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How about a solar car port on a budget?


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27 minutes ago, tjo o tjim said:

Do you run any air conditioning during the late afternoon?

 

At present, no. But I see where you are coming from.

 

I have ordered (it's not arrived yet) the wireless modem that goes with the inverters. I'm hoping to control the export level from my Arduino based power monitoring system https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/1022293-new-year-project-power-quality-logger/

 

Someone has already developed a program using Node Red IOT software https://github.com/invite-frey/wvc-inverter which I could possibly adapt parts of to run on the Arduino, it only needs to control the output level of the beasties.

 

 

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10 minutes ago, RideJocky said:

You can refrigerate water during the day and use it to chill your ac unit at night

 

It's actually better to make ice (latent heat of fusion and all that high-school physics stuff you forgot straight after the exam).

 

Make 1 ton of ice and you can have 12,000 BTU of aircon for 1 day.

 

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Would love to mate a 3 or 5-ton condenser to a 10m3 water tank to build a thermal storage system, but doing it with ice and refrigerant gets tricky, and adding glycol on the primary cooling loop too complicated. 


With enough water, you could just use a cooling tower that only runs when the sun is out.


“Them what bite, gonna get bit. Them what don’t bite, gonna damn sure get ate up” JDH ‘77
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12 hours ago, Crossy said:

 

The problem with renewables, and solar in partcular, is that they are often at maximum production when the load is at a minimum and at zero production (at night) when the load is, if not maximum, certainly significant. So either there needs to be conventional backup (which doesn't start quickly and so needs to run inefficiently at small loads during the day) or we need a LOT of storage (a ruddy big battery).

 

Another issue (which may have had a part in the recent UK blackout) is the question of grid inertia. Without the huge flywheel effect of conventional generation (large rotating masses) the grid frequency can vary rapidly and possibly uncontrollably causing renewables (inverter based systems) to drop off-line when they can't follow the variations, reducing the available supply, causing greater frequency instability, causing more renewables to go off-line, causing greater frequency instability ...

 

 

Yep...parts of Australia, just to name one country...are suffering from an over supply of non synchronous generation. My 'little boy' is part of a team looking into the problem there.

 

The UK runs tighter than in my days as regards 'spinning spare'. So loosing a couple of 'power plants' at basically the same time can and did initiate auto load shedding.

 

I think a few changes may come out of the enquiry.

 

Great topic though Crossy...looked foreward to the post commissioning BBQ and <deleted> Up....

Edited by JAS21
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1 hour ago, JAS21 said:

Yep...parts of Australia, just to name one country...are suffering from an over supply of non synchronous generation.

The grid scale batteries are proving themselves out pretty well, and seem to be much more effective than spinning reserve. Nobody can really afford the spinning reserve anymore, and digital control does reduce the amount of it that is required. 

 

Wind seems to pose the most challenges logistically, and that is where the batteries will make the biggest difference. 

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6 hours ago, tjo o tjim said:

Would love to mate a 3 or 5-ton condenser to a 10m3 water tank to build a thermal storage system, but doing it with ice and refrigerant gets tricky, and adding glycol on the primary cooling loop too complicated. 

i had plans to use 18ºC well water (4-6 m3/h) for a whole-house chiller serving either 19 individual or three ducted units for zonal purpose (evaporators all refrigerant, condensers 50/50 separated by heatexchanger)  but couldn't find a qualified contractor. when i found a top company it was too late. :angry:

 

estimated savings would have been at least 50% electricity cost ~THB 100k/p.a.

 

sooner or later most of my hard working 13 years old units need to be replaced. but being an old fart who cherishes his comfortable lazy life style prevents me to make big changes.  

Edited by Naam
no idea what happened :~(
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3 hours ago, tjo o tjim said:

The grid scale batteries are proving themselves out pretty well, and seem to be much more effective than spinning reserve. Nobody can really afford the spinning reserve anymore, and digital control does reduce the amount of it that is required. 

 

Wind seems to pose the most challenges logistically, and that is where the batteries will make the biggest difference. 

I just had a looksee around the internet... just out internet... https://www.drax.com/technology/power-systems-super-subs/

 

and somewhere else I read that the UK will rely somewhat on the Welsh Pump Storage schemes until grid batteries can do the job

 

I remember Ffestiniog the first time around...gee I feel really old now .....

 

 

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5 hours ago, Naam said:

i had plans...

Depending on your priority, humidity or dry bulb temperature, you have a lot of options to reduce your power bill. Chilled water still seems to be hard to pull off here though. 

 

Personally, it is the humidity that kills me, and a number of the easy strategies are marginal. The equivalent of a single 100-ton CalMac ice storage tank would be perfect here, providing an easy way to both cool and de-humidy a home. They have been successful in similar climates before, but it is expensive. 

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3 hours ago, JAS21 said:

I just had a looksee around the internet... just out internet... https://www.drax.com/technology/power-systems-super-subs/

 

and somewhere else I read that the UK will rely somewhat on the Welsh Pump Storage schemes until grid batteries can do the job

 

I remember Ffestiniog the first time around...gee I feel really old now .....

 

 

Batteries give a whole slew of options that things like pumped storage cannot delivere on- the problem without spinning reserve is you need extremely fast response time to stabilize things. Pumped storage is fantastic for long-term energy storage thought. 

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3 hours ago, tjo o tjim said:

Depending on your priority, humidity or dry bulb temperature, you have a lot of options to reduce your power bill. Chilled water still seems to be hard to pull off here though.  The equivalent of a single 100-ton CalMac ice storage tank would be perfect here...

i respectfully but totally disagree. ẟt between 18ºC well water and an average of 30ºC ambient temperature is a feast for every condensing unit enough to increase efficiency exponentially. no need to play around with an expensive ice producing and storage facility plus the running energy cost for producing ice when sufficient well water is available for pennies via a simple pipe or perhaps an additional well. we are getting ~6m3 with a 1HP pump but are limited to 2HP as tests showed that 2½HP would suck air in the dry season.

 

moreover, our home is not an office building or factory with peak and off peak demands required for energy savings but has a rather constant demand. by the way i like RH in my bedroom <50% and in the living areas 65%.

 

summary: ice in my fruit juice yes, ice for condensing purpose absolutely no.

we are simple poor retired people and can't afford luxuries :jap:

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On 9/1/2019 at 3:15 PM, johng said:

Imagine how much power would be produced if every roof top in Thailand was covered in solar panels..they would (probably) not have to import any electric from neighbouring countries and save billions on gas and oil.

 

Let's hope this this happens sooner or later.

 

In the meantime I vote for Crossy as the Solar Champion. 

 

(I have no knowledge at all about the technology however it seems to me it's quickly getting much easier to plan and install. My dream is to eventually instal solar on the house roof and get the family electricity bill down to zero, also meaning zero cost to run 3 to 4 aircons for about 60 - 70% of the year.)

 

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