(Transcript from video):

Courtney Brooke: Good morning Zev.

Zev: Good morning.

Courtney Brooke: What are you doing?

Zev: I just took the cover off our solar hot water panel. It was covered for the winter and now the sun is hitting it. I let water in and that’s going to be heating water up so that we have nice piping hot water in our sink throughout the warm season.

Courtney Brooke: So that water gets hot in there and then where does the water go?

Zev: Then it gets pushed by the gravity from our high spring cistern which is about 60 vertical feet above the house pipe down here. It gets pushed by that pressure back through that cover pipe and into our hot water tank which is on the second floor of the house . Then it just is stored there by gravity to feed down into our sink in the kitchen and the sink in the in the other bedroom

Courtney Brooke: So there’s no pump?

Zev: No pumps.

Courtney Brooke: no electricity?

Zev: Yeah that’s right. It’s not quite passive because water is moving but yeah it’s a solar panel called a pt50 which has these four inch diameter metal  tubes inside that have enough water that they can resist some freezing in the spring and fall  but also have enough surface area that they can get enough surface area to volume ratio from the sun to heat the water up to like 140 degrees or something.

Courtney Brooke: And is the water like hot all the time?

Zev: Not when the sun’s not shining.

Courtney Brooke:  Ohhh.

Zev: Yeah, but it’s there. Our hot water tank stores the hot water for a good 12 or 18 hours hot enough for washing dishes. So, it’s only if we run into two or three days of rain that we have to worry about having enough hot water. Yay!

Courtney Brooke: Happy spring.

Zev:  Happy spring.

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Transcript from video:

Courtney Brooke: Here’s our new ride, the club car. It’s a golf cart for cruising around Earthaven, but the news about it is that it’s got a solar panel on top so you can charge it with electricity.   But that’s pretty challenging to do when you live off the grid. So, Brandon, who’s over there digging around in the cover crop seeds, rigged up this solar panel to the top of it.  Let’s try to see the solar panel …. There, it’s like that!

So does that mean that means that you can basically drive it around and you don’t have to charge it at all?

Brandon: We’re hoping that it’ll just charge itself off of the it solar panel off the top. I got a charge controller hooked up. It’s is specially made for the golf cart. It’s is down there in the back seat box. Yeah, working it out.

Courtney Brooke: The toolbox? That’s not the charge controller.  Oh, that box. There it is. That’s the charge controller.
So you just got a solar panel. You got the charge controller. You need to hook it up.

Brandon: I got a fuse in my pocket. I just need a few more wires.

Courtney Brooke: Got a fuse in your pocket…

Brandon: Yeah. Then we just got to put the golf cart where it’ll be in the Sun, and then it’ll charge it, hopefully keep itself charged all the time.

Courtney Brooke: Awesome.

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The Hut Hamlet’s kitchen/bathhouse — central distribution area for the neighborhood’s Microgrid.

In June, twenty-two residents of the Hut Hamlet neighborhood became owner/users of the first electric Microgrid at Earthaven! Chris Farmer of SunWorks Electric installed an 8.16 kW solar array and power system to serve 11 huts, and the neighborhood kitchen and bathhouse. The system will produce, on an average day, 31.5 kWh of electricity, which is what the average American house consumes.

After Chris and fellow valley solar electrician Brandon Greenstein had to troubleshoot, fix, or upgrade too many small, old, self-installed systems, they decided that to install one new, state-of-the-art system wired to code for the entire neighborhood.

One of the greatest obstacles to creating a shared off-grid power system is the different levels of electrical needs, as well as levels of consciousness around usage, people have. How does a group deal with this fairly? The Microgrid has a metering system that records different users’ true impact on the system, and charges users accordingly. Earthaven resident Jake Ferina wrote all the computer code for the weighted metering system, as well as for an Automatic Generator Start program better suited to off-grid solar than any offered on the market.

One perennial question in off-grid solar design is how big a battery to install. Too small, and it’s almost useless. Too big, and without an appropriately sized array, the batteries will not adequately re-charge after cloudy spells, But if the array is large enough to keep the batteries well charged, during sunny spells much of the energy from the panels will go to waste. We avoided this conundrum by installing a Diversion system that diverts excess electrical production to a conventional electric hot water heater. This 1) protects the batteries while 2) providing a freeze-proof solar hot water system.

Before the Microgrid, some residents had enough power for a light and a laptop, while others had upgraded to power refrigerators. The new plan, which took many minds over many months to work out, plus weeks of disrupted phone lines and paths, has been running smoothly for a few weeks and the future of power in the Hamlet looks, well, …brighter!

For the list of components in the Hut Hamlet Microgrid, see this entry in the Earthaven blog.

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In June, residents of the Hut Hamlet became owners/users of the first electric microgrid at Earthaven! Chris Farmer designed the grid with help from Brandon Greenstein. Code for mastering, monitoring and metering usage was written by Jake Farina. Earthaven members produce electricity from sun and water, and are not tied into the Duke Power grid, so this is especially significant to folks choosing simplified lifestyles. Now bigger and smaller users alike will be able to meet their needs, each paying according to usage, the rates differing between peak- and low-usage times. The Hamlet microgrid is solely solar-powered at this time.

Before the microgrid, some Hamlet residents had barely enough power for a light and a laptop, while others had been able to upgrade their systems to power refrigerators and freezers. The new plan, which took many months and many minds to work out, and weeks of disrupted paths and phone lines, has been running smoothly for a few weeks and the future of power in the Hamlet looks, well, …brighter!

Microgrid Technical Points, courtesy of Chris Farmer (SunWorks Electric, 828-707-5551).
The MicroGrid presently powers 11 Huts, the neighborhood kitchen, and bathhouse. The system is touted to produce 31.5 kWh (kilowatt hours) of energy on an average day. (Note: In 2013 the average American home required 29.9 kWh of electrical energy per day.) All of the power available is not yet being utilized.

Hut Hamlet Microgrid Components

• An 8.16 kW Solar Photovoltaic Array (32 individual 255 watt Kyocera panels
• A 48 volt 950Ah (Amp Hour) flooded lead acid battery (HUP Solar One) that weighs 3500 lbs.
• Two MidNite Solar 200 charge controllers
• Two Schneider Electric XW6848 Inverters, each capable of 6.8kW of continual conventional AC power output. One inverter is asleep ~90% of the time, awakened only when the Master inverter needs help.
• Excess electricity produced is diverted to a 105 gallon, 240 volt AC, electric hot water heater.
• Each connection is individually metered. Capital and operating expenses of the system will be determined by users’ weighted impact.
• The system is backed up by a super quiet Honda EU7000is generator.

The post Hut Hamlet Installs New Electric MicroGrid by Chris Farmer appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

Village Terraces Cohousing Neighborhood just completed a multi-faceted upgrade to their power, heating, and domestic hot water (DHW) systems and the neighborhood is now enjoying the results. Domestic hot water for the main building had been provided by a wood-burning stove. The system lost one of its three water heating coils three years ago due to an unrepairable leak, which has made providing hot water quite challenging.

Several designs were considered over the last 2 or 3 years with none of them really being all that workable. Then one day Chris Farmer came along and suggested that we use solar-generated electricity to heat water in an ELECTRIC hot water heater. This sounds pretty silly until one remembers that electricity is 100% efficient at producing heat. Farmer had read an article 10 years ago that said when solar PV panels come down in price to $1 per watt then it would make sense to heat water with solar electricity. Well that day has come. And that is the approach that VT decided to take.

2007 view of the same building with the 1st generation of solar panels.

The final design allows VT’s existing wood-fired boiler system to provide ample domestic hot water during the cooler months at which time the new solar PV panels will keep their batteries more fully charged and their heating systems running. During the warmer months the solar electric power will be diverted to the new electric hot water heater.

For the short time this new system has been running, VT has cut its summer wood burning in half–if not more. Their hydro use and their gasoline generator use have also been significantly reduced. And their batteries are healthier than they have ever been. For a more thorough description of the system, including a tour, see Bob Lienhart.

Earthaven member and bookkeeper since 2008, musician and computer expert.  BS in Computer Science.  Treasurer for two homeowners associations and the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society–also CBMS president, 1998-2000.

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Farmer and Brian’s amazing truck is a moveable tool shed. Its shelves house tools, building supplies, desk, file cabinet, vice hose and cord reels. It contains a collapsable chop saw and a table saw (these are super moveable, rolling in and out of the truck). Eliminating the need to build a tool shed for every site, the truck provides for super efficiency, adaptability and on-site organization.

They also chose to increase their investment by installing photo-voltaics in (and on) the truck, as a way of modeling sustainability while building our “green” homes. Their inverter produces pure sine wave/high quality AC power feeding a huge 800 lb (12 volt) battery array. Choosing a diesel truck gave them biodiesel options. They replaced the original alternator with a 200 amp model that has an excellent “bottom end,” (meaning it can produce a lot of power at idle), the kind normally used for fire trucks and ambulances.

Farmer and Brian employ permaculture principles with this redundant system: they can charge their battery by idling the truck on biodiesel, or by powering their battery with solar panels. The solar panels are under warranty for 10 years, with a life expectancy beyond that. The batteries are under warranty for 25 years. Up to now, solar has been their primary source of power, and running the truck is saved for special cases, such as blowing in cellulose or running a grinder.

How does all this translate into benefits for these Gateway neighborhood developers themselves? As they see it, the benefits include the fact that they and their customers don’t have to listen to a generator all day. Their high level of efficiency and organization also equals considerable job security. They will be able to build whatever they want for themselves. And, most important to them, they can remain within the limits of sustainable right livelihood.

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