One man’s journey to the green side

The AussieHost.com renewable power supply!

Here’s the AussieHost.com renewable power supply, consisting of 4 x 80w solar panels, a 520AH battery bank, a 1Kw pure sine inverter, and a 300w wind turbine. This supplies all the power needed for the AussieHost.com office. The AussieHost.com servers are not located in the AussieHost.com office. The servers are located in the GlobalSwitch datacentre in Sydney.

Why rent power when you can own it?

So I’m chatting with some friends who have just bought their first home. They’re relaying to me how nice it is to finally be in their own home instead of renting their home, and being at the mercy of the landlord, with the humiliating inspections and constant rent increases. So he says to me, “so now we own our own home we also want to own our own power”. I’m like, “what, how do you own your own power?”. He says “like you, with solar panels on our roof dummy”. Oh of course, I knew that.

I’ve never thought of it that way before, as owning your own power as compared to renting power from your power company. I like comparing that to owning your own home or renting a home. Now there’s some clear choices. You can own your own power, or you can continue renting power from your power company, and being under their control, paying whatever they force you to pay.

There’s all this FREE energy coming from the solar system’s largest fusion reactor and sustainer of all life as we know it (THE SUN!!) and noone controls this energy source. The government can’t tax it. The oil companies can’t control it. You’re can use technology to your advantage to harness and create your own power from the sun. Noone can stop you from owning your own power! You don’t have to be at the mercy of your power company, charging you what they want and delivering you power when they want. You can own your own power!

It’s making more sense to own your own power especially when the 2 power companies in my state (QLD) are reportedly going to increase the cost of power by up to 50% in the next 2 to 5 years. Ouch! They say this increase is needed to continue upgrading the power grid’s infrastructure, so as to handle future growth.

Add to that the coming Emissions Trading Schemes being implemented by most countries, where traditional coal power (dirty power) stations will have to start offsetting or paying for their massive carbon emissions. Dirty power will no doubt be a LOT more expensive, as we move forward, as these dirty power stations increase the cost of their dirty power due to their increased costs in offsetting their carbon emissions. The days of cheap dirty power are coming to an end.

This awesome energy source (the sun) is FREELY available to anyone willing to harness its amazing power. Solar PV panels on the roof harness this FREE energy, converting this energy into DC power which the inverter then converts to AC power and is used in the home. If there’s excess power generated that the house doesn’t use, then this power goes back onto the grid and you get a credit for that on your power bill. Pretty sweet deal.

With Solar PV There’s no moving parts. Little to no ongoing maintenance. It just works, day in, day out, month in, month out, year in, year out, decade in, decade out. Kind of install them and almost forget about them, working away up there, converting all that FREE ENERGY from the sun into usable AC power for the home. The only reminder you’ll get that you actually have a solar PV system on your roof, making your own power, is your greatly REDUCED power bills from your power company, depending on how much power your house uses and how much power you make yourself.

Now my friends are looking to install a 2Kw grid connected solar panel system to their roof. This makes a LOT of sense, when you compare this with renting power off your power company. The most efficient method of supplying a home with power is through PV panels on the roof, literally metres away from where the power is being used. There’s no power losses over high voltages transmission lines. The power is generated via the PV panels and used in the house. If there is excess power, it goes back onto the power grid, and the home owner is paid AUS$0.44/Kwh of excess power pushed back onto the grid. That’s the standard feed in tarrif here in Australia. It differs for other countries.

So do you want to own your own power and stop renting power from your power company? There is a way and the way is Solar PV panels. Not only will the power company buy your excess power for up to 4 times the rate they sell it to you for, but governments are offering very attractive incentives for you to own your own power. There’s never been a better time to own your own power and stop renting power from a power company.

JUST ADD SUN!!

It’s that simple. JUST ADD SUN!!

I love renewable energy. I love making it. I love using it. My home office is actually off the grid and 100% powered by renewable energy. My solar camping trailer powers my office when we’re not camping.

Our home has a 1.05Kw grid connected solar panel system on the roof, that supplies most of our home’s energy needs during the day. As the sun rises in the morning our energy supply is renewed throughout the day.

If we generate more power than we use, that power goes back onto the grid, and we’re paid AUS$0.44/Kwh for that power. At night we draw our power off the grid, but during the day our power comes direct from the sun.

I love that it’s clean and FREE energy!! I love that it’s available to anyone. I love that the oil companies do not own the sun, and cannot control it. Governments can’t tax the sun. I love that anyone can buy a solar panel, a regulator and an inverter, and start using renewable energy.

I was camping last weekend with my solar powered camping trailer. There’s nothing like getting away, back to nature for a few days. So there’s this camp site near me and they’re using gas to power their camping lights, their camping fridge and their cooker and so on.

The chap comes over to my camp site, and asks about the solar panels on the camping trailer. He’s asking what I use them for, and questions like that. He asks why use solar when I could use gas. I tell him that my energy comes from a free renewable supply, and that supply is the sun. He nods with a kinda blank stare, so I explain some more.

Each morning the sun comes up I get FREE energy stored in my batteries, that comes via the solar panels, throughout the course of the day. I use that energy to power the lights, the laptop, the camping fridge, the cooker etc. He reckoned that made good sense and after another 20 minutes discussing this over a cup of tea that I boiled from the cooker powered by the sun he’s going to get buy some solar panels for their caravan. I gave him some rough directions of what he’ll need, and he has my email address if he needs anything further.

It got me thinking about supply and what goes into making our energy. Coal power stations need VAST amounts of coal that is mined from the ground, and transported to the power plants. The coal is burned and creates steam, which turns large turbines that produce energy. The problem with coal is that this process also releases ENORMOUS amounts of carbon and toxic pollutants into the atmosphere. Coal power plants also use HUGE amounts of water for their cooling.

So think about what goes into a solar power plant. Just the SUN! Yep, just add sun. No need to mine coal and transport that coal to the solar power plant. No need to burn that coal to make steam to turn the turbines that make the power. No carbon emissions or toxins emitted from this process. All that’s needed is JUST ADD SUN!! It’s that simple.

My first time with a solar panel!

Ah yes, I can remember it well. It was a bright sunny day. I looked deep into my solar panel’s cells, looked up at the sun, and knew something magical was going to happen here.

All the ingredients were bought together. I was on the cusp of making energy!! I built a small box, that housed the 130ah deep cycle battery, the 20A Regulator, and the 600w pure sine inverter. Everything was ready. Everything was hopefully connected up right. I connected the 80w solar panel to the 20A regulator and waited with baited breath . . .

Then the magic happened. The Regulator indicates there’s around 4amps of current moving into the battery. I did it. I made energy and that energy is being stored in the battery. This energy was renewable. My energy source was our Solar System’s largest energy source and sustainer of all life as we know it. That’s a pretty good energy source. This energy source never breaks down. It doesn’t have a day off and they say it has around 6 BILLION years of supply left. I felt like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway when he made fire. I made energy!!

I ran inside loudly proclaiming my victory to my wife, who looked back at me with one of those looks only a wife can give you. “That’s great dear”, she said, as she went on with whatever she was doing. So I basically dragged her out to the front lawn, here the magic was happening. “Look at the readout”, I proudly say. I’m making renewable energy.

Thus my first time with a solar panel, and our solar camping setup was underway. Camping is the reason I got into solar power, as I needed power when camping, and only camping at powered sites somewhat restricts you to where you can go camping. So solar power seemed the obvious choice for portable power.

There’s a special feeling sitting in your camp, under the shelter that you have provided, reclining in your favorite camping chair, cold beverage of choice in one hand, surveying your surrounds and admiring your endless renewable supply of energy device.

As with most things in life, that humble 80w solar panel setup grew to become 4 x 80w panels and 4 x 130ah batteries, with a 1Kw pure sine inverter, all built into the camping trailer. Portable renewable power tapped into the Solar System’s largest energy source and sustainer of all life as we know it.

I have plans to add a 300w wind turbine to the camping trailer, and also some solar panel concentrators around the edges of the panels, so the journey is far from over.

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Make renewable energy the better option

Noone can tell me that using our Solar system’s largest energy source and sustainer of all life (the sun), to create energy, is a bad idea. There’s no valid argument out there against using this energy source to create clean renewable energy.

There’s something so pure, so simple, almost spiritual and something so organic about harvesting this massive energy source for clean renewable energy.

The sun’s there. It isn’t going anywhere. It’s been there for possibly billions of years. It’s never had a day off. It doesn’t break down. It’ll be there for what they think will be another 6 BILLION years. Plenty of fuel left in its tank. Let’s use it. Let’s tap into this energy source. Let’s take advantage of the Solar system’s largest energy source and sustainer of all life (the sun), to create clean and renewable energy. Why would be ignore this obvious energy source, when it’s just there, sending down free clean renewable energy?

Make renewable energy affordable, make it clean, and make it the better option.

The example of this is in China, Dezhou, were just about everyone uses solar power for water heating because it’s the more affordable option. It’s the better option -

To the consumer, the appeal of solar hot water is largely economic: basic models of evacuated tube solar hot water systems start at around 1,500 yuan (US$190).

That would replace a conventional electric hot water heater that uses roughly 15kWh of energy per day. A natural gas heater probably uses pretty much the same, albeit cheaper, energy. But essentially, putting that solar heater on the roof offsets 15kWh worth of energy per day from other sources.

Solar is used to supply hot water in Dezhou not because they’re all trying to cut back on their carbon emissions and save the planet, but because it’s simply the better option. It’s more affordable than electric hot water systems. When you have renewable energy as the more affordable source of energy, then the market reacts to that and adjusts accordingly. No need for the hard sell on why they should be using solar hot water. They’re beating down a path to their door to buy their solar hot water system and use it.

Make renewable energy affordable, make it clean, and make it the better option.

The renewable energy focus should be IMO on Large Scale Energy projects, and not so much on the small scale energy projects. Small scale, like putting solar panels on your roof (which I have done) is great and I am a HUGE HUGE supporter, but Large Scale Energy is where the massive economies of scale happen, and thus, like the Solar hot water heaters in China, making renewable energy the affordable and the better option.

Right now, small scale energy is not that affordable. The upfront costs are significant and without government grants, incentives, it probably won’t grow as it’s growing now. I love small scale energy.

There’s something special about buying a solar panel, battery, regulator and inverter, and being able to make your own energy. That’s self empowering. That’s fantastic. There is a huge place for small scale energy, and it’s obviously an industry that should keep growing, employing more folks etc.

But this is not where the mass market is at. To serve the mass market with renewable energy, VERY Large Scale Energy projects are needed, where the costs per Kwh can be comparative to traditional forms of energy, generated from fossil fuels. When those costs are less or comparative to traditional forms of energy, then you’ll see a market similar to the Chinese solar hot water systems. Then you’ll have renewable energy as the better option.

The renewable energy industry cannot hang its hat on the environment, and must stand on its own feet with the sole intent to make renewable energy affordable, make it clean, and make it the better option.

The green power plant that’s also a sports stadium!

Is it a sports stadium? Is it a power plant? It’s both! Welcome to the new age of clean and renewable energy power plants that can also be sports stadiums.

Taiwan’s new World Games stadium is just about built and incorporates over 8,800 solar panels on the roof that can generate 1.14 gigawatt hours of electricity per year, enough electricity to power up to 80% of the surrounding neighborhood after being fed into the grid on the days when the stadium is unused.

This is basically a mega huge grid connected solar system, with the power being used by the facility, straight off the panels (through their mega huge inverters) and then the power that doesn’t get used is pushed onto the local power grid, for others to use. The stadium would receive payment for that clean renewable energy it generates, by the local power company.

So when the stadium is sitting there, not being used, day in day out, it’s basically a power station, providing renewable power to the local grid and making money in the process. When the stadium is being used during the day, it will draw the power first off the solar system, and then at night it will draw the power back off the grid as the power generated from the solar panels is not stored onsite, but stored on the power grid.

So everyday, the sun rises, and that free renewable clean energy is converted into electricity via the solar panels, and pushed onto the local power grid (through inverters) for consumption. This is the beauty of renewable energy, in all that’s needed is to the sun to rise. That’s it! There’s no constant demand for new coal to be mined, transported to a coal power station, to make electricity. The sun rises every morning and goes to work, providing clean energy, day in, day out. That’s a bloody beautiful and smart thing.

The above article was sourced from information here.

Why I’m HOT for renewable energy!!

A few days ago I was working in my front garden, and a neighbor walks by with his dog. He stops and chats, asking questions about the 1.05Kw solar panel installation on the roof. He was asking me why I preferred renewable energy over traditional energy, from coal power stations.

My initial thought response was the obvious benefits to the environment, in generating my own power from the sun, and not using power generated from harmful coal power stations, but then I thought along a different path.

I told him that I love renewable energy because it’s just that, renewable. It renews itself each day, without fail. There’s no need for anything to be constantly added, such as new coal mined and transported to the power plant, to make the power. With my solar panels all I need is the sun to rise the next day, and I’ll make about the same power I made the previous day. Nothing more to add but the sun, and I hear that has about 6 BILLION years of supply left, so no shortage of supply there.

So this got me thinking about the term renewable, in how it really is just that. Each day the sun basically gives me around 5Kw hours of energy to use in my home. The sun gave me that power yesterday, it will give me that power today, and tomorrow, and for the next 25 to 30 years.

Just imagine if we had a renewable bank account. All the money we spent today would be renewed the next day. That’d be alright. It’s like you have a bottle of your favourite beverage in the fridge, and each morning you go to the fridge, your bottle is full, even if you drank that bottle empty the night before. Imagine that concept of renewable.

The power source from the sun renews each day, as the sun rises through to when the sun sets. It never misses a beat, except for rainy days with lots of cloud cover, but those days are great too, as we run our house water supply on tank water, collected in our underground 32,000 litre concrete tank. That’s a renewable supply of water too. It rains – we get water.

Nature provides ample renewable energy, and does so very well.

Simple way to save energy and $$ using your kettle

Ok, so I was talking to my Dad about how much energy our kettle uses, and how over the course of a year this would amount to a fair bit of energy and $$$.

We have an energy monitor that shows our house’s energy usage, and when you put the kettle on, the wattage goes up 2,400 watts or so. Electric kettles use a heap of energy, even if it is for a short time period, but still.

The average full kettle will use around 2400 watts for around 4 minutes, to boil the water. Multiply that by the number of times the kettle gets boiled per day, per week, per mth, per year, and you have a LOT of energy use there, and a fair chunk of $$$ being spent too. I probably boil the kettle around 5 times a day, for various cups of tea and coffee.

So this comes to around 1800 times per year, that the kettle gets boiled. So that’s using around (1800 x 4 minutes) or 120 hours @ 2400 watts. That’s a LOT of power being used, and depending on what you’re being charged for power, that’s a fair chunk of $$$ going out of your pocket.

So as I’m having this little whinge and wise old Dad then says something so simple, “don’t fill the kettle right up when you boil the water”. Gosh, so darn simple. Such a simple solution.

I had this habit of filling the kettle right to the top, and then this would take much longer to boil and thus use much more energy. I would boil the full kettle even if it was just me having a cup of coffee, so what a waste that was. Now I add just enough water to the kettle that’s needed, if I’m making a cuppa for myself or for myself and my wife.

So by filling the kettle up to only what we need, for the one 1 or 2 cups of tea or coffee, it takes around 1 minute for the kettle to boil, as compared to 4 minutes with the full kettle. So based on yearly usage, instead of using 2400 watts for 120 hours, I’m only using 2400 watts for 30 hours – a nice saving of 90 hours @ 2400 watts over the year. That’s money in my pocket, rather than going to the electric company.

So save a heap of energy and $$$ by only filling up your kettle for what you need, rather than filling it up to the top. Such a simple solution, as most solutions are. Thanks Dad.

The Kyoto Box solar cooker

Here’s a perfect example of using the environment to create energy. I found this video on youtube. It’s the Kyoto Box Solar Cooker. So simple, yet solves so many problems. Could the answers to our environmental problems be so simple? Yes, I believe nature provides us with all the energy we need, to power our modern societies. We just need to take the initiative to tap into that vast supply of energy that’s there right now.

This would also make a great project too, to make with your kids. Using the energy from the sun to cook a meal or two. Not too shabby.

ENVIRONMETAL activists shut down a coal digger at an Australian power station

ENVIRONMETAL activists have shut down a coal digger at an Australian power station that provides eight per cent of the country’s coal-reliant electricity market, to protest against government climate policies.

Greenpeace said today’s dawn protest by around 14 activists at the Hazelwood Power Station in Victoria was the latest part of an ongoing campaign to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions.

“Australia is digging itself into a hole. By phasing out coal and investing in renewable energy, we can protect our environment and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs,” Greenpeace campaigner Simon Roz said.

Hazelwood, in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, is a fuelled by brown coal.

It has a 1600MW capacity, and supplies up to 25 per cent of the state’s base load electricity.

Majority owned by the UK-based company International Power and scheduled to be decommissioned by 2009 due to its excessive carbon dioxide emissions, the State Government in 2005 extended its life until 2031.

Sourced -> http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25516258-2,00.html

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