Powering up with a Star
As children of middle class suburbia, abundant electricity was a given, natural, necessity. By the time we arrived here at the top, we were conceptually committed to weaning ourselves from the grasp of Pacific Gas & Electric. Searching for land, this seemed a delicate balance, and difficult task . Locating a modest piece of land that was not unreasonably remote, and off the grid was a challenge. We were pleased to find this place, with it’s small rough, shack of cabin, included an old 32 watt PHOTOWATT solar panel- and a very dead, very large, heavy equipment Battery.
My first task was to clean up the connections, check the electrolyte in the battery, & test the out-put of the panel. My only training for this was a childhood that included Radio Shack electronic hobby kits, and a little 12 volt DC experience from the Tattoo trade. After checking everything out I made a rustic junction box with 2 cut-off blade switches, for both battery and panel, a volt meter, and an automotive fuse for the output. When I hooked the battery to the panel- it began charging!
This battery had been dead for a long time- and I had no idea how it would perform. Plugging in our stereo boom box with a 9 volt regulator, We were pleased to find it worked. Tapes and radio were most of our load. Our lighting at the time consisted of candles, kerosene lamps and a couple of 12 volt brake light bulbs. This system worked for several years, our needs were small enough, that using the remaining shallow charge of the aged, big battery was adequate. We even raised a batch of chicks with a bigger 12 volt bulb powered this way, and were able to Tattoo powered by the sun!
Of course, energy flows, and an increase in demand was inevitable. There is no doubt about it, electric light rocks, and burns up a lot of amp hours, especially in the dead of winter. When we up graded the water system, the original 48 watt KYOCERA panel came up to our newly built house, augmenting the PHOTOWATT, making a big 80 watts. The increase in potential power made a difference at the end of the battery’s useful life, but, also encouraged more use of more lights. As our loads increased we had to upgrade our energy storage.
A word on Loads
When you explore the hardware requirements of an off grid, stand alone power system, you find the emphasis is usually on the energy demands of the devices and appliances that are embedded in your daily lives- then working back from there, to assess storage and generation requirements.
To my mind, this puts the cart before the horse. It is perfectly reasonable to size a system from the other end – i.e. acquire the equipment you can afford, and then, determine what you are able to power. Photovoltaic panels can always be added, as budgets & demand increases. This approach automatically adds the important & often neglected concept of energy conservation to the mix, reducing expectations & assumptions about power consumption. When using a correctly sized system, a unique circumstance can arise; too much potential power.Where generation exceeds storage capacity, not using power is wasting the potential of your equipment. If this happens a lot, you know you can add loads or storage to your system. Here at the top, we are conservative energy consumers.
One of the biggest reductions in power consumption we experience, is from our decision to do without the convenience of refrigeration. We do use a small 12 volt, solid state thermo-electric cooler seasonally,
which coincidentally functions as a load diversion for the solar rich days of mid-summer, when our batteries are easily topped off after a few hours. After 30 years of non-refrigerated living, we know that it is both possible, and not a hardship.