We’ve talked a number of time here on PhilFAQS about saving energy and living self-efficiently. It’s no secret I’m a big fan of The Mother Earth News, Home Power magazine and other ‘green’ (both ecologically and economically green in today’s $5 gas days).
Most ‘Green Schemes" though seem to focus on families living out in the countryside on a farm or something along those lines. I posted once about some friends of mine in Colorado who were living completely off the grid, making a good living, raising their kids … and at the same time making the world a better place. I had some gratifying interest in that story, but let’s face it … 80 acres (32.37 hectares) is not the size of property most of us are going to wind up on.
But just because the majority of us are going to be living on a small lot doesn’t mean self-sufficiency is only for the countryside. I came across this great book recently. The folks who authored the book also write a splendid blog that is well worth putting on your blog subscription list, it’s chock full of great information and written in an educated but practical style.
Many of you still believe that alternative energy and living lightly on the environment are "too expensive" or "too impractical" … these are concepts that will come into their own in the future.
Well, it’s fine if you believe that, but I am here to tell you that the future is now ladies and gentlemen. You can’t say I didn’t warn you. Enjoy.
Popularity: 14% [?]
Here is the link to the website I mentioned in my earlier comment:
http://www.williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/
@marshallmellow: Thank you for this Marshall … I think LoL. Just spent 45 minutes or anhour transported to a fascinating world by that link. I recommend others follow and take a look. One of the main reasons our planet is dying … and even why gas costs $5 a gallon … is because abut 99% of the population is sitting in their Barcalounger bitching about why “the government” or even “they” don’t do something.
Some folks are never going to figure out that ‘they’ is ‘us’ …to paraphrase the imortal Pogo in the swamp.
Hey thanks Philly, this article came at an opportunate time when I am reading and researching more about solar power. We have solar power in the boat (no wind generators) and that is sufficient for us. We hardly use our inverter, as most are powered by the 12 volt system (even my laptop). We collect rain water (no water maker on board) and we are fine there too. I can and preserve our meat products so we don’t need a freezer. Our fridge draws very little power and is enough to keep our drinks cold (I brew our own beer). I bake bread using the stovetop method cuz our oven is diesel powered and suffocating hot to operate. One learns to conserve in this kind of environment and if you live simply, it can be done. But I must admit, we are not staying onboard now and I am really enjoying my aircondition on land
). I figure it is best to stabilize our temperaments in this heat. We don’t have enough power to run an airconditioning unit – yet.
Cheers,
Ellen
@Ellen: You’re more than welcome, Ellen. I thought the couple’s blog and bok were worth a shout out because they are doing things where the general consensus is ‘they can’t be done’. There’s a famous quote, perhaps from Henry Ford, but the author doesn’t really matter … “If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
My wife and I are doing serious planning on a house reconstruction project as we speak. If it “pushes through” I am going to make maximum use of technology from the RV industry (both land and water bourne). Although my electric consumption … incluing air conditioning … is about half what it was in our last US home I know we can do a lot better. Economical 12v lamps, fans, water system pressure pump, etc. will run off just a couple deep discharge batteries and a PV panel of sufficient size is easy enough to afford/accommodate.
On the water you have the advantage of a more steady breeze as well.
I used to have an AirStream travel trailer. Even without any solar panels we could easily stay several days ‘in the woods’ on just the single battery the trailer came with. We had an inverter also (makes AC from the DC battery current for those not yet into the technology), but I don’t recall using it ever except to test it. The fridge was 2-way … shore power or propane … a 30 pound propane tank would provide a whole summer of weekends running the fridge, the hot water heater and range/oven. I sold that trailer in a moment of weakness because the buyer waved cash, more than twice what I had paid for it, in my face. That was one of the worst buying/selling decisions I ever made. It was a small one, 21 foot, could easily be put to good use here. There was a reason the company used to call that particular product line “Land Yacht”.
Sunpowercorp.com has an office in Laguna:
Laguna, Philippines Site
100 East Main Ave. Phase 4
Special Economic Zone
Laguna Tachno Park
Binan, Laguna
I think I may have tried once before to email them and got no reply. I don’t know the phone number. I just wanted to know if in the Philippines, we can do the grid-tied system without use of deepcycle batteries. Do you know? We are not ready yet but I am researching into it just in case we decide to build a house here. Samal electricity still depends on the electrical company in Davao mainland via underwater cable. If the infrastructure here doesn’t keep up with the speed of the housing development going on now, I can just imagine what’s going to happen. Reading the forum at http://www.gov.ph/forum/thread.asp?rootID=66741&catID=4&page=2 I gather the gov’t or electrical companies are not too keen on this for commercial reasons?
Ellen
@Ellen: Hello Ellen, thanks for the info. I’ve been asked that basic question before and I confess I know very little … the aspect of tying individual users back into the commercial grid as a re-seller as well as a consumer is not yet well developed here … to my knowledge.
It is something I myself have little interest in, because my own strategy is to eventually produce all my own needs and why should I then go into the business of trying to bring Meralco or any of the power conglomerates into the 21st century? I can see some economic and even environmental reasons why it might be better to ‘sell back’, but I can also see a huge downside here in a country that is rated as one of the most complicated in the whole world to do business in … being a supplier to an entity like Meralco might be a very tiresome and restrictive way to earn a few pesos … and then I wuld be in that gray area we mentioned a few posts back .. I’d be eraning money from sources inside the Philippines … not sure that it would be worth it.
For a point of departure our small (~1100 sq ft) 3 bedroom home averages about 4,000 pesos per month over a 12 month period. I could save half that if it were mine and I could rearrange the air con the way I would want to. To save 2,000 additional pesos a mnth I would invest enough money to get an ROI in a reasonable time … say 3 or 4 years. To invest enough more to make it worthwhile to sell back any appreciable extra kilowatts … equipment, engineering, legal, accounting costs? Gives me a head ache again LoL (You _know_ how much a good accountant charges …
)
Thanks Philly. I wasn’t really interested in the reselling part, though it is great if it does happen. I was more interested in tying into their system because from how I understand it, this way you avoid buying a bank of batteries which will need servicing and replacement after awhile of use. Not to mention you also need space for them. And if you need them replaced, I could only guess where the old batteries go…
I will know more when I get the manual, but from what I was reading, we will need between 4-5000watts to service a house with airconditioning. This is about US30K currently. If you can save 100% of the utility bill, this equates to 3.55% per year ROI for you
).
You may want to try LED lighting instead of 12v lamps. It lasts a long time, does not produce heat and very little power. We have converted our navigation lights to LEds, entry, reading and closet lights as well. Only drawback now is that they are single directional …
@Ellen: Hmm, this new plug-in for rsponding to comments I have been using just appears to have ‘dumped’ a long response I had almost ready to send, so if you see a part finished, un-spell-checked second response to this, that’s why.
Thanks a lot for getting me going on this line of thought, Ellen. I need to research and write more. Air conditioning a whole house with solar is certainly a daunting proposition … I won’t be aiming quite that high in terms of the plant I am envisioning.
batteries indeed will play a role and battery maintenance and proper disposal are certainly big factors. Fortunately, if you maintain then properly deep discharge batteries can last a surprisingly long time … but will the proper maintenance happen, indeed?
Off to read more….
Same thing happened to me. I thought it was my wireless connection that did it.
@Ellen: You must use Smartbro too, eh? You know it’s easy for me to sit back and throw stones … and I try to refrain from it … but that company …. it isn’t that they don’t work hard enough, it is that they work way, way too hard at doing the wrong thing. I was off line for a couple hours yesterday .. a monthly event … where thye apparently perform ‘scheduled maintenance’ which isn’t scheduled internally … the folks at the ISP help desk are never brought into the loop so they know what tosay when users call to complain. Then, _after_ the service is restored some sort of suto-texter sends out a ‘canned’ text message that says ‘your service will be down from this time until that time for upgrading.’
Hello! If you are going to make an expensive system to text thousands of subscribers (says something about an ISP that relies on text to reach it’s own subscribers, doesn’t it?) Did it ever occur ro anyone to send the outage message _before_ rather than _after_ the event? I mean, go figure
actually i use the pldt Weroam – supposedly the only one that was vista compatible at that time. no landlines here on the island. It didn’t work at first, and saw that it was using aircard by Sierra Wireless (a canadian co, btw). Downloaded some stuff from them and got it to work. I’m not sure if what I did got it to work, but who’s complaining. But ya, there were several times the last few weeks connection was cut off (mid morning to evening). Never bothered to call – don’t want to get riled up because was sure those who answer usually don’t know what’s happening themselves
Your post is really a breath of fresh air in comparison to the typical rubbish I learn on solar energy. So many frauds around. Thank you for helping me out.