, greatly reducing the input.

The frost comes from- the chimney.  The "smoke" you see there isn't smoke at all; it's steam.  When we have temperatures below 0°F day after day, the woodstove is actually burning very hot and clean most of the time.  But water is the other product of combustion, along with CO2; and under the right conditions, it will form frost on anything in what is normally the smoke path.  This was one of those days; and it was so cold the frost didn't melt off until almost noon, costing us a big chunk of the daily photon budget.

Frost on the panels from the chimney is a compromise I knew about at the start- the position of the panels on the roof was determined by many things, including access for maintenance.  It ain't perfect.  I was also worried we might get smoke deposits on the glass panels; but in reality it's never been a problem; a good rainstorm every once in a while works fine.  I actually went up there and cleaned the panels with Windex every month for the first year- at which point I decided it wasn't worth while.  Biggest bang I got was in the spring, during oak pollination.  Some days, the oak pollen blocks more sun than the frost ever does.

Frost like this is a minor problem; usually happens only 6-10 days a year; and most times melts off quickly.  The reason I was tracking things so closely was: 

An unexpected, and unbudgeted electric load for the system to carry.  This is a "nebulizer", which the doctor prescribed for Smidgen in the middle of our fight with upper respiratory bugaboos.  Doc examined her and said she was on the edge of bronchitis and or pneumonia; the medication inhaled from this thingy opens up the air passages, and helps stave all that off.  It seems to be working.

It has a powerful little air compressor that drives the mist-making device; Smidgen has to sit in this delight for a half hour, four times a day.  And it's noisy.  You can't eat, drink, draw, read, or play with it on; so we've bent one of our rules and allow her to watch DVD's on one of the computers while she sits (that's her "mesmerized by Disney" look).  More energy consumption not in the budget.

Of course (BIG MAJOR ADVICE ALERT!!!)  when you were doing your original budget for the power out/power in/power storage calculations- you DID include a substantial chunk of the budget for "unanticipated needs" - didn't you?  :-)  Of course you did.  Good for you.

I did, in fact.  But that was 25 years ago, and the world has changed; that margin has long been used up; so the extra load now has pushed us over our normal winter brink.  Instead of running the backup generator once a week in winter, we're now having to run it about every other day.  If we don't- the first thing that happens is the DSL modem drops out.  Horrors!

The other loss of power, stemming from the shadows of tree branches; is fairly new.  Those trees only grew that tall in the last 3 years, and I hadn't really expected them to, ever.  Silly me.

I was basing my tree height expectations on what my farmer neighbors told me, and the observable heights of trees in farm-forests around here.  Surprise- if you manage the forest for the trees- not the cows- the trees get quite a lot taller, in 30 years.

Now, in December/January, because of tree growth, the solar array is actually charging the batteries for only about 3 hours a day; drastically less than the usual 5-6 hours.  Thankfully, it will only be a few more weeks before the sun rises high enough in the sky so it is above the trees much earlier.  Meanwhile; more gasoline.  We're sighing in relief over the current drop in gas prices; but for the future, this is all a problem; the basic equations for electricity for this house are now out of balance; and unbalanceable without some serious changes in the array.  No easy answers in sight.

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On a different but highly related note; the Little House has been approached by Nick Rosen; author of  How to Live Off-Grid , for us to be one of the families he'll cover in his new book on going off-grid in the USA (first book is UK).  You can find out more about him, and find lots of off-grid discussion at his website: off-grid.net.  

Part of his new book, though, is that he's trying to pair up the families he covers; he wants one "old-timer", and one "newbie" for each region; so he can match up expectations and realities.  Sounds good to me.

The upshot being; we're looking for newby not too far away from The Little House; someone who has just recently gone off-grid.  Is it you?  :-)

For those who don't know; The Little House is in SE Minnesota; if you're within 100 miles or so, I think that's likely close enough for a match; certainly our insolation and climates will be pretty similar.

If you're interested - email Nick at news@off-grid.net; or you can send me a note here by making a comment.  

And hurry up about it- he's about to arrive in Florida and start driving; or may have started already.

New solar panels are up!

Hey, Chrusty Churkey!  Here's a nice long dense one for ya!  :-)

(For others- do be aware there will NOT be a test after you finish reading- feel free to skim over some of the technical bits; and you'll find pithy parts here and there, and at the bottom...)

As regulars here will remember, in October we had the delightful addition to our work of having our greenhouse solar power array wiped out by a direct lightning strike.

We did, finally, get the panels replaced, and up and operating.  That was a whole bunch of work- illustrating a number of points regarding attempts to move towards a greener lifestyle.

The solar panels WERE covered by our business insurance.  Mostly.  They're expensive, you know- and critical to the business, since they provide the main power for the greenhouse; so they were specifically listed on the insurance policy (unlike our stolen farm truck- not listed; worth $500 or so, and a minor piece of equipment- that was NOT covered; though our stolen chain saw; not listed, but worth $800 or so- WAS... go figure.)

But.  Insurance has become a game where most insurers spend most of their effort figuring out how to NOT pay you anything for your losses.  They sell you the policy smiling and saying "we're here to help you through bad times!" and when the hurricane hits, it's "no, no, see the fine print here?  Says if the storm hits on a Thursday, we don't owe you anything!  Ha!  Gotcha!"  

In fact my business insurance company is WAY better than most- they specialize in insuring nursery/greenhouses, and that whole world is small, and idiosyncratic in spades; so they have to be somewhat accommodating just to survive.  

The coverage on the panels though was a little too specific to be useful, causing an extra 4-6 days of discussions before we could agree on how to proceed.  The policy read "6 solar panels, max coverage $300 apiece; prorated for age; maximum liability #1800.00."

What I actually lost was 6 Siemens single-crystal panels, rated 48 watts apiece, installed in 1992.  All 6 were damaged by the lightning strike- which was just as well, since trying to find panels to hook up and replace half of the array would have been impossible.

No, that's not me, that's Jerry, who came all the way from NY to help out.  These are the panels AFTER the strike, incidentally - they look fine from this distance - but they don't work; blocking diodes melted, and some of the surface wiring between individual cells was vaporized.  Took me several days before I noticed my battery bank was not getting charged.

Nobody makes 48 watt panels today (that I could find) - and the standards for the precise inner workings of the panels have changed...

In fact EVERYTHING about solar panels has changed since I bought my first ones- in 1982, I think (the cost- about $15/peak watt.)  The only option then was single crystal- and a "nominal" 12V panel put out 16.something V max under load; 19V open circuit.  If YOU are the one putting the system together, yeah, you have to know ALL those numbers; they make all the difference in whether the array is going to work or not.

Also, when I first bought panels, there were approximately 3 companies doing business- and the internet did not exist.  Decisions were pretty simple.  

Not so today.  There are about 25 major companies selling panels over the internet- from about 15 different major manufacturers.  And there are minor ones, too.

The good news is- the internet really does let you compare stuff very well.

The bad news is; it still takes hours- and it's still confusing/confused after you've done your darnedest to untangle it.  

Let's just start with the hardware.

There are now single-crystal; poly-crystalline, amorphous, wire-pulled crystal, and hybrid solar panels to choose from.  At least.  Are there differences?  Duh.  Do they matter?  Hey, just read their advertising!  

Is there a good disinterested source that compares the types, based on initial cost, length of service, rate of power loss... fragility... track records...?     Not that I could find.   Actually I couldn't find even a bad, self-interested source with broad comparisons.  Even digging down into the scientific reports and engineering journals didn't help.  Half the technical info is on cells not available to the public- Gallium Arsenide, instead of silicon- and even more exotic stuff.  Wildly expensive, and not going to be available for decades, if ever, to you and me.

Just sorting out, with some level of certainty, the differences between the stuff that IS available took days.

So, here's what I learned, and what I think.  No real guarantees I'm right, though.

The original solar cells were made in the 50's - out of single cell crystals.  (They're still working, incidentally, though at a reduced output.  You own any other gizmo that's 50 years old and still works all day every day?)  

When people got interested in trying to get the cost of solar cells down, they came up with "poly-crystalline" cells.  They were supposed to be cheaper to make (though I don't see any real price differences today).  But- originally, they didn't put out as much power as single-crystal cells; and they didn't last as long.  Today, their specs claim they DO make as much power- and the 20 year/80% output guarantees are very similar.  But.  When you dig down- it seems that the RATE of power loss is still higher for both poly-crystalline and amorphous cells; single crystal cells lose power at something like 1% a year for the first 25 years; the others may lose power at 2-4% a year for the first several years; then slow down the rate of loss.

Amorphous cells rarely last longer than 10 years before needing to be replaced- they're just not as durable.  Cheaper, flexible, lighter weight, but not going to last- barring lightning (or earthquakes, tornadoes, or what-have-you), a good silicon array can be expected to function adequately for - FORTY YEARS.  

Eventually I decided I did want to go with the old single-crystal cell type.  Mostly because they've got the track record.  Some of the newer types are a little more efficient- but they haven't been around for even 20 years, so we don't exactly know how they'll be doing down the road.  Ok.  Now- which ones?  Made by whom?

Here some of the panel sellers ARE useful- the best ones list good, uniform technical specs for each panel- with the manufacturer's spec sheet available as a downloadable PDF.  Great- still very time consuming, and you have to be conversant in the language; and able to sort out stuff like:

Performance under standard test conditions (STC)
Peak Power (Pmax): 175 watts
Maximum power point voltage (Vmpp): 35.7 volts
Maximum power point current (Impp): 4.9 amps
Open Circuit Voltage (Voc): 44.4 volts
Short Circuit Current (Isc): 5.4 amps

Performance at 800w/sq m, NOCT, AM1.5
Peak Power (Pmax): 131 watts
Maximum power point voltage (Vmpp): 33.1 volts
Maximum power point current (Impp): 4.0 amps
Open Circuit Voltage (Voc): 41.1 volts
Short Circuit Current (Isc): 4.4 amps

Minor reduction in efficiency under partial load conditions at 25C at 200 W/sq m, 95% (+/- 3%) of the STC efficiency (1000 W/sq m) is achieved

And, what does that all mean?  Basic translation: "these panels claim to be 175 watt output, but "Standard Test Conditions" are unrealistic; slightly more realistic ones suggest 131 watts is a better average guess; and if it's a little cloudy, subtract more.  These are "nominal" 24VDC panels- which is why they're putting out 35.7V under good conditions, of course- so your 24V batteries actually get charged."

Getting a headache yet?  I sure was, around day 4 of trying to sort this stuff out.

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Slight aside #1: if you're thinking of getting solar panels- or a wind generator- do you really have to know all this technical stuff?

Answer: It's very much like getting your car fixed.  You either have to be able to do it yourself; or you need to be able to TRUST your mechanic.

There are plenty of mechanics who will rip you off if they CAN.  "Hey, your infrahydraulic-frammulator is totally clogged!  Dangerous to drive with it that way!  I can put in a new one for only $320!"

Unless you know SOMETHING about it all; you're at risk of being ripped off, but good.  And the more you know; the better.  Not to mention that even good honest mechanics DO sometimes make boo-boos- and it helps if you're paying attention- knowledgeably. 

The good news again- is the internet.  You CAN educate yourself enormously faster, and better, than you could 15 years ago.  But you still need to go into the process with your brain turned on; and be aware that there are thieves and liars on the internet, too.  Surprise.

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So - back to my installation- here is what I wound up with: 

Two panels; instead of 6.  And they're 24VDC instead of 12 (greenhouse battery system is 24V.)  Those numbers above are for these panels; nominal 175 watts.

Basically, as more folks are installing solar arrays, the available panels have been getting bigger- and cheaper. Some economies of scale do seem to be kicking in. These panels were advertised at one site as $4.60/watt - which is CHEAP. Buying 50 watt panels to replace my 288 watt array would have cost me over $6/watt, best I could find. Some good incentive there for me to go just a bit larger; I can always use the extra power.  Now- which panels, exactly?

The basic specs on a lot of panels have changed since I last bought some, 10 years ago.  They all operate at slightly higher voltage; and they ALL come with built-in blocking diodes; something my first ones didn't have.  All that is good- part of the learning process I'd helped pay for, by buying the early stuff.  

And yes, I intended to support a growing, immature industry, by paying outrageously high prices for electricity- when friends and advisors kept pointing out "that's not even close to a competitive price for power, you know."  I knew.  We need to support green processes with our own dollars- they'll die on the vine, otherwise.

When solar panels were experimental, the engineers naturally  - put them out in the sun, right?  And measured their performance.  Unfortunately, residences and small businesses have some other factors in their reality - they're called "neighbors", "utility lines", and "trees".  All of which make "shade".  It turned out that having just ONE CELL shaded on the old panels could make the whole array quit producing power.  The voltage would drop on one panel- so the other panels would now push power- into that low panel, not the batteries.  The blocking diodes prevent that from happening; so one shaded cell doesn't mean you lose the output of the whole array; just that one panel.  And the higher over-all voltage also helps - better performance when it's a little cloudy, for example.  Quite significant in terms of power delivered to the batteries, over the years, in the real world.  Ok; having sorted THAT out (took one day, I think); I started looking just for bigger single-crystal panels, with an open circuit voltage around 44V...

Picking a manufacturer was an odyssey, too. In case you haven't noticed, the big petrochemical companies have been buying up the solar cell manufacturers. Eww.

The first panels I bought were Solarex.  They were among the first to sell to consumers; based in Maryland, I think- big plans for building a "solar breeder" plant; where all the power to make their cells would come from... solar cells.  BP (British Petroleum) bought them, quite a few years ago now- so BP can print tons of ads about how wonderful BP is, for doing all this advanced research on solar power.

Same thing happened to the Siemens solar division- which made the panels the lightning hit.  They were bought out by Shell Oil.  Double Eww.  I will run out of gas, and walk, before I buy gasoline from Shell.  Long story.

Then I ran into very similar panels made by Conergy- which, it turns out, is a German company.  Cheap, too.  Except.  As it turns out.  When you dig into the technical sheet - THESE particular German panels, imported into New Jersey, are actually made in China.  Which you can really only tell IF you can decipher their product code- they don't exactly brag about it.

Now- I'm the opposite of a China-basher.  I love the place; love the people, and I think as a country they have huge potential, if they can just avoid making all the mistakes we already have.  Sure, they have some corrupt politicians and greedy businessmen - uh - SO DO WE, in case you haven't noticed.  They also have huge numbers of very good people, including some politicians and businessmen, doing their darnedest to make China; and the world, "work".

But it IS on the other side of the planet- and the energy required to ship them just doesn't make environmental sense, as we know.  I'd rather pay more money for panels made somewhere closer.  Back to the drawing board.

There was another panel; made by a company I'd never heard of- "SolarWorld".  Kind of a cheesy name; sounds like they hired a consultant to choose it...

Digging to find out who they are- turns out, it's a German company, with what looks like a good track record- and - guess what!  These panels are being made in the California factory that they just bought- from Shell!  Who bought it from Siemens.  Round we go.

I liked the quality of the panels I'd had - these are probably made by the exact same PEOPLE - and Shell is now out of the picture.  The engineering and manufacturing is critical on anything that SHOULD last for 40 years.  These guys seem to know how.  Ok, we have a winner.

I didn't buy the panels where they were cheapest.  A) they didn't answer my emails; B) their website was a little slick and short on information; C) they shipped from the east coast; and these panels are made in California.  I bought my two panels (a tiny order) from a company that ships from California; and they answered my emails, and even called on the phone to see things were going ok with the order.

The panels arrived on a semi (too big for UPS) - like 2 days after I made the order.  Took several more days to get them installed; the old mount really could not accommodate the much taller panels; we managed to modify the old mount with some new steel; lots of sawing and drilling.  Used an old "post drill" hand powered drill press to make most of the new holes in steel.  Then took most of another day to get the panels bolted on, and wired (VERY CAREFULLY).  And we added MORE lightning protection; another ground rod, just for the panels; heavy ground wireS.  With any luck; it should be good for 40 years.

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That's most of the story on replacing the panels.  A huge part of my reason for detailing it here is to highlight the real difficulties of sorting out "what's green; what's greener; what's true; what's false; what's real; what's fake..." out here in the real world.  

That's a topic that's come up several times in all the blog conversations I check into; for example No Impact Dude; Chuncky Chincken, and Green as a Whistle.  And others.

Just the topic of "exactly how useful/green are Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs" turns out to be complex enough to keep people writing about it, including me.

At the moment there's a serious shortage of authoritative and trustworthy voices on green consumer practices, and a worse shortage regarding particular practices.  The US Federal Govt. occasionally puts out some good comparative data- sometimes very extensive- BUT; you really have to dig for it, often it's in a weird incomprehensible form, and sometimes- it's biased by politics.

The only way to get this problem fixed: 

1) Get everybody to understand that you have to take ALL "this is green" statements with a grain of salt- and do some homework of your own to see if you can believe it.  And always will.

2) SOMEBODY (not me, I'm really busy) needs to found a green version of Consumers Union; the publishers of Consumer Reports.  They're non-profit; never accept advertising from ANYONE; forbid any maker to use their name to recommend any product (and they'll seriously sue when someone does)- they really try hard to be independent.  Perfect? no; always right, no- but the best thing I know of out there in terms of thorough independent testing and information.  But they're not about to take on this chore of green certification, on top of what they already do.  We need a new organization.

Somebody could make a good living doing that, actually, very fairly; and provide an invaluable resource for the rest of us.

And, such an organization could start to push for changes (Consumers Union members have considerable political clout) - like- how come, when you're buying a computer, or TV, or something similar- you have to absolutely BEG for the information on power consumption?  Why isn't it listed right up front; always?  Why don't businesses like Gaiam, which totally focuses on being "Earth-friendly" - actually give you the numbers?  What they say there is "Energy Star Compliant."  Oh, be still my heart.  What that means is; some bureaucrat thinks the energy use is "not too bad".   I WANT TO KNOW EXACTLY.

I NEED to know, exactly- because I'm off the grid; and every photon counts; today.  I not only want to know their "wattage" - which tends to be kind of meaningless - but I want average power consumption under 3 conditions; max load; half load, and light load.  Because EVERYTHING varies on how much power it actually pulls.  And I want numbers for average watt/HOURS/day, for each of those conditions- because a watt is just a measure of instantaneous power use- not power consumption per time.

Other stuff we need to know- embedded energy content; per gizmo; exactly how many ergs went into manufacturing this thing; and transporting it HERE.  Lifetime - lifetime energy cost, and cost/year.  Standby power use.  (And EVERYTHING needs a switch on it; up front; so there is NO standby power drain.)

We label our food like we care about it.  We've GOT to start labeling our energy consuming devices the same way.

The government is NOT going to do this, anytime soon- we're going to have to demand it, ourselves- and there's almost nothing out here, as an organized, authoritative green voice.

So.  Who's going to DO it?  You?  

Why not?

micro update

Not dead here, just buried.  Partly with visitors; first family, then by a long-time friend who traveled a very long way to be here- to help.  Thanks, Jerry.  :-)  

You were a huge help- got lots of stuff done that had been dangling, waiting for the extra hands.  The side effect though, was some brain fog- re-focus here, re-focus there.  Now I've gotta re-focus again, on coping with just us.  And, for extra fun, I sneezed this morning.

Ha ha.  If you've had your back go out, you know a sneeze is not amusing, and indeed it put my partially recovered back back into spasm.  Hopefully minor, it doesn't feel like going back to square one- but it's definitely a problem.

Meanwhile- the weather is apparently Augember.  Late August temperatures, but November rain patterns; day after day of gray drizzle.   Nov/Dec is when we need our backup generators the most, usually- it's common to have weeks of no effective sun; Jan/Feb are VERY sunny, usually, and though the hours are short, the power is good- something few people know is that photovoltaic panels are more effective- the colder it is.

This is not a minor effect- you get around 1% more power for each 3°C colder than "rated" temperature.  Usually panels are rated at 25°C (which is pretty fakey- in full sun, in summer, they're probably running more like 50°C- which means a lot less power).  In winter though; it's pretty common to have bright sun- often bouncing off snow; very cold temps; and wind- so the panels may be running at a temp of -30°C; which should mean around 20% MORE than "rated" power output.  I learned this the hard way; by boiling my batteries one nice February.

See?  Brain fog.  Starting to ramble.  Today we've got 12 hours of sun and wind- before the rain starts again.  Have to get some firewood in before the rain comes back; we ARE needing the stove now.  The Little House has big windows, by design, and in 50°F weather it will heat nicely, if it's sunny- but if it's drizzling day after day, it gets miserable without the stove.

Off to the woodpile.

Not in the plans

Too much going on in the Big Woods; it's been hard to steal time to get here; sorry about that.

Not everything that happens is on the list. I've had solar (photovoltaic) power in the Little House for 20 years or so. In all that time, it has served me very well. It's not a path without bumps, however, which we may get into someday (like the old phone company batteries we got for free- huge, glass cased, single cell batteries with a high power rating- that were totally unsuited to our uses, which I carried carefully up the ladder, then down the ladder...)

Something you really need to understand. Being a pioneer is bloody expensive.

I never set out to "be a pioneer"; it just happened that what I was interested in doing- no one else had done here before. When you're doing something new - you WILL screw up; and that's expensive, in every way possible.

When I installed my 3rd collection of solar panels, 20 odd years ago- I screwed up. Because of a worry that was current then, and no one even mentions now- the potential threat to glass looking up at the sky from hail.

What!? Is hail a concern for solar panels?? Well, no, not really. But back before some of us knuckleheads went out and got experience, it WAS. Glass is glass, and if you drop big balls of ice on it, it could break. The reality is- this particular catastrophe happens so seldom it's not worth worrying about- at all. Your array is far more likely to be hit by lightning, or a tornado.

But back then, it was a worry. Particularly for me, because of where I am- in the summer the sun is very high, and in the winter very low. Summer is when we have thunderstorms- just when the panels are tilted the least; i.e. most likely to get broken. And we DO have big, nasty thunderstorms, on a regular basis.

So in a fit of brilliance I very carefully crafted plywood backing for the panels, so they weren't just a piece of glass waiting for a hailstone, but a piece of glass lying on a perforated (for heat escape) sheet of 3/4" marine plywood. Much less likely to break. Probably.

Outcome- 99.999% of hailstones just bounce off of solar panels (a true statistic I made up). And- wood rots. Even marine plywood. Eventually.

So I found myself, at year 20, with a solar array that was starting to fall to pieces. It was getting fragile to the point where one good windstorm could rip it into fragments- and falling off the roof WOULD smash the panels, no question. We took the array down; and for too long have been unable to muster the time and personnel to put it back up. Last weekend, we finally did.

The roof on the Little House is steep- when I built it, we were having normal winters, often with heavy snow, and it seemed like a good idea. These days I wish we'd built it with a less "A-frame" type top- I'd prefer that the little snow we get stay on the roof and keep us warm.

Steep roof also means it's tricky working up there. And while I put it up alone the first time, it's really not a sensible job for somebody 58 to tackle without help.



When I say "in the Big Woods" - that's the truth. It's a pretty silly place for a photovoltaic installation. The best site we've got is on the top of the roof; on a mast as high up as I could reach to work without too much danger of leaving my family precipitously. Over the years- the surrounding trees have continued to get taller, cutting our sun more and more. Still- it makes most of the power we use. In winter, or very cloudy spells, we will use a little Honda gasoline generator for back up; but it's usually once a week at most. Chances are if we were out of the woods, we would use far less gas, even with this very small array.

What goes up on the mast is kind of a museum of solar panels. Used to be 3 types, now only two-



The more modern panels are Arco's; the lovely old antique round cell panel is a Solarex. Actually- the older Solarex was better built; though it has so much wasted non-photon catching surface-



Something under the glass on the Arcos is browning; probably an adhesive? And at this point it's certainly cutting some of the capacity of the cells. Eh. So, my little pieces of rock put out a few less milliamps. I'll probably live. The glass on the Solarex panel is still as crystal clear as the day it was born.

Here is the process; me and a son up on the roof, bolting and wiring- 2 on here.



It takes a fair amount of time. You just can't afford to drop a bolt- most of them are special in some way, and finding it on the ground is no joke. So you don't drop anything. Which means moving slow. You also can't afford to step off the scaffold. It's all just a bit nervewracking. Amazing how good it feels to have your feet on solid ground when you get down.

Then, finally - it's up. This time with a steel frame; nothing to rot. Guy wires on; turnbuckles tight.



It's hard to explain the psychological impact of getting it back up. Great relief, in part. Satisfaction. Security.

The batteries are inside the house- so as I type this, I'm listening to the cozy sound of- batteries bubbling hydrogen right close by my desk. Can't tell you how much I've missed that.