Alternative Energy

[ronrca]

I attended a seminar last night on Solar water heating which really captured my interest. The best part is that it is simple and diy. Basicly, its using the suns radiant energy to heat a surface or pipes that has a liquid flowing thru it. The application that was described was for preheating the water before it enters the hot water tank. The fluid being circulated thru the solar collector is not the water that flows to your hot water tank btw.

Here is a pic and some info on the system being used:
http://www.advancedbuildings.org/_frames/fr_t_plumbing_solar_dhw.htm

Anyways, this has intrigued me as the application I would like to use this for is heating my storage tanks and ultimately my sumps/tanks so guess what my next project is going to be. ;)

Some more info on solar, collectors and diy:
http://www.canren.gc.ca/prod_serv/index.asp?CaId=141&PgId=750
http://www.diydata.com/techniques/solar2/solarbasic.htm
http://www.diydata.com/projects/solarpanel/solarcollector.htm
http://www.bigginhill.co.uk/solar.htm

Anyone else have experience with these systems and/or more info?
Id like to hear it! :thumbsup:

[Ardan]

Hi Ron,
We had a solar water heater for a while.
It had parabolic reflectors to focus the sun on the "black" copper pipes.

Tax benefits at the time paid 1/2 the cost.
However, every yr. the propylene glycol needed changing (to prevent freeze up in the winter)
This unit had a sun "tracking" device which moved the collectors to follow the sun. This part failed often, due to lightening.

The kevlar covering was broke more than once by winds.

I eventually disposed of it.

It really depends on how much sun your location gets. In the summer it was great, the rest of the yr. not much payback.

I suppose other models may perform better, but here in WI I dont' think they have a fast payback. Better here to go with the tankless water heater imo and that will be my next thing when the tank water heater goes.

anyway
hth
Ardan

[ronrca]

Thanks for sharing your experiences Ardan! Your right, the rate of return or payback isnt good. I think they mentioned something like 6-8years that it pays for itself provided you buy everything.

They did talk about different kinds of systems being used and yours sounds like the closed loop where the fluid always needs to be circulating otherwise it may freeze or boil. One system that caught my attention was really simple. It was using a flat bed collector which is copper tubing in a box with insulation behind it, aluminium sheet in front of the tubing and all painted black (similar to the diy links). Easy to diy! The system is called a drain back system which utilitizes a small holding tank. When the storage tank temp gets hot enough, a controller (monitors temp in storage tank) shuts the pump off and all the fluid drains back into the house to prevent freezing/boiling. The fluid I'll use is RO rather than glycol. The only components in the system are the pump, holding tank, flat solar collector, controller and flow meter. The guy doing the presentation advocated simplicity. Less equipment, less problems, less maintanence.

My project initially will be building a flat solar collector and setting up a drain back system for heating my storage tank.

[Jason]

great stuff Ron! real forward-thinking

My only experience with solar is I had a small panel wired to my battery back-up, kept the battery charged, but I've never had to use it for more than a few hours (thank god).

A fish farmer and I built a wind-powered pond aerater that worked pretty well when it was windy, but not so great the rest of the time, although it did work continuosly for several years.

Another alternative energy source than Dan in Winnepeg and myself tried was using a loop system that collected heat from the attics of our houses in the summer then transfered it to sumps via an exchange coil, worked ok, I lost interest in tweaking with it.

good luck on your projects and I hope it works out.

[Rod]

Oasi make a neat solar powered pump, off course will only work when the sun is out but thats when we want it to work anyway. I've thought it would make a good setup to heat storage water in the fish room via some sort of solar water heater.

I know a guy who had pipes fitted through his cement driveway when it was constructed, he pumps the water through the pipes and controlls excess heat with a thermostat in his water storage. The cement driveway makes a great heat sink.

[stiver james]

I watched This old house the other day and they had a segment on solar houses. They had several university students build solar energy houses. Total cost of energy bills was 0. They were even storing the energy for future use for night time use etc. Real interesting. The thing that caught my eye was the part where they used solar energy for electricity. Has anyone had any experience using solar energy for electrical use? This is what I would be interested in trying. Even if you only have a few tanks it can raise your electric bill considerably. Iam looking for alternate ways of producing electricity. Any direction to this or feedback would be always appreciated. Jim

[korbi_doc]

:rolleyes2: :rolleyes2: What 'bout windmills???? J/K... Used to be they were the "future", guess there's not enough consistency with the wind to make'm work tho!!! Would that it was that easy huh???? :grin:

[ronrca]

I watched This old house the other day and they had a segment on solar houses. They had several university students build solar energy houses. Total cost of energy bills was 0. They were even storing the energy for future use for night time use etc. Real interesting. The thing that caught my eye was the part where they used solar energy for electricity. Has anyone had any experience using solar energy for electrical use? This is what I would be interested in trying. Even if you only have a few tanks it can raise your electric bill considerably. Iam looking for alternate ways of producing electricity. Any direction to this or feedback would be always appreciated. Jim

Jim, thats what my thoughts were as well. If I could use solar to run my pumps as well, sweet! That would save hundreds of dollares for me. Unfortunately, its not as easy as it sounds but certainly not impossible, perhaps impractical. As far as I know, solar power uses DC so if I want to use if for my pumps/heaters, I either need to get DC pumps/heaters or convert it to AC. Converting DC to AC isnt new however the problem is that I need to store the DC power and/or AC power. I believe this is where the problems start is the 'storage' and that you need quite a few batteries (which take a lot of space) to 'store' the power. I will still continue to look into this however to see what is on the market as things have been improving on the tech side so you never know. Excellant idea though.

Windmills? Actually, Im told in Europe they have lots and lots of windmills. Not so much here in N. America but they are used for sure. For someone living outside the city, this would be worth while to look into. Im not sure the cost however associated with these. If payback is decented, nice but personally, anything over 7+ isnt a decent payback anymore, imo.

[Greg Richardson]

Check this magazine at link below. The advertisements alone are worth the price for research purposes. I use to get it. You can read bunch of articles online.

Solar has come a long ways in the states. Much cheaper. Better ways to apply the systems.

Windmill farms they call them in the states are up in many states. Washington has a couple. Individual use has grown also. Here in Washington state some road signs have small solar panels that keep them lit.

http://www.homepower.com/

[Bizarroterl]

Has anyone had any experience using solar energy for electrical use? Jim

I'm in California and I have a 4.5KW solar setup on my home. Here we have the ability to feed the generated electricity back into the grid so no batteries are required. The original cost was something like $35K but the state paid half of it. I pay about $5 a month for the utility connect fee. Each year I have to settle up with the power company for the excess I've used. Last year it was $130. We have air conditioning, a huge home theater, electric dryer, a computer server that's on all the time, etc. I'd rate us as a slightly higher than average user.

I tell people it's a car I bought for $20K except it appreciates, there is no gas/insurance/maintenance, etc and it writes me a check out every month. :D

[White Worm]

How about some specifics on the system you installed. Sounds like a good move.

[ronrca]

Wow! Thanks! That sounds really nice. As mike, Id love to hear more and see more. Perhaps some pics if possible? Im seriously considering solar for heating the water in my fish room for now. Hopefully this winter I can work something out. I just recently found out that you can buy pex for hot water heating. I dont know why I didnt think of it before but infloor heating uses a pex type pipe.

[White Worm]

http://www.borregosolar.com/
Similar to what he was describing. 5$ a month and no power bills. Your system stores energy and what you dont use, turns your meter backwards as a credit for the days without sun. I may do this. No batteries.

[Havoc321]

If you are in an area that doesn't freeze, you can make a very inexpensive solar water heater with black poly pipe routed around on a plywood sheet that is painted black and with a edge around it and plexiglass on top. These are somewhat comon around my area for heating swimming pools. People just have a couple of valves to route the water back into theri pools via the collection system whenever the filter pump is runing.

something like that might be especially well-suited to the water storage tanks.

[White Worm]

I have the exact thing you are describing for my pool. I was thinking along the lines of larger scale like a full fish room with room heater or heaters in each tank would be fine if they were not costing me $500+ a month on the electric bill, lol. It could work and I have thought about it but it would not heat the water during the cold / rainy months. My pool solar will only heat well during the warmer months (summer). Kinda defeats the purpose though because the sun heats the water in my pool fine by itself during the summer.

[Greg Richardson]

Here is a great magazine with all the recources you need. Nice articles on their website and if you scroll down on main pape you can download sample edition. Solar power is changing for the better as well as becoming cheaper every year.

http://www.homepower.com/

[Bizarroterl]

We have 30 150watt panels that feed to 2 sunny boy inverters. Each inverter can handle 18 panels. I have a remodeling project coming up that has a 16' tank included in it. That project also adds 6 more panels to help offset the pump and lights somewhat.

There are 2 types of electric meters for solar systems here. One is time of day based. What the electric company credits you is based on the time of day. Mid day (when it is hottest) is when you get the most for the power you're putting back into the grid. Fortunately the rates pretty much coincide with the amount of sunlight - the brighter it is the more they credit you. The other meter is a straight rate.

One thing about the system here. If you overproduce you don't get a check.

This is for northern California. My brother in Montana was looking into it and there is no subsidy and they don't have a program where you can feed excess power back into the grid. So there you can offset your usage as it occurs and there is sunlight but you can't run your meter backwards.

Batteries are an option but they run the costs up significantly. IIRC at our level it would have added an additional $15K.

Some can argue that the payback takes a long time, it really isn't cost effective, etc. We had the money at the time and it does make me feel that I'm doing a tiny something about our environment. Not really undoing any damage but at least reducing the footprint we make. It's also really cool to watch the meter running backwards. :)

Oh, and when the power rates go up I don't even notice.:cool:

[White Worm]

Who installed your system? What type / brand

[ronrca]

If you are in an area that doesn't freeze, you can make a very inexpensive solar water heater with black poly pipe routed around on a plywood sheet that is painted black and with a edge around it and plexiglass on top. These are somewhat comon around my area for heating swimming pools. People just have a couple of valves to route the water back into theri pools via the collection system whenever the filter pump is runing.

something like that might be especially well-suited to the water storage tanks.

Thats exactly what Im thinking of doing actually however I live in Canada where it does freeze for 8 months of the year :p . Im considering using a drain back system however to compensate for the freezing.

Great info everyone!
Bizarroter, is this something someone can install themselves or is the system pretty complicated? No batteries? What happens at night? Do you run off the grid again?

[Bizarroterl]

Who installed your system? What type / brand

Mikscus,
You're a bit too far away for the contractor I used. I got their name from www.solardepot.com. Solardepot has installers in several areas in CA and I'm sure they have someone near you.

[Bizarroterl]

Bizarroter, is this something someone can install themselves or is the system pretty complicated? No batteries? What happens at night? Do you run off the grid again?

Yes, at night or when the sun is obscured I run off the grid. Everything is automatic. Because I'm in an area that doesn't get rain for 6 months I wash the panels off once each year. I use a hose and a window scrubber with extension I picked up a Home Depot. I don't have to do this but I get enough dust buildup where a cleaning makes a small difference (I guess).

It can be installed DIY. All you need is good basic construction skills, some help (panels are heavy/awkward to move), and a good understanding of how and when voltage can kill you.:shocked2:

If you're connecting to the grid you'll undoubtedly need a permit and this has to be coordinated with the power company and appropriate city/county/state agencies if there is a subsidy program.