Off The Grid with solar and wind

Hey guys, it's been a while since I posted, but it's because I have been busy working on a couple projects. Here in downtown Orlando we are now powering our electric motorcycle, electric trike and electric bicycles off only solar and wind power. In fact we are completely disconnected from the electricity grid in the house too. We run everything off 1600 watts in CIGS solar panels and a 400 watt wind turbine.

If you are on facebook, tons of pics, info and video here: http://www.facebook.com/lifeoffthegrid

If you like renewable energy, click "like" on the page and it should give you occasional updates in your news feed. Feel free to ask questions etc here in this thread and I'll be glad to answer questions.

I just got the opportunity to go up there for their NYE party. This place is awesome! We were all hanging out on New Year's day and brainstorming some ideas, and looks like there are going to be some really cool projects coming out of the OTG property. I would highly suggest following their progress.

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Very cool. I keep thinking I should get off grid more. All I do now is snag a bit of free heat in winter. Off grid transportation is a good start.

Pretty cool.

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Here are some pics I took from the NYE weekend up at Off The Grid.
This is their wind generator on the workshop.


Cleaning the panels the morning after from the bonfire fallout.


Since we were all up there, we also helped move some of the panels for better orientation.


Did anyone mention they have a KILLER lake in their backyard?!?!?! Definitely looking forward to some fun water projects and testing them in that lake.

Man I wish I could do that! My $500 a month electric bills are killing me. Who knew you guys were right in my neighborhood.

Ken

Ken, they are right in downtown Orlando. Right off OBT. You should definitely try to stop by and check their place out. Terry and Roman are super friendly and usually up for showing off what they have done.

Ya I checked out their facebook page. Seems like some cool guys.

Ken

Hey guys, I haven't been on since I posted, I figured I'd get email notifications. I'll have to check the settings on that. Anyway we just put together a compilation video of building the electric motorcycle, as well as some solar and wind turbine stuff. 181 second video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOyfmq29oDE

And facebook updates here:
http://www.facebook.com/lifeoffthegrid

sflorlando said:

Man I wish I could do that! My $500 a month electric bills are killing me. Who knew you guys were right in my neighborhood.

Ken

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??? Wow - thats a bill. What are you paying per Kwh? I'm paying 0.22c/kwh and get a $350 bill per quarter.

If that $500 a month is mostly cooling, you really need to spend some money on insulation improvements. Best bang for the buck there is, but improving the walls is generally an expensive pain. Losing large amounts of single pane glass helps a lot. Sometimes a roof is hard to insulate too, no attic. A foam roof can be one way to improve that, but they do need regular maintenance, including new paint ever 10 years, or every time a storm causes damage. (big hail)

I asked the wife to pull the Progress energy records to find out the cost per kilowatt. I think it was like $.10 a kilowatt. Here is a notice we recently got that talked about increases. https://www.progress-energy.com/assets/www/docs/home/flaresrates.pdf

I have a fairly large residence that houses four adults, 2 kids...eight computers and a saltwater coral obsession.

I guess the only good thing is that I dont have a single non-led/cfl bulb in the house.

181 second video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOyfmq29oDE

And facebook updates here:
http://www.facebook.com/lifeoffthegrid

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Both of these were blocked when I tried to visit them. I'm a huge fan of renewable energy and have been working for about four years to lower my electric bills, as the money permits. Really like what you're doing.

Mark, what do you mean they were blocked? Are you trying to look at it from work, or somewhere that has restrictions on what is viewed?

yes seemed to work fine for me. The guy that did the video has some pretty good skills.

As a solar/wind noob, are you storing energy in batts for the house or using it as generated? If batts, what is the most cost effective way to do this? How long do they last cyclically?

Whiplash said:

As a solar/wind noob, are you storing energy in batts for the house or using it as generated? If batts, what is the most cost effective way to do this? How long do they last cyclically?

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The answer is dependent on battery care, maintenance, and good understanding of it's chemistry and what the battery(s) working limits are and how that affects the lifespan. I am off-grid and 10 years on a set of lead acids that are showing no signs of slowing down. This is not common and there are others in my area that typically see 5-8 years on their lead acids. After swapping notes with them it's easy to see how their change in battery care can make a huge difference over the long haul.
~CrazyJerry

What seems to be the secret? DOD?

Whiplash said:

As a solar/wind noob, are you storing energy in batts for the house or using it as generated? If batts, what is the most cost effective way to do this? How long do they last cyclically?

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Sorry, thought I posted this pic with the rest.

This is the battery pack that they are using to store their energy. I think he said that the ones farther from the main pack are extras that have been added in after the original pack was built.

Jay64 said:

This is the battery pack that they are using to store their energy. I think he said that the ones farther from the main pack are extras that have been added in after the original pack was built.

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Not the best setup. All the batteries should have air space around them and under them. Heat is a cell killer. Plates bend, shed lead and kill cells. Continual use of jumper cables is suicide. Sooner or later you will get a spark in the presence of hydrogen. Why does it seem that everyone has to learn the hard way

for solar energy storage you're best of with deep cycle AGM absorbed glass matt batteries...

much safer and long lasting than normal lead acid!..

yes good airflow is always needed to keep temps stable as are some proper threaded terminals :wink: !!..

i'm currently converting (well it was designed in the build, as it's new) My Design studio to run off grid electric...I only have 600w of panels but with L.E.D lighting and underfloor heating it will basically run self sufficient..should be enough to charge my bike for free too. (well maybe need another panel or two..)

Powering your home/workplace from a centralized grid system and traveling to a pooled source of (expensive & polluting ) liquid hydrocarbon fuel is just so 20th century...

we live in the information age!...technology (with the correct information and ability to understand it) has empowered the average man to become his own power and refueling station...freeing him from the control of others who provided him fuel for travel and warmth in the past centuries...(at the premium of their choosing)

I mean...my smatphone has more power in it than the pIII PC i built to use at university 10 years ago (thousands of times the power of the moon landing computers)....and the half a million pound sinter station/rapid prototyping 3d printer i used at my university that cost half a MILLION £'S well i'm in the process of building a very similar spec machine for my solar studio for a couple of grand!!..

In fact we have had equal scientific development and technological advancement in those ten years than we had from 1900-2000...that is the pace today...it will only take till 2015 to do it again..then 2017 then... 2018 then we will go into doing it every couple of months..a month..two weeks...a week...all before 2020... its called the law of accelerating returns..we know it also as moors law but it applies to all technology not just computers and transistor size...

oh just to talk about the two best advances in solar tech recently both by 12 & 13 year olds!!... (we should be ashamed!!

Aidan Dwyer, a 13 yr old that has used the Fibonacci sequence/golden ratio 1:0.618 to build a solar tree!..he arranged mini panels on branches at different angles determined by the golden ratio...this is how nature/trees spread their branches and point their leaves for maximum solar absorption....his solar tree arrangement was up to 50% more efficient than the panel area of the tree just laid out flat. (well at least in the morning and twilight hours) as different leaves absorbed more light at different times of the day!....his was only a small model..but i plan to build a full scale tree in my garden maybe one day...


the other is 12yr old William Yuan ► 3:06► 3:06

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thz9KAE6bYg

with his new nanotech 3d solarcells that he is now working with industry to produce that will be 900% more efficient...

and there's always solar paint!... http://www.engadget.com/.../notre-dame-heralds-paint-on-solar-c...

we should never need to see a power bill again!...

We just did an event on UCF campus with DJ Chill Will. He used 4 flexible Solar Panels and a 12 volt deep cycle battery to power his out door DJ equipment for 2 hours, actually, we were supposed to finish at 1, but we still had the same power as when we started so we kept going until 2, when they told us we had to shut down because of a class or something, so it was more like about 3 hours. And at the end, the battery had just as much power as when we started.

Then the following day we discovered that I had accidently left the key on in one of my motorcycles and had completely drained the battery. The battery indicated 6.03 volts before putting a charge to it.

The panels were initially putting out 13.37 volts eventhough the table was still in the morning shade.

Then we hooked up the 4 flexible solar panels to the battery and the reading dropped down to 1.49 volts.

At the end of the day we had gotten the battery up to about 13.8 volts on the charge controller.