Sustainability: energy saving products in the home?

[Lizzie]

Hello everyone,

I have noticed we have quite a lot of hosts here in the CC who are interested in eco related topics, especially when it comes to your home. I'm a bit of a fan too! I’ve been following the news, and there has been a lot about the developments in electric cars and most recently the development with solar powered roof tiles.

I like this concept and so I wondered what you think the future of the energy saving/generating energy products in the home, any ideas on what you think could be next? Is this something that you would like to embrace in your home or do already?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thanks,

Lizzie

[Lizzie]

Oh yes, I forgot your have your own green power @Robin4. It sounds like a great thing. I'd love to know more about how it works. Do you have your solar panels/wind turbines? and are they for your own home specifically or collectively for a few homes?

[Robin4]

@Lizzie 

In this state our governement did not want to be faced with the expenditure of replacing our aging power generation system so they hit on the idea of making people generate their own electricity and offered huge incentives with massive rebates on the hardware and a 44c per Kw feed-in  tarrif for any surplus power the consumer feeds back to the grid. This was on the proviso we got in before Sept 30th 2011 and this price is guaranteed until Dec 2026.  So we got on board along with about a third of the state. 

So where the issue comes in Lizzie, as a government, if you are going buy power at 44c per Kw...what can you sell it at?? We were always going to be in trouble and, although all the poles and wires still exist and have to be maintained, not as much power flows along them, and much of it the other way, back to the government.We have the most expensive power in the world at a cost of....42c pr Kw!.

Some of us could see this coming and decided to insulate ourselves from this cost burden.

I use both Lizzie, solar and wind. If I could have my time over again I would put the wind turbine in first because solar has a limited amount of time each day when it will actually produce electricity....as long as there is more than 8 KPH of wind, the turbine will produce. It  still produces at midnight, so our window of generation can be up to 24 hours a day instead of the 4 or 5 of solar.

The turbine looks a bit like a large roof ventilator, has three arms and this will give you an idea of the size of it!

And this is what it looks like running....it is totally silent in operation.

https://imgur.com/a/twXlcnb

The smaller turbine you can see in this shot was my first attempt but it wasn't powerfull enough and now simply aides the larger Pravac unit.

Here is the solar inverter.......

This shot was taken not long after the sun came up but the array is still chugging along at getting close to 1.5Kws..

From 10.30am until about 2.30 pm the system will produce about 3Kws per hour. Combined on an average day I have a total power generation capacity of around 32Kws of which around 21 is fed into a 1150amp/ hr battery storage.

At this point most people glaze over and say "kilowatts....amp hours, what the hell does that mean".

The easiest way I can explain it is,....imaging a watering can, the sort you water the garden pots with. The body of that can...the amount of water you can stuff into it, that is your amp hrs! That is the amount of energy you can store..ok!

The nozzle that governs the rate at which that store of water can come out of the can...that is the Kilowatt hrs. In other words the rate at which your supply of electrcity is being used.

Now although that explains the principal, it still doesn't mean much until you understand there is a relationship between Kilowatts and amperes! There is 4.22225 Amp hrs of stored energy required to get you 1 Kilowatt of useable energy. 

Now as the average home in the US and Australia and probably much of Europe uses about 19 Kws of power per day that means the average house uses 80 amp/hrs of produced or stored power per day. When sizing a battery array just decide how many days you want from your stored capacity.....80 x 7 days = 560 amp/hrs of battery storage. Does any of that make sense?

My property (having outrageously power hungry Airbnb guests) uses around 33 Kilowatts of electricity per day....139 amp/hrs, so I need just under 1,000 amp/hrs of battery storage to keep us self sufficient for a week! There are times when our demand tops 45 Kilowatts and at those times we have to drag some energy from the grid but for most of the year we are in credit. We earn more than we consume!

Sorry, long winded but I hope this is of some value.

Cheers......Rob

[Charles224]

Hi Robin, 

That's some mean looking set of blades mate. Is there some installer around?

I know my 6kw solar paid itself off in 3 years (without your amazing rebates.. we missed all that), but what are your thoughts on the payback of installing a turbine?

Based on your comment about the big bladed units really never generating the power used to build them, I expect it would cost an arm & a leg, let alone Council (Mitcham Hills..). They are certainly not pushed by installers, and I can't come at the 'battery fantasy' (they need replacing just when they are paid for, and they are so very very toxic for our world).

Cheers

Charles

[Robin4]

@Charles224 

Hi Charles.

I am sure the turbine is a better path to go down than solar! And I have had a few years to appraise each.

My 1.5Kw turbine produces more electricity than your 6Kws of solar because the turbine has 3-4 times the generation window than solar does. At midnight it just keeps on keeping on! The beauty of a turbine is, it does not require council approval to install. It falls into the same category as a TV antenna!

I brought this sytem from the Italian Pravac importer/agent in Sunnyside Rd at Willowbanks just north of Murray bridge. Now that was in 2012 Charles so I can't tell you his current status but I will find out for you. He supplied all the equipment and the knowledge, wired the two Fisher Paykel 750 watt pancake washing machine motors which are the actual generators giving the turbine a 1.5Kw/hr capacity and I supplied the tower and put it all together myself.

It is virtually impossible to get a shot of it when it is not turning Charles! Even in 1 Kph breeze it still turns. So this is a promo shot of the assembled turbine. Vertical axis turbines have 2 main advantages Charles, they are non directional....doesn't matter which direction the wind comes from, they will spin. Secondly they are totally noisless unlike propellor turbines!

 I had my local electrician set up and wire in the electrics to the SMA 'Windy boy' inverter which handles the house load via an over speed dump circuit, and whatever is left over is fed back into the lead acid battery array, which incidentally were an ex Telstra set....they keep them for 10 years and replace them. In most instances (with care) they still have 15 or more years left in them and a 1,000 amp/hrs array is typically less than $2,500 buying it as an auction item! 

This frees up my solar which is fed directly back into the mains and I get my Govn 44 cents per Kw feed in tarrif, plus my energy supplier Energy Aust tops that up to 60c per Kw.

Some months we have to buy energy but most months we don't and some months we are in credit so as far as a break even cost. I can't put a figure on that Charles because I don't know your circumstance and with 6 Kws of solar already doing the job it may not be worthwhile for you to look at wind. It just would have been better to go down that path first up. All I can tell you is the cost of wind/battery storage is around 20% more than the cost of solar but it does make you self sufficient and at todays electricity costs would have a turnaround time of about 5-6 years!

I will find out if Ray is still in business and get back to with a DM of his details Charles.

Cheers.....Rob

[Charles224]

Many thanks Robin! I love the thought of 'noisless'...

[Kathy611]

Rob,

we have a property in Hilo Hawaii.... I wonder if this could work for us.

can the company do a cost analysis for our location??

We have pretty constant breezes from easterly trade winds  and of course big winds when there is a storm....

Solar is what everyone is going to ad we have the highest per kw price in the US..... but it is a huge investment.

thanks for any help you have time to give

kathy

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Lizzie 

I live in the city so while there are some limitations to what I can do, we start with using energy efficient products. We always keep electronic items not being used unplugged - many people do not realize how significant standby power consumption really is! We also do not have a dryer and use drying racks, and our apartment came with water-saving faucets, shower heads and toilets. After moving in, we installed a mini solar panel and Henry makes a point of doing many chores during the day, especially on sunny days 🙂 

[Lizzie]

This is a great list @Jessica-and-Henry0 and I agree with you on the standby mode using a lot of energy. Similarly, I heard recently that if you have say a charger plugged in not powering anything, but still turned on, this is wasting energy too. It is pretty easy to not think about these sorts of things. 

I love the idea of doing more chores on sunny days in correlation with how much energy the solar panels generate. 

Do you think in ther future more things in the home will encorporate more energy saving products? Would you ever have solar roof tiles for example? 

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Lizzie 

Henry and I, we personally love the idea of solar tiles for the roof or walls of large buildings~!

This is the solar panel unit we have at home 🙂

We live on the top floor (14th) and this side of our apartment faces SW so we jumped at the chance to get this installed. We actually didn't think about the possibility of hosting when we got this so Henry is a tiny bit regretful we didn't get a bigger one. The solar panel has been extremely helpful in keeping our electricity bill down during the summer, when we have the AC on. From July~early Sept, Seoul is not only just really hot but unbelievably humid so the AC is on 24/7 or else we'd all be melting 🙂 

Like @Sarah977  mentioned, we also have a lot of power bars with switches - especially in the guest room and kitchen to make it easier to keep things "unplugged" when not being used. Another thing is, we always try to to full or large loads of laundry - something we emphasize to guests as well. And Henry always "charges" our handy vacuum and other "rechargeable" electronics on sunny days - once they are fully charged we keep them unplugged. 

Our electricity bill is always at the lower end compared to all the homes in our apartment complex 🙂 We don't know which home/unit it is but we are able to check the highest, lowest, and average figures for electricity, water, gas bills for the entire apartment complex (280 homes) each month. Henry has become very competitive trying to be the lowest but it isn't easy since he works from home and there is his work pc, laptop and router which have to be on all the time.

Unfortunately, we don't have the ability to "store" electricity like @Robin4  but it's something we'd probably consider if we ever decide to leave the city and build our own home. 

[Lizzie]

This really cool, @Jessica-and-Henry0! I wish I could get one of these for my home. Does it generate quite a lot of energy then?

I have a friend how has a few solar panels and he is constantly looking at how much energy he is producing and wishing that the more sunny days rather than bright cloudy days. 🙂 

[Helen427]

AHhhh @Lizzie  we have had lots of lovely sunny dayswith blue skies in Auckland, New Zealand this summer, wish you were here to enjoy them...water is still lovely and warm to swim in.

Shorts & singlet/light tops weather hopefully a little longer yet

Best summer weather since the 1980's!

[Sarah977]

Every electrical or electronic device that has a little red light lit up when not turned on is sucking power. The stereo, the DVD player, the TV, the electric toothbrush dock and all the chargers. I turn everything off when not in use- electronics are plugged into a power bar and I just switch off the power bar, things with individual plugs get pulled from the socket when not being used.

The grey water from the washing machine, the showers and sinks is all routed to various parts of the garden to water the plants. I ask my guests to please be conservative with water (don't just leave water running when brushing teeth, for instance, and no need to flush the toilet every time you have a little tinkle), turn off lights and fans when going out, and my guests have been really good about complying. I also turn down the water heater during the day when my guests are out and I'm working. There's no need for a tank of water to be kept at super-hot temps when no one is using it.

There's little need for installing expensive new energy-saving products if people would just be responsible and conservative with their usage.

[Sudsrung0]

Try this with your guest see how many take notice
offices and the general public to join "60+ Earth Hour 2019", by turning off unused electrical appliances and lights for one hour from 8.30pm to 9.30pm on March 30.

Started as a symbolic lights-out event in Sydney in 2007, Earth Hour is now celebrated in 188 countries as a global moment of solidarity and action to save the planet.

[Ben551]

We've done a whole raft of things to be energy saving at our place... from solar to wind (heheh... Windy Wellington is quite profitable...), but we are lucky in that New Zealand electricity is mostly 'green' anyway. 

According to Wikipedia "82% of energy for electricity generation is from renewable sources, making New Zealand one of the lowest carbon dioxide emitting countries in terms of electricity generation."  The majority (around 82%) of electricty here comes from Hydropower, Geothermal power and Wind energy. NZ is also nuclear free.  Even so, they want to get that 82% up to 100% and are dead serious about doing it.  Initatives all over the country to embrace new sustainable energy... folks here seem to want to be number one for clean energy on the planet, so there's an ongoing buzz each time a new method is discovered for generation and storage.  Being green is very, very trendy here 🙂

So progressively, in this old energy inefficient house we bought, we have been converting away from old "gas burners" for heating and cooking and replacing them with electric appliances.  Our old 1939 built house has fire places that, although beautiful, are centre of pollution for the planet.

We were keen to get away from carbon fuel fireplaces so our latest purchase was this:

It looks like a real flame fireplace, but it's LED low energy, super efficient... and stunning to watch!

I love it and we are now putting one into the Airbnb for guests to enjoy, since winter is coming (and the night is dark and full of... New Zealand spiders?).

The question I have is:  If we put an electric fireplace into our Airbnb listing, would it be misleading if we tick the "fireplace" amenity?  Would people expect to set fire to bits of carbon fuel or what? 

Tagging a few folk into this question: @Robin4 @Sarah977 @Lizzie @Jessica-and-Henry0 @Sudsrung0 

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

Wow @Ben551~ the fireplace is beautiful~!!!! 

I think you should tick the fireplace amenity - an electric fireplace is still a fireplace. Not misleading at all~ and like @Sarah977 suggests, you could add a blurb to a photo of it and mention in the description that it's electric. 

I'm very envious of NZ's efforts to be green - in Korea, many people, the general public, the government and companies all talk about "wanting" to be more green but unfortunately it's all just talk and no real actions are taken. Even as I write this....... the company I work for has been doing some renovations of the older buildings and considering that there is an affilitate company that manufactures solar panels you'd THINK they'd make an effort to go green with the renovation but unfortunately nothing~ Last year when a suggestion came up that we get rid of all paper/plastic cups in the office, I thought  some people were going to have a heart attack 🙂