I like the sun and would miss it a lot if we were not to have it...Of course, without the sun life on Earth would not be possible so I'm glad we have it...Thanks universe!
Sun sustains all aspects of life on our planet and for humans is an important source of vitamin D, which helps our bodies regulate phosphate and calcium; These, of course, are important for the health of bone, muscle and teeth. Thanks to evolution our bodies have receptor cells that are able to transform sunlight that touches our skin into vitamin D...It's a nifty process...But I like the sun for another reason too...Its ability to make electricity!
I wrote a post a while back about moving house and my desire to get a solar collection and storage system installed on the new one.
I have a solar collection system at the house I moved away from which serves us well and we're weighing up the cost of adding one to the new place, plus a battery system to store the power, currently. It's a lot of money and so a weighty decision. You can read that other pose here. It's a stunning piece of writing, magnificent in design and concept, so please do yourself a favour. 😉
We haven't decided what we're doing yet although I thought I'd do a post, which I do a few times a year, about my solar array on the other property and what the numbers look like when compared to the same time last year.
2020 versus 2019
Total year 2020 👆
Above you can see the month by month of 2020...Year of the Covid-19 pandemic scam. It is fairly similar to 2019 from a production perspective but take a look at the consumed figure; 7.5MWh is 0.8MWh more than the previous year...And where was that usage incurred? Yep, in lockdown/work at home months during winter...May, June, July and extending into August and September. You can clearly see the additional usage in those orange bars extending below the centre line.
The other important figure is the amount of power imported through my power meter...1.6MWh in 2020 in comparison to 841.2kWh in 2019. That's a 47% increase over the total year.
That usage represents me working from home using the kettle, heater, computer, microwave, television and so on, a lot more than I usually would. This means that over the 2020 year I've approximately paid an additional 47% for my imported power over the previous year.
In dollar terms that's about an extra $711 AUD over the year. Of course, this is only a loose figure as there are different tariffs depending on the time of day and I don't have the power bills in front of me to give you an exact figure. It's a fair amount of money though I guess right? All because of the pandemic.
Total year 2019 👆
Of course, it could be argued that the system didn't produce quite as much power but that dip is marginal at 5.9MWh over 5.8MWh in 2020. No, the additional imported power is pandemic related.
I went back to 2017 to take a look at annual consumption and it was interesting to see a fairly constant amount until 2020: 6.7MWh, 6.2MWh, 6.7MWh then 7.5MWh in the respective years from 2017. Thanks pandemic.
Moving forward our figures will look much different considering we no longer live there. My wife still runs our business from there but that is mostly during the day (0800 to 1800 4 days a week) so the system should really start to operate well considering it produces during the day when the sun is up and that's when the power is also being consumed reducing the amount we import. In a few months I'll do a month on month comparison to see how it's going.
Day on day comparison
Just for fun I thought I'd show you a single day, one of my wife's work days, as opposed to a non work day.
The blue is produced power and you can see the nice curve which is the sun rising and falling. The orange, below the line, is the usage. You'll note here there are three lines of usage all on their own; That's the hot water system cooling down enough to then kick in and heat up using power of course.
January 20 2021 - work day 👆
January 19 2021 - Non work day 👆
Again you can see the nice blue collection curve but this time almost no consumption other than the hot water system cycling again, those downward orange bars. See the difference in the exported figures as well? 21kWh as opposed to 4.5kWh on the working day. The exported power, that's power back to the grid, gains us an income of 0.16c/kWh and offsets our power bill.
Rounding it all out...We've been really pleased with our system which has paid for itself and dramatically reduces our power bills which is why we are considering a system at our new house. The problem is though, that a collection-only system like at our other house means the power needs to be consumed whilst it's being collected. We're not at home at the new place during the day and so not consuming power, hence the need for the costly battery storage being required.
We don't know which way to go yet, I'm delaying the decision until we get the next power bill...I mean I want it but we're need over want spenders so it has to make sense...We're talking about a $15,000 outlay after all.
I thought I'd leave you with a little sun poem to end this post...You ready?
I like sun, it's very sunny
It comes up over there and then sets elsewhere
Sometimes it's bright, but not at night
Making it into power saves me money
Thanks for reading y'all, I appreciate it. I also value your comments so feel free to make some, ask questions of just comment favourably on my amazing poetic skills.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised.
Be well
Discord: galenkp#9209
Top image, Mindil Beach, Darwin Australia.
Those silhouettes of palms caught my eye.. As you know, I love the tropics. One of my favorite subjects to paint.
Just wanted to pop in and say hello. I've been off line for a bit. Business has been nuts (in a good way) so something had to give. Not enough time for everything. Looking forward to catching up on your posts! Maybe the awesome picture at the top will give me a little inspiration to pick up a brush and create something.
Enjoy your weekend!!
Hey there, I looked in in your account only a couple days ago to make sure I hadn't somehow missed your posting. I sad you'd been away and figured you were busy. It's all good, we need to prioritise right?
Yeah, that snap...It was just a passing moment one evening in Darwin as we were watching the sun set. We'd sat there under those palms having dinner, fish and chips, as the sun went down and I'd gone to drop the rubbish in the bin. I turned around and there was Faith standing there as you see in the shot. I got the phone out and took that snap.
Darwin is very tropical as it is right at the top of Australia...A nice place to be, but brutal in the wet season when it's stormy, wet and very humid. I'd like to do a wet season there, they say the storms are spectacular.
Anyway, thanks for dropping in. I hope you're well and I'll see you around again. Pick up those brushes and paints BD, you deserve a break.
Solar power is certainly one of the best clean sources of renewable energies! It helps in eliminating our total dependence on fossil fuels which increasingly deplete our natural resources eventually. So I would support you in your decision of purchasing a solar energy system for your new home! It may be initially expensive, but not only would you save a significant amount on the power costs later on, you would also become a responsible steward for our environment. All for the sustainable benefit of Mother Nature and for the long-term survival of our planet! Great poem about the sun you got there, by the way, @galenkp!
I wouldn't say my carbon footprint is low to be honest, I mean I have two vehicles, one of which is a big V8, and consume more power than I collect but I try to recycle and reuse and am responsible with water usage also. We do what we can. Having solar helps.
Thanks for your comment and the nice compliment on my really bad poem. 🤣
If I can't comment favourably on the poem I am not going to comment about it🤣
...Or you could comment with your own amazing sun poetry and really show us your creative side! 😉
I have no creative side for poems ☹️
Can you dump the data into a spreadsheet? that way you could try to work with the numbers and try to find patrons with some data analysis introducing the different daily price tariffs and finding little living behavior changes that could improve the savings.
Hmm, I've not tried to do that. I can get reports of course but I'm not sure they're downloadable to Excel. I'll take a look as it's a good idea. The app itself is easy enough to work with though, which is why I haven't done the spreadsheet thing. I'll have a look at get back to you.
The app looks quite nice for reporting but you can do only what they offer you in terms of reports. Just adding price as a variable would offer a great amount of information to give you some clues on little behavior changes and if on top of that, you play with some machine learning algorithms then you'd get a bunch of info. I can give it a try if you end up being able to get the data.
I'd like to do that, it depends if the data is available. The problem with the cost per kWh is that different times have different tariffs 3pm to 11pm is peak for instance. It's possible though I guess.
If the tariffs are more or less stable, it doesn't matter if there are several periods during the day as long as we have the consumption by the same timeframes. Just try to find out how to get the data and we will play with it on an online shared file.
Cool, I'll take a look tomorrow and see what I can get. Tomorrow because I'll do it at work and get paid for it. 😉🙄
Hahahah what a cute poem! Congrats for saving up on electricity and going green on this, it is definetely a good thing to do longterm
!ENGAGE 20
You should write one...It would be better than mine I suppose, but that's ok, it's not a competition.
Oh I used to write poems when I was a kid.... I am rusty on my practice so I can't promise a great poem lol
You can be a good poet
And you know et...
The best I can do:
Sun is bright, sun is good
Makes the G dog look super cool😎☀️👏👏
Magnificent!
I can almost see the poem taking life in front of my eyes as I read it. You have a talent for poetry, I can tell.
Hihihi
ENGAGEtokens.Hola me encanta tu iniciativa sustentable, a mí también me gustaría poder vivir en un mundo .as sano y de provecho de energía...
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment, also for the follow, and then rapid unfollow almost immediately. That's the beauty of the blockchain, freedom of choice. All the best.
Jajaj wow no lo hice a proposito, disculpa es que aprete varias veces el link. No me di cuenta que te habia dejado de seguir jajaja ..
Oof well thanks for giving me a rough estimate about what we need to save up, that's sounding painful XD
I still also need to research how they're made and decide if the juice is worth the squeeze x_x
I think we're still also waiting for batteries to become cheaper as I think the buyback thingi where we are is kind of pathetic and we're selfish and would rather store it anyway ^_^;
LoL cute poem XD
Yeah, it's a bit of an investment but could be good; Depends on the situation I guess as everyone's power usage and needs are different.
Lol,that poem.. One of my finest Ry.🙄
Yep... VitaD.
Helps prevent the flu virus that the fraudsters rebranded as a covid plandemic.
And BONUS..! The Sunshines U.V. rays destroy that very same flu virus in seconds.
But hey that is just that wacky thing called science right
Who doesn't like a nice can of science huh? Nothing quite like it.
In addition... Is a solar hot water panel something worth the investment, along with a highly insulated holding tank.??
Hmm, yeah I think a solar HWS could work well and they have been around here for a long time. They're not so popular though as most of ours are heated by natural gas. I guess it depends on the situation. I mean I don't like hot showers, just sort of warm. Faith though? The water has to be sourced from the depths of the earth's core, where it's about a gazillion degrees C. So, a solar HWS won't work so well for us as they never really deliver super hot water, especially in low solar production days.
There are many systems on the market though and some buy them. https://www.dux.com.au/
I am more "Faith" like in the colder months. But warm to cool in the hot weather. @pooky-jax just said warm to hot.
Good info on the solar water panels. My brother did that for a swimming pool. It worked well. But that was in Pennsyl-Tucky up north where they inappropriately kiss their sisters... Hehehhe
Pensyltucky? I don't get the reference. Just a conglomeration of both States?
Yep.
Where I come from...
Yeehaw,(friends) inlaws,& outlaws (enemies) are all still there.
Oh, there is that lil' bit of awkwardness again.
Ah ok, I've heard of them but don't know much about either. I've heard of the Kentucky Derby of course. Due to their locations I'd imagine them to be quite picturesque? I may have to do some research and educate myself.