All those poor people in Mac the Wolf land without electricity due to a few predictable desert storms.

Makes me concerned / wonder

How can I secure energy for my home. I don't want to run some noisy electric generator that will need fuel refills as some have for emergencies.

If I had photo voltaic on my roof. I am still dependent on "the big bad electric company", as the roof photo voltaic does not directly power the house. If the grid is down, no electricity. Bummer, huh.

My ideal would be photo hydrolysis to harvest hydrogen, stored or used in fuel cells to make electricity but the materials are just not commercial ready.

So, I figure, what about a natural gas powered electric generator attached to the house? The gas lines never seem to go down.

Ideas?

Moi

It is the 21st Century,

it is all about Moi,

no not You / Toi!

Moi!

I rely on both common energy sources, gas for my furnace, and electricity for everything else.

I do fret about the power thing, although I live in Manitoba, and we export vast amounts of electricity to the USA. We pay very little for power, last time I checked, our rates are about the lowest in all of Canada / USA.

However, sure, we get power failures. I hate them, and I understand your desire to protect yourself.

I never thought about it before I put in a drainage system for my house, and built a sump pit with a pump and evac-hose that shoots water that is collected into the yard. Heavy rains will cause water to run in the pit, and the pump MUST work, or it will overflow, damage the floor in the basement, and I'll end up relying on the sewage drain hole to pick up the slack. Not good.

So, to get to the point! Here's what I had built,for cheap;

I called my electrician and asked him, and he happend to be building something for the same purpose for another guy. Something to allow a pump to run during a power failure. We get huge electrical storms all summer, probably lose power for a few minutes to an hour or two, half a dozen times a year.

He built me a car-battery-powered system. It's basically two converters and an 'array' of however many car batterys you want to buy. I have two.

He built two little converter boxes; one that the battery bank is wired into and is plugged into the socket in the wall, and one that the battery bank is wird into that has "female" plugs on it.

So:

Little box with common sockets ---> BATTERY ARRAY ----> plug that plugs into your wall.

The batterys are kept consantly charged during normal times, and if the pump needs to run, it does so normally, albeit through the batterys.

If the power goes out, the batterys have enough juice to run the pump for days. I could attach another four car batteries to the array and probably run my fridge.

It's a great system, and totally silent.

I highly recommend it!

(It was also cheap; cost was 2 car batteries, plus about 250 bucks CDN for the electrician to build the two conveters).

Hey, what ever happened to that "bloom box" thing that I figured was gonna fizzle... guess it did fizzle.

moi621 (imported) wrote: Sun Jul 18, 2010 8:30 pm If I had photo voltaic on my roof. I am still dependent on "the big bad electric company", as the roof photo voltaic does not directly power the house. If the grid is down, no electricity. Bummer, huh.

Photo-voltaic arrays I have seen here charge a buffer battery, which can then be connected to the inverter to produce AC current. So no need to be tied to the grid. It is a question of design of the system.

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2010 12:11 pm Photo-voltaic arrays I have seen here charge a buffer battery, which can then be connected to the inverter to produce AC current. So no need to be tied to the grid. It is a question of design of the system.

Those systems are available in at considerable more expense due to the batteries

and one must replace the batteries, how often? At least every decade I imagine.

I think I am going to go for a natural gas powered generator system as will automatically start upon grid shut down. I cannot remember the natural gas ever being, off.

Moi

Selfish - 21st Century, Pragmatic Populist

moi621 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2010 4:49 pm

Those systems are available in at considerable more expense due to the batteries

and one must replace the batteries, how often? At least every decade I imagine.

I think I am going to go for a natural gas powered generator system as will automatically start upon grid shut down. I cannot remember the natural gas ever being, off.

Moi

Selfish - 21st Century, Pragmatic Populist

Dammit, moi, you DO NOT have all of the answers.

Why in the HELL do you need batteries? Just feed the power back into the power grid. Sell it back to the power companies. The laws and rules are already in place. (http://www.electricityforum.com/windmil ... icity.html)

WE don't need no STEENKING BATTERIES..., silly GRINGO! (to quote a Mexican friend)

If everybody operated a windmill (http://www.windmillelectricityinfo.com/) and photovoltaic cells or both, there would be so much power (http://www.dulley.com/docs/f485.htm) that power plants would only be needed as supplements, and then only at peak load times...

Hell, there is always a LOT OF AIR (mostly HOT) blowing around here somewhere, and the sun is always shining somewhere (...except where it never shines ) but especially here when YOU are posting, pushing buttons, trying to establish a political base there is an abundance of energy just being wasted... just what is it that you are doing, anyway?

A1, too true.

My friend in Saskatchewan spent approx. $ 50,000 CDN on an 'eggbeater' style wind generator on his little hobby-farm. It sits on the other side of a tree-line beside his house; I think it's 75 feet tall, maybe a bit shorter. The 50,000 paid for everything, minus a 10,000 grant from the province.

Of course, it's wired up to feed the grid when it can.

End result; in the last 6 years, he has averaged a positive 4,000 dollar balance with the province; he still uses grid power when the windmill isn't turning (either due to calm winds or very high winds when the brakes are engaged), but in general, he earns money every year, at a damned good rate of return for his 40,000 investment.

Hell, at that rate,I'd install one if I had the land.

A-1 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:56 pm Dammit, moi, you DO NOT have all of the answers.

Why in the HELL do you need batteries? Just feed the power back into the power grid. Sell it back to the power companies. The laws and rules are already in place. (http://www.electricityforum.com/windmil ... icity.html)

WE don't need no STEENKING BATTERIES..., silly GRINGO! (to quote a Mexican friend)

If everybody operated a windmill (http://www.windmillelectricityinfo.com/) and photovoltaic cells or both, there would be so much power (http://www.dulley.com/docs/f485.htm) that power plants would only be needed as supplements, and then only at peak load times...

Hell, there is always a LOT OF AIR (mostly HOT) blowing around here somewhere, and the sun is always shining somewhere (...except where it never shines ) but especially here when YOU are posting, pushing buttons, trying to establish a political base there is an abundance of energy just being wasted... just what is it that you are doing, anyway?

1) Electric company, rent my roof! Your equipment not mine.

They are like in the before time of DirectTV.

2) When "the grid is down", all your generating stuff as you would sell to the grid isn't worth a wooden nickle. Ok? Did you know that?

Re,: link

I wonder why the old Turkish / Dutch style windmill, where the moving part is so heavy it acts as a flywheel - isn't employed more. A lower RPM would also be kinder to the birds that happen to find those windy passes through the mountains so handy. Also, the higher RPM windmills do have a noise problem.

Then I look at the ocean and wonder why an electric generating 'carpet' could not be engineered. An acre of ocean surface undulating electric generating carpet might generate how much electricity? Well it has yet to be designed.

More answers on application

Moi

The Pragmatic, yet selfish, Populist

moi621 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2010 8:16 pm I wonder why the old Turkish / Dutch style windmill, where the moving part is so heavy it acts as a flywheel - isn't employed more. A lower RPM would also be kinder to the birds that happen to find those windy passes through the mountains so handy. Also, the higher RPM windmills do have a noise problem.

Mechanics becomes a problem - for the mill low RPM is a benefit. For electric generator - you need high RPM to drive electric generator, or it would be inefficient.

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2010 8:32 pm Mechanics becomes a problem - for the mill low RPM is a benefit. For electric generator - you need high RPM to drive electric generator, or it would be inefficient.

Can't one gear up the momentum, "the juice", of the weighty slow wheel?

Moi