The Greeny Flat is sunny and cosy and may be available for a ‘test drive’ in July and August.
Would you be interested in ‘Test Diving’ the Greeny Flat?
Cintia and I will be away between July 18th and September 1st so we’re thinking about making the Greeny Flat available for people to ‘Test Drive’ while we’re away. We could either put it on AirBnB so that anyone can come and stay for a few nights or, if someone wanted to rent it for the whole six weeks we’d be happy to consider that option too.
If you’ve wondered what it might be like to live in a small, energy positive home where you can walk or ride bikes to virtually everything you need, this might be your chance to find out. The Greeny Flat is set in a charming neighbourhood just one block from a park with a playground and wonderful bushwalks and just three blocks from the main street of Mittagong with lots of restaurants, coffee shops, antique stores, etc. We can easily accommodate four people in two bedrooms and there is a sunny patio, internet access, books to read, a fully-stocked kitchen and plenty of information about how the Greeny Flat works. This would be a great opportunity to experience the benefits of living in a small, low-maintenance, low-running-cost and accessible home.
If you might be interested in renting the Greeny Flat for the whole time we are away please let us know as soon as possible. This would be the simplest arrangement for us as we would not have to deal with the complications of short-term stays. As a special deal for a lucky Newsletter reader, we could rent the whole place, fully-furnished for $350/week for six weeks. Please send us a message via our Contact Page if you would like to discuss this option further.
If no-one is willing or able to take up that offer we will list the Greeny Flat on AirBnB. We would like to make the opportunity available to readers of our Newsletter first (and for the very special price of $100/night) so if you think you might be interested, or know someone else who might be, please let us know what dates you would like us to reserve for you. Please send us a message via our Contact Page and we will respond with more information as we figure out the details.
Winter Solstice Next Sunday
The Winter Solstice is when the noon sun is lowest in the sky in its annual cycle. This is an important date for anyone who owns a house or is thinking about buying, building or renovating one and wants to incorpoerate passive solar design to improve energy efficiency (or add solar panels for electricity or hot water). If you own a home or a piece of land, or if you have your eye on one, it’s a great opportunity to observe where the sun rises and sets and how long the shadows from trees and other buildings will be at their longest in the year. I recommend that everyone take some time next Sunday to observe and record where the sun and shadows are at dawn, 10am, noon, 2pm, and sunset. The simplest way to do this is to take photos but you could also place stakes in the ground to mark key points or take measurements and draw the key features on a site plan of your land. This is very useful information to have if you ever want to make use of the sun to warm your home in winter, heat you water or make electricity. It’s a good idea to repeat the process at one of the Equinoxes (either March 21st or September 21st) and again at the Summer Solstice (when the noon sun is highest in the sky) so you have a complete understand of where the sun and shadows will be on your land throughout the year.
Fiddling While Rome Burns
‘Politicians Discussing Global Warming’ by Isaac Cordal
Climate Change is a horrible subject to think about which is why I generally try to focus on positive things that give me hope that the human race might voluntarily remedy the situation, rather than all the things that are wrong in the world. Observing the ineffective and often retrograde actions of our political and business leaders in the face of the overwhelming scientific evidence sometimes makes me want to ignore the whole mess because it seems too big and too hopeless to solve.
Spanish artist, Isaac Cordal, takes a different approach, he uses humour to highlight the absurdity of the current situation and the reckless inactions of our leaders. Taking particular aim at businessmen and politicians he uses tiny sculptures to ‘capture his skepticism of authority… needlessly trapping themselves in unpleasant situations… Cordal warns onlookers of the dangers in blindly following the wills of the rich and powerful. Like miniature clones, the identical statues were created in the likeness of middle-aged, white collar, white men, each desperately clutching a briefcase as they huddle together or drown to death in a mindless mass.’
Isaac Cordal – from his ‘Waiting for Climate Change’ sculpture series
It’s not exactly positive but at least it gives us the opportunity to laugh and remember that our inactions can be just as destructive as our actions. So we can have a giggle and then get back to doing something positive about climate change.
Speaking of positive signs, in our Newsletter a couple of weeks ago I wrote about Saudi Arabia’s plans to shift to renewable energy and AGL’s plans to ‘decarbonise its portfolio’. This week there’s more good news with Origin Energy (one of Australia’s top ten climate polluters along with AGL) announcing that it plans to become the number one installer of solar power systems in Australia.
What’s Even More Ubiquitous Than Sunlight and Wind?
The answer, of course, is gravity!
The elegantly simple ‘Gravity Light’
The Gravity Light is an invention that uses gravity to power a small generator for operating an LED light. Designed for the poorer areas of Africa, it seeks to replace kerosene lamps as the preferred way to light homes at night. People who have no access to electricity currently use kerosene lamps that cost a lot to refill and give off toxic fumes. The Gravity Light solves this problem by using a simple weight hoisted up with a pulley system to power a light that is as bright as a kerosene lamp.
As the YouTuve video in this Gizmag article about the Gravity Light shows, it promises to be a simple and robust way to improve the lives of countless poor people in Africa.
I think it also opens up all sorts of other possibilities for using gravity as an energy storage system. Currently it is fairly common to use gravity to make power in the form of hydroelectricity. The force of gravity pulling water downhill is what drives a hydroelectric turbine. There are also systems in place that allow this to be utilised in a similar way to a battery. Solar or wind energy can be used to pump water uphill to a storage reservoir and from there it can be released back downhill through a turbine to made electricity when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. On a smaller and more economical scale, a similar system could be built that uses solar of wind power to hoist a weight into the air then allows gravity to generate power as the weight comes back down.
The current version of the Gravity Light uses human power to hoist the weight. If they can perfect the mechanism so that the conversion of work to potential energy (lifting the weight) and the subsequent conversion of potential energy to electricity (using gravity) is as efficient as possible then I think the concept holds great potential as a way to store solar and wind energy for later use as electricity in homes and businesses.
I can even imagine a time when we can jump on an exercise bike or treadmill for twenty minutes to hoist a weight heavy enough and high enough to provide sufficient electricity to power our lights and television sets for a whole evening. Energy storage with health benefits… how cool would that be!
Tesla Powerwall Upgraded Before it is Even Released
Responding to criticism that its ‘Powerwall’ product could not provide enough peak power to run a typical home, Elon Musk has announced that Tesla has upgraded their Home Energy Storage product from 2kW to 5kW steady and 7kW peak power. This will make the ‘Powerwall’ even more attractive to home and business owners who want to get the maximum benefit from their solar power systems both for reducing their electricity costs and providing backup power in the event of a blackout.
Regular readers of this Newsletter will already know that graphene is a relatively new material that is proving to be incredibly promising in all sorts of applications. The latest news about Graphene is that it has been combined with diamond particles to create a substance that can almost totally eliminate friction. The implications for this are enormous as it could lead to huge improvements in the energy efficiency as well as reduction in the maintenance requirements of machines and systems that are currently hampered by losses due to friction.
The amazing Ryno electric uni-cycle/Segway-type thingy.
The Ryno is a ‘self-balancing, single-wheeled transportation product’. Sort of a cross between a uni-cycle and a Segway and unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. It’s all electric, recharges from any household powerpoint, can be ridden almost anywhere a person can walk (I don’t think it can handle stairs), and takes 15 minutes to learn how to ride. It’s an amazing and beautifully designed piece of mechanical engineering that could change the way we get around.
All the technology (the battery, the motor, the gyroscopes, the control systems) are housed in its one big wheel which just has a seat, footrests and handlebars attached. Apparently it is effortless to ride and a lot of fun. It would certainly turn a lot of heads whizzing down the footpath.
Judith and Paul Collins, owners and creators of ‘The Keep’ in Buxton, NSW.
Yesterday Cintia and I had the immense pleasure of joining a group of about twenty people on a guided tour of ‘The Keep’ in Buxton, NSW. Buxton is a tiny village between Hilltop and Thirlmere in the Southern Highlands (not far from Mittagong where we live) and The Keep is a truly inspiring example of self-sufficiency, creativity, enthusiasm and good old-fashioned hard yakka.
A Forest of Food in Just Five Years!
Judith and Paul Collins have been growing organic food for over fifty years and they have applied everything they have learned in that time to their latest venture. When you look around at the astonishing array of edible plants and animals that are growing at The Keep, it is almost impossible to believe that they have only been here for five years. When they bought the place there was not much here, just a half-finished mud-brick house and a mixture of native and exotic mature trees. Now there is food everywhere you look and they are growing tropical plants like bananas and capsicums in winter in the frosty Southern Highlands. I’m no plant expert but I lost track of the number of times that someone on the tour said, ‘You can’t grow that here!’
There is every type of edible and medicinal plant you can imagine along with chooks, rabbits, ducks, pigs, sheep, a cow, and some fish. They have had a lot of help from travelling WWOOFers (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) but it is still completely mind-boggling what they have done in such a short time.
An Entertaining and Informative Tour
Judith is a real character, she is the plant expert of the pair and an incredible font of knowledge when it comes to growing plants for food, medicine and other uses. She guided most of the tour and her enthusiasm and humour were completely infectious. Paul is more reserved. He is the engineer, builder, mechanic, electrician, plumber, butcher and tinkerer. He followed along, quietly answering questions about the inner workings of things like their Aquaponics system where plants feed fish, fish feed other plants, and both feed the people on the farm. They complement each other perfectly, she dreams up a plan and he puts it into action, with fantastic results.
By the end of the three hour tour I had a head completely full of new information, a big smile on my face, and a heart full of affection for this delightful and inspiring couple.
Judith preaches about the benefits of growing food under a canopy of mature trees.
Judith talked a lot about micro-climates and the many ways they have used the existing features of the site to create pockets for growing plants that thrive in different conditions. I have always thought you needed a cleared area with full sun to grow a successful vegetable garden or orchard but, at The Keep, most of the food is grown under the canopy of mature eucalyptus and pine trees. Both these tree species are known for being allelopathic which means they use chemicals in their leaves (or needles) to suppress the growth of other plants around them. So attempting to grow all your food beneath them seems like a losing proposition. But what I learned on the tour is that the canopy is more important as it saves the plants beneath from getting baked by too much sun in the summer or killed by frost in the winter. As Paul put it to me, they need the canopy and the price they pay for it is that they have to rake up the gum leaves and needles about every six weeks to stop them from killing their food plants. As Judith pointed out, in nature only grass grows in full sun, almost everything else grows under the protection of the trees. This was just one of a thousand lessons I learned in just three hours and I can’t wait to go back for more.
The duck pen is out in the open but foxes don’t bother them because it is next to the pig pen and foxes won’t go near pigs. Who knew!
Tours, classes, farm stays, lectures, open houses, etc.
For any readers who are interested, Judith and Paul offer a myriad of classes, open houses and so forth. I can HIGHLY recommend a visit to The Keep or at the very least a visit to their website at earthkeepers.com.au where you can find out about their many educational offerings. There is as much to learn from their approach to life as from their knowledge of Permaculture, Biodynamics, Organics, Natural Medicine and Self-sufficiency.
If you would like to see some more photos from yesterday’s tour I have posted them in our gallery. Click here to visit the Gallery Page and click on any of the thumbnails to view a larger version of a particular picture.
Many thanks to Judith and Paul Collins for sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm and for welcoming us to their amazing place, The Keep.
What an exciting week it has been! As if a visit to the Tesla showroom in Sydney wasn’t enough, there have been a number of articles in the mainstream media that signal a fundamental shift in the global (and Australian) energy future.
Saudi Arabia to go Renewable
When the world’s largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, declares that it can see an end to fossil fuels and is investing in renewable energy, I start to feel glimmers of hope. As reported by Reuters on May 21st… ‘Saudi oil minister Ali Al-Naimi said on Thursday the kingdom envisaged the fact that fossil fuels could become unnecessary before the middle of the century and was investing in renewable energy for that reason.’
This article from the Solar Quotes blog paints a very promising picture of what the Saudi announcement means for global energy… ‘If correct, Naimi’s comments signify the end of fossil fuels as the dominant energy source in a shorter time frame than many have predicted.’
The Sydney Morning Herald followed this with an article about just how disconnected the Abbot Government is with the rest of the world. The article describes how the success of renewable energy policy in places like Germany and South Australia, along with a shift in thinking in places like Saudi Arabia and Canada, leaves Australia lagging behind everyone else… ‘The world is moving faster, to cheaper and cleaner renewable energy, than just about anyone had imagined. Especially the Abbott government.’
However the good news for Australia is that the rest of the country seems to have decided not to wait for Abbott to realise the stupidity of his war on renewable energy and is moving forward in spite of him. Numerous states are jockeying to create their own Renewable Energy Standard and Australian businesses are looking towards a renewable future.
Even AGL Sees the Future of Renewables
According to this article from the Australian Conservation Foundation, AGL was Australia’s third largest climate polluter in 2014. However, during the same year, it also acquired Australia’s second largest polluter, Macquarie Generation, and so is now Australia’s largest single producer of climate pollution. As recently as October last year AGL was calling for the removal of the Renewable Energy Target. So I’m HIGHLY skeptical about anything AGL has to say about the future of renewable energy… however… AGL is also Australia’s largest single producer of renewable energy and has announced that it plans to ‘ramp up investment in renewable energy capacity and to shut down all of its existing coal plants over the next 35 years, as part of a new plan to decarbonise its generation portfolio by 2050.’
What exactly it means by ‘decarbonise its portfolio’ will be interesting to observe as time goes on, but still, this has to be seen as a positive sign for renewable energy and climate change action in Australia. As this article from reneweconomy.com.au puts it, this ‘marks an apparent turn-around for the company, which in recent years has spent billions on coal assets.’ So I choose to take this as a very positive sign and I’m fascinated to see what will happen next.
Visit to the Tesla Showroom
Tesla’s showroom in Chatswood
On Thursday evening I joined my father and brother along with about 80 members of The Australia Club’s car enthusiast group on a trip to see the Tesla car company’s showroom in Chatswood. This was a very eye-opening experience. Having heard, read and written a lot about Tesla cars it was great to actually see some and gain a first-hand understanding of how they are revolutionising the car industry.
To me, the Tesla Model S looks a lot like any other high-end luxury sedan but the fact is that, apart from the most basic fundamentals (like wheels, seats, steering wheel, etc), it is unlike anything we have previously seen. Almost everything about it is different; from the way it works to the way it drives, the way it is built and the way it is sold.
Make no mistake, these are VERY expensive vehicles with price tags in the $100 -200k range (although Tesla does have plans to release a more modestly priced Model 3 in the not-too-distant future). Meanwhile, the lucky few who can afford to own a Model S are at the forefront of a fundamental change. The speed, power and range of these cars, while astounding, is not what interests me the most. It’s the possibility to run them on renewable energy and the upgradability that represents the true shift.
Even if a Tesla is charged from a dirty, coal-fired power plant, the company claims it is still 30% less polluting than a petrol-powered car. Since it can also be charged with renewable energy it has the potential to be massively less damaging to the environment than the petrol equivalent. I’ve had some interesting discussions over the last week about the true comparison between the pollution generated by petrol versus electric cars. The conclusion we came to was that there are a LOT of variables (such as the sources of the electricity, the fuel-efficiency of the petrol car, the cost of military action to support the oil industry, etc, etc, etc) and that truly unbiased analysis is VERY difficult to find. If any readers know of accurate and unbiased information on this subject I would be interested in seeing it and covering the subject in more detail in a future newsletter.
Built-in Un-obsolescence
I’m sure you’ve heard the term ‘In-built Obsolescence’ which describes the way products are deliberately designed not to last long before they are either worn out, broken or superseded by the next upgrade or latest version. This ensures that dumb consumers like us keep buying more crap which leads to an incredible amount of waste, cost, pollution and dissatisfaction.
The Tesla, by contrast, is designed to be ‘future proof’ meaning that the current model is built with everything the designers can imagine it needing in the future including an automatically upgrading computer control system. This is the true revolution of the Tesla car. Every Tesla upgrades itself via satelite link while it is charging and its owners are sleeping overnight (just like your computer or mobile phone). This can result in small improvements to performance and functionality or in major shifts in the way things work.
For example, at the showroom I spoke to a surgeon who has ordered a Tesla which, he claims, by the end of this year, will be capable of learning his driveway, raising its suspension automatically to clear the bump as he pulls in off the street, dropping him off at the front door, and then parking itself in his garage. The car knows where it is and comes complete with all the required technology (cameras, sensors, self-steering, etc) to be able to drive itself. Within a couple of years he expects that his car will have been upgraded to the point that it is capable of complete autonomous driving… without the owner having to do (or pay for) anything new.
Whether or not you like the idea of autonomous cars is beside the point. The point being that Tesla is putting a halt to the long-standing corporate practice of ‘in-built obsolescence’. Hopefully this will force other companies to follow suit, and not just car companies. It would be nice to think that this might signal the beginning of a return to manufacturing products that are designed and built to last a lifetime… Time will tell.
Coming back to earth, I’m already thinking about another visit to the Tesla showroom but this time to take one for a test drive. The company spokesman clearly stated that there is no ‘pre-qualifying’ procedure and ANYONE is welcome to come and have a drive. I have no intention of buying a Model S but I would like to at least experience what it is like. I’ll let you know. Meanwhile you can see some more pictures from the Tesla showroom visit here.
There are other promising signs that Tesla is forcing other companies to rethink the way they do business. For example, this article from Gizmag describes how Ford has followed Tesla’s lead and made all of its electric car patents available to anyone who wants to develop them… ‘Innovation is our goal,’ says Kevin Layden, director of Ford Electrification Programs. ‘The way to provide the best technology is through constant development and progress. By sharing our research with other companies, we will accelerate the growth of electrified vehicle technology and deliver even better products to customers.’ I bet the Ford would NEVER have considered such an action if Tesla hadn’t led the way and hopefully lots more companies will follow Tesla’s lead in lots more ways.
Other Encouraging News
I realise this is a long Newsletter so I will keep the rest as brief as possible. Click on any of the following links to read more about…
Ugly robotic ‘Cheetah’ can jump over obstacles – watch the video… it’s pretty amazing! Science-fiction, creepy, scary, mind-boggling to think what it might lead to… but amazing nonetheless.
In last week’s Newsletter I described our efforts to build a solar air preheater to assist with ventilating the Greeny Flat during winter. For various reasons, we haven’t been home much over the last week so I haven’t had a chance to fully test the prototype. I did get a chance to play with a bit though and the early results are very promising. Yesterday was a nice, cool, sunny day so I gave the system a bit of a run. As you can see from the photos below, it was 12.7 degC outside and, with the fan running full bore, we were getting 41.8 degC air coming into the house from the heater panel. This means it was producing a temperature rise of 29 degC.
Temperature at inlet from solar preheater and temperature outside (circled)
This is pretty amazing! Especially because the fan was running full speed which means that the air was moving through the solar collector rapidly giving it less time to heat up. I have no way of measuring air flow but the fan is rated at 220 m3/hr. Someone who knows about thermodynamics could probably calculate how many watts of heat we were getting out of 200 m3/hr of air raised by 29 degC (if you’re reading this and can tell me the answer I would appreciate the information).
This was a very quick trial and at other times during the day I noticed that the inlet temp was in the 25 to 35 degree range. It would be very interesting to set up monitoring equipment to log the temperatures and air flows over a long period of time to figure out exactly how much heat and fresh air we could expect to gain from this inexpensive DIY project. But for now I’m content to play with it and think about ways to make it quieter and to control the fan using thermostats (as discussed in last week’s Newsletter).
Quite a few people who read last week’s article contacted me with questions about how they could heat their house with one of these. The answer is that it’s not a heating device, it’s a ventilation device. It’s purpose is to provide pre-heated fresh air to a well-sealed, energy efficient house that is kept closed during the winter to keep the heat in. Without the solar collector we could simply use a fan to blow fresh air into the building but we would lose our energy efficiency in the winter time. By using the solar collector to pre-heat the air we can maintain good indoor air quality and keep the interior humidity level under control (which reduces the chance of condensation and mould) without sacrificing our overall comfort and energy performance.
We still have more work to do to make the system quieter and more controllable but it’s going very well so far and I’ll keep you posted.
The Experiment Continues
Last month’s Earth Day Party marked the end of our first year of living in and monitoring the Greeny Flat experiment. It has been a resounding success so far and I can see no reason to stop here. It has been very instructive for me to compile the results and present them on our Results Page each month so I plan to continue doing that for anyone who is interested.
I have also added a row to show the averages per month for each of the columns. It shows that, on average we have: exported 317 kWh and imported 96 kWh of electricity per month; used 2337 L of town water and 4233 L of tank water per month; maintained a comfortable indoor air temperature between 16 degC and 26 degC while the outdoor temps have swung between 3 degC and 30 degC. In short the Greeny Flat continues to do exactly what it was designed to do.
I have also added a table that shows our running costs for the first year ($312 for an entire year!) and an explanation of those costs on the Results Page.
Pushing the Greeny Flat into the Mainstream
One of the many questions I continue to ask myself is, ‘Why don’t more people build affordable energy positive houses?’ As the Greeny Flat shows, it is relatively easy and inexpensive to build a house that is comfortable, healthy, cheap to run and much more sustainable than most Australian homes. So why do we continue to build huge, energy sucking McMansions at such an alarming rate? Part of the answer lies in inertia and the power of the status quo and part in education and exposure. I am quietly chipping away at both ends of that stick.
Energy Positive Project Home Concept
I am currently having discussions with a number of different project home building companies to see if there’s a way to apply the principles that make the Greeny Flat work so well to a mass-produced product that could be appealing to a much wider customer base and built at a very reasonable cost. It’s early days yet but I’m starting to see some signs of interest.
Sustainable Home TV Show
I’ve also put out feelers to see if there is any potential for doing a TV show aimed at showcasing the best examples of affordable, sustainable buildings and at educating the public about what is truly more sustainable (versus just Green-washing) and what is currently possible.
Renewable Energy Investment
I’ve discovered that there are very few opportunities for small investors to find a secure and decent return by investing in the renewable energy revolution that is currently occurring at home and around the world. So I’m involved in discussions with financial advisors and renewable energy experts to try to develop mechanisms to offer stable and profitable renewable energy investments to small investors. We are working on ideas for how to fund solar farms and how to encourage landlords to install solar on rental properties by utilising small investors that could profit from the promising returns available from renewable energy systems. We have nothing to offer yet but I will keep you posted as things develop.
Good Times for Solar for Small Businesses
There has never been a better time for small businesses to invest in solar power. The advantage is that businesses tend to use electricity during the day when their solar system is producing power. This means that the return on investment (ROI) for solar for businesses can be MUCH better than for homes. In fact I recently heard about a business in the Southern Highlands that is expecting a 25% ROI (i.e. a four year payback) for the system they have just installed.
Meanwhile Abbott and Hockey (isn’t it a shame that Peter Costello isn’t the treasurer at the moment so that we could all enjoy having Abbott and Costello running the country… mind you the current combination is almost as amusing) have, probably unwittingly, given a further incentive to small businesses to install solar power. The new budget includes a provision to allow small business to deduct the entire cost of expenses up to $20,000 in one hit.
So now a small businesses can install a solar power system costing up to $20,000 with an ROI of up to 25% and deduct the entire cost up front. IT’S A NO-BRAINER and I think we’re going to see a HUGE increase in the uptake of solar for SME’s (Small to Medium Enterprises) over the next couple of years. Wouldn’t it be deliciously ironic if we saw renewable energy lead an economic recovery in spite of all Abbott’s efforts to destroy it.
If you live in the Highlands and want to learn more, there will be a seminar put on by our local council entitled Solar Benefits Business on Thursday, June 4th at 5:30pm at the Mittagong RSL Club. Click here for more information and to register. You won’t want to miss it if you own a small business and if you don’t live in the Highlands you might consider forwarding the information to your own local council and requesting that they put on a similar event.
That’s all for this week.
Thanks for reading, you’re interest is greatly appreciated.
A while ago my sister, Cate, told me that she was getting quotes for a Solar Air Heater to add on to her house in Canberra. The basic idea is to use a flat-plate solar collector to heat air which is then pumped into the house during sunny winter days to a) provide fresh air during winter when the house is closed-up most of the time, b) reduce the humidity inside the house which helps prevent condensation and mould, and c) help to heat the interior with ‘free’ heat from the sun. There are a number of commercially available systems and I remember that one of these Cate was looking at was the SolarVenti system. I also remember that the installed cost seemed very high at the time. I don’t remember the exact figure but it was around $4,500 or so which I thought was a lot (and so much for ‘free heat’).
Solar powered solar air heater on ebay
Still, I liked the concept so I had a look at other options, one of which is to buy this kit on ebay for $899 and install it yourself. What I like about this kit is that it comes with its own solar panel built in. The solar panel runs the fan directly and you have the option to use a thermostat to control when the fan runs. It comes in two sizes. The smaller one is rated at approximately 250W of heat output and the larger one at 500W. The larger panel is 950mm x 1400mm x 80mm and uses a 20W fan that can move as much as 120 cubic meters of air per hour.
This unit claims to be able to increase the air temperature by 10-20 degrees C. So if the outside air temp is 10degC the air coming into the house should be between 20 and 30degC. Alternatively, with this unit you can arrange it so that it takes air from inside the house and warms it further. So, if the air inside the house is already 20degC the air coming back into the house from the heater could be up to 40degC. But if you recirculate the air from inside the house you lose the stated benefits of a) providing fresh air and b) reducing humidity.
For us in the Greeny Flat these are important considerations. On our page about ventilation I talk about the vital part that good, controlled ventilation plays in maintaining a healthy interior in a well-sealed passive solar house like the Greeny Flat. In that discussion I show a picture of the heavy condensation that appears on our windows on cold mornings IF we don’t run our exhaust fans enough in winter. I also show an image of our under-slab fresh air tube and describe how we use this to pre-heat the air that comes in to replace the air we blow out through our exhaust fans. This system works well to maintain good indoor air quality and keep the humidity level down to a healthy level. The problem with it is that we lose the heat that’s in the warm air that we blow out or the house. On our ventilation page I describe the best option for controlled ventilation which is called a ‘Heat Recovery Ventilator’. These were common and readily available in Montana where I lived for a long time but I have yet to meet one in Australia.
The next best thing for us in this sunny country seems to be to the Solar Air Heater concept. So I did some more digging around and found a TON of information on the internet. A quick search for ‘DIY Solar Air Heater’ brought up over 400,000 results and YouTube has lots of videos on the subject including the following which I found quite informative.
Around the time I was investigating all of this I was visiting a builder friend’s place and I saw a couple of old flat-plate solar hot water collectors sitting in his yard. I immediately thought they would be perfect for a solar air heater. It turned out that he didn’t want them and gave them to me, and so a new project was born. The idea being to convert a flat-plate solar hot water collector to a solar air heater. I made a 3D model of the idea and came up with the following drawing to explain it to a couple of helpers.
3D model and concept drawing for our solar air heater
Over the last couple of weekends we’ve proceeded to put the thing together and today we got it running. Here’s what the finished prototype looks like.
The finished prototype of our solar air heater. At this time of the day and year there is a fair bit of shading from the porch framing and the solar PV panel but it was still cranking out the heat.
I have posted a bunch more photos of us building the prototype on our Gallery Page if you’re interested in how we put it together. The exciting thing is that it seems to work very well. As you can see from the photos below, when we first switched it on, the outside air temp was 19.6degC, the indoor air temp was 21.7degC and the temperature at the inlet (where the air enters the house from the solar collector) was 33.7degC. So it was adding at least 14degC to the fresh air coming in from outdoors. And that was with the fan running pretty fast.
Temperature and humidity measurements during first test of the solar air heater prototype
The fan is currently connected directly to the solar PV panel which means that the speed of the fan (and the amount of air it moves) varies greatly with with the amount of sun hitting the solar PV panel. When there is full sun directly on the PV panel the fan is moving a LOT of air. I have no way of measuring exactly how much air but the fan is rated at 220 cubic meters per hour and was probably running at, or close to, full speed. Later in the day, as the sun got lower in the west and hit the PV panel less directly, the speed of the fan slowed dramatically which is exactly what we want. When there is less production from the PV panel there is also less heat being generated in the solar air collector so a slower fan speed means that the collector has more time to heat the air passing through it. In short I have to say that the first run of the prototype is a big success!
DIY Solar Air Heater Costs
I got the solar hot water heating panels for free and I already had the foam insulation, piping, wood, insect screen, and mounting hardware lying around. All I have paid for so far is the solar panel (which I got on ebay for $66 including delivery) and the fan (also on ebay for $49 inc del) making a total cost of $115.
Lessons Learned So Far and Next Steps
I took a wild guess at the size of the fan and solar panel that we would need. The cheap fan I bought is VERY noisy and probably moves a lot more air than is necessary. The next step will be to find a smaller, quieter fan that can handle variations in voltage and lengthy running times. A smaller fan will move less air but I expect that we’ll end up producing about the same amount of heat. Less air flow will mean that the air heats up more as it moves through the collector so we should see temperatures at the inlet of 40degC or more.
A smaller fan will also mean that we should be able to use a smaller solar panel which will take up less space. Ideally, the solar panel would be in a narrow strip across the bottom of the solar air collector (similar to the one in the photo at the top of the page but with the PV at the bottom to ensure that it is in full sun).
A further refinement will be to place three thermostats, one to measure the outside air temperature, one to measure the temperature at the top of the inside of the solar collector, and one to measure the air temperature inside the house. These can be used to monitor how much heat the unit produces and, more importantly, to control the fan so that it only comes on when the air inside the solar collector is warmer than the air inside the house.
This would also give us the ability to reverse the process in the summer time, i.e. to bring in fresh air when the outside temperature is cooler than the inside. By placing the solar collector panel vertically on the north wall of the Greeny Flat we have ensured that the roof overhang (which is designed to stop the sun from coming in the north windows in summer) will also shade the collector. On summer nights we could use the fan to help bring cool air into the house if we also added a battery to the system.
We might also look into filling the pipes inside the collector with a Phase Change Material (PCM) that would store some of the excess heat when the sun is hitting the panel full on, and release it again when the sun is not so strong. This could help to give us a more even temperature over a longer period of time.
Thanks to the Helpers
As you can tell, there are lots of ways we can improve on the basic prototype. First, we wanted to build it and make sure that the concept is viable before putting more time into refinements. At this point we can clearly say that the concept works and is worthy of further refinement.
Many thanks to those who have helped so far including Cate Lemann (who put the idea in my head), Colin McNeil (who donated the panels), Ben Leenders (who wired the electronics) George Lemann and Wadan Rainer (who helped put it all together).
In last week’s Newsletter we discussed the potential for the Tesla ‘Powerwall’ to revolutionise the way we think about, produce, use and store energy. Since then there has been a flurry of media commentary about Tesla’s ‘big announcement’, much of it positive and some negative. The nay-sayers claim that there won’t be much of a market for it because it doesn’t compete in price with grid power and, as a backup system during power outages, it can’t supply enough energy to run the ‘average house’ in the usual way (i.e. using loads of energy). In all of the ‘expert’ opinions flying around the internet, one thing was glaringly missing…
Whatever Happened To Energy Conservation?
Not one of the articles I read last week about the Powerwall mentioned a single word about energy conservation. In all the blather about whether or not the Powerwall could meet the energy needs of the average home, no one gave a moment’s thought to how much energy an ‘average home’ actually needs. For me this is part of a bigger picture. I often read articles about how much renewable energy we will have to produce in order to supply all of our current and projected power needs going into the future but they almost never stop to suggest that, if we got serious about conserving energy, we actually wouldn’t need that much power after all.
REDUCE, Reuse, Recycle, Renew.
No doubt you’re familiar with the above saying (at least the first three) but did you know that this is written in order of importance? When considering anything relating to sustainability the first priority is to REDUCE what we need; after that, to reuse what we have because it uses much less energy to reuse something than to recycle it; and finally, when we have our energy requirements down to the absolute minimum, we can think about how we meet those requirements from renewable sources.
Unfortunately we are globally putting the proverbial cart before the horse. The majority of government programs focus on producing renewable energy and recycling waste with very little emphasis on reusing what we already have or reducing what we think we need. There are exceptions to this (Germany’s efforts to conserve energy in buildings is a notable example) but generally it’s “Recycle, Renew… and I forget the rest”.
Almost every discussion of global energy systems talks about how much energy we will require by such-and-such a date based on ‘current growth rates’ and how we will need to produce some massive amount of renewable energy in order to keep the global economy functioning.
It’s the same with any discussion of global population. How many times have you read that ‘by 2050 there will be 9 Billion people on the planet’? …SAYS WHO? It is simply assumed that the world’s population must continue to grow at its current rate of acceleration. It appears to be completely out of the question that we might consider efforts to actually reduce the number of people on the planet or how much we consume.
K.I.S.S. My House.
In my opinion the first rule of sustainability is to Keep It Small and Simple… (K.I.S.S)…. Building a small, simple house like the Greeny Flat immediately REDUCES everything when compared to a large and complex one. From the amount of materials, money and embodied energy required for construction to the amount of time, energy and money needed for operations and maintenance… the smaller the building the more it conserves.
This concept is inherently understood by the vast majority of people in the world who simply can’t afford to build anything big or complicated to shelter themselves. But it’s also gathering momentum in more privileged communities and manifesting itself in things like The Tiny House Movement and the Minimalist Movement which is about simplifying your life (not to be confused with the Minimalist Design Movement of the 60’s and 70’s).
Meanwhile the average new home in Australia is the largest in the world at 214 sq m and real estate here is becoming less and less affordable by the minute. I simply cannot understand why we Australian’s think we need bigger houses than anyone else, but the following articles give me hope that there are plenty of people around the planet who are embracing smaller homes and simpler living. We can certainly vouch for the benefits of a small, cozy home like the Greeny Flat that is cheap to run, easy to maintain and very quick to clean. But these guys are taking it to a whole other level and, while I’m not suggesting that everyone should live in a shoe-box, there is a lot of very smart thinking in some of these projects and clever ways to make the most of a small amount of space.
This 21 sq m Micro Apartment makes very clever use of limited space
Owning Less to Live More … ‘Minimalism is a lifestyle that Australians are adopting as a reaction to the materialism that drains the earth’s finite resources. The basic premise of the movement is to live without excess possessions in order to have more meaningful and thoughtful experiences….We can’t save the world by buying stuff, we have to change the way we consume.’
US$33,000 Tiny House … ‘the Morrisons are clear that living in a tiny house is as much about lifestyle as space. They espouse an approach of minimizing belongings and clutter (without going short) and of simplicity.’
36 sq m New York Apartment … ‘living spaces are getting smaller and we need to find clever ways to make the most of the space we have. The 5:1 Apartment in New York is one such small space. It uses a sliding wall to transform itself from daytime to nighttime functionality’
38 sq m Family Home in Sydney … ‘two-bedroom unit in Potts Point the size of most living rooms highlights the importance of clever design in the worldwide trend towards small and micro apartments’
Life Edited … ‘shows how to design your life to include more money, health and happiness with less stuff, space and energy’
24 shirts in one … ‘one shirt that can be worn 24 different ways. The shirt seems perfect for those looking to both maintain a minimal wardrobe while having a semblance of variation in their look’
Better Bike Storage … ‘turn your bike into a lean, mean, small-home-friendly machine’ with FlipCrown
As the lovely Ms Hilton puts it ‘If people can see that someone like me can adopt this way of life, then they can see than anyone can. It’s like I say, every global change starts with a personal one.’
Nikola Tesla did not invent electricity but he certainly played a major role in the mankind’s efforts to produce and use the stuff. At various times he has been called ‘the father of radio, television, power transmission, the induction motor, and the robot, and the discoverer of the cosmic ray’. No wonder Elon Musk chose to honour him by naming his electric car company ‘Tesla Motors‘. If you haven’t heard of Tesla Motors by now you’re probably a hermit. News about the company and its cars is all over the media and the internet. Anyone who is even remotely interested in renewable energy is probably aware of last night’s big announcement of the release of Tesla’s new home energy storage system which is called ‘The Powerwall’.
The remarkably small and very stylish Tesla ‘Powerwall’
At first glance this may not seem like a revolution in the making. After all, it’s just a lithium-ion battery in a smart looking box, right?
Well, yes and no. Yes… it is a lithium-ion battery but no, that’s not all it is. The revolution is really in the price tag.
With a wholesale price of AUD$3,800 for 7kWh of energy storage, this baby might not seem cheap but as this excellent article from Solar Quotes points out, by the time you factor in the anticipated longevity of the Powerwall, it works out to about 1/4 the price of the current best battery option over its warranted 10 year life span.
That in itself is incredible, a 75% reduction in price in one hit! Now we can all go off the grid…Yay!
Not so fast… the Solar Quotes article also reveals some of the deeper implications for this technology and for a small Australian startup company called Reposit Power. Reposit has developed software that allows electricity customers to buy energy from the grid when it is cheap and sell it back to the grid when it is expensive (i.e at peak times). If you combine their software with the right hardware (i.e. a solar power system and cost-effective energy storage) you can potentially make a profit from your gird connection.
The Powerwall provides the piece of the puzzle that has been missing up until now, i.e. cost effective energy storage, and apparently it will be available in Australia by early 2016 with the Reposit Power software already installed.
So forget about going off the grid and start thinking of your house as a small-scale power plant that can make a profit by storing solar energy and selling it to the grid when the price is high. As Finn Peacock from Solar Quotes puts it…
‘Many people think the energy utopia is grid disconnection. It’s not. You wouldn’t disconnect your computer from the internet, and you shouldn’t disconnect your home from the grid.
The benefits of lots of solar+battery systems all connected together – sharing power and flattening power spikes – are much greater than lots of off grid solar systems working in isolation. Now, with the smarts being developed by the likes of Reposit Power – coupled with the affordable battery systems that Tesla have announced – solar owners will be able to profit from staying on the grid.’
The truly exciting thing for me about Tesla Energy is that they are not only revolutionising the way we think about, produce, use and store energy, they are doing it globally, rapidly and on a massive scale. Tesla’s sister company Solarcity is already the second biggest installer of residential solar power systems in the USA. Tesla plans to open its Gigafactory in 2017 for making batteries on an enormous scale. And they are encouraging other’s to follow their lead (to the point of releasing all their patents for anyone to use).
Don’t be surprised if, within five years or so, every house has a Powerwall or similar energy storage device, and the entire energy infrastructure as we know it today is well on the way to being replaced by renewable energy production and storage. This really could be a game-changer.
Audi Makes Diesel from Carbon Dioxide and Water
In other news, Audi has succeeded in creating synthetic diesel fuel from Carbon Dioxide and Water. Since the by-products of burning a hydrocarbon are water and carbon dioxide, it makes sense that you ought to be able to reverse the process, and that’s just what they have succeeded in doing. As this Gizmag article puts it…
‘The base fuel is referred to as “blue crude,” and begins by taking electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar or hydropower and using it to produce hydrogen from water via reversible electrolysis. The hydrogen is then mixed with CO2… and the resulting reactions produce a liquid made from long-chain hydrocarbons…analysis shows the properties of the synthetic diesel are superior to fossil fuel, and that its lack of sulphur and fossil-based oil makes it more environmentally friendly. The overall energy efficiency of the fuel creation process using renewable power is around 70 percent…’
I can imagine a day when a diesel burning machine like a locomotive or (a cargo ship) captures all of its CO2 and H2O emmissions as it travels along and delivers them to a renewable-energy-powered processing plant back at the depot (or port) which converts the CO2 and H2O back into diesel. Click here to read the full Gizmag article.
Using Your Computer to Heat Your House
This home heating device called an ‘eRadiator’ is actually a small part of a larger distributed computer server.
You probably know how hot your laptop can get when it’s sitting on your lap and you may have heard about the enormous amount of heat that large ‘server’ computers produce as they whir away doing what they do. Now a Dutch firm (appropriately calling itself ‘Nerdalize’) has developed a way to ‘ditch the usual server farm setup and put internet-connected servers in people’s homes, using the excess heat to warm the homes free-of-charge‘. The heat is free to the home-owner and the company saves money by not having to build a huge data centre… brilliant! Click here to read the whole story on Gizmag.
Our 1st Earth Day Party was a fun and encouraging event.
Thanks to everyone who came along to our 1st Earth Day Party on Wednesday evening to help us celebrate the outstanding success of the first year of the Greeny Flat Experiment. We had about fifty people come through which, considering the amount of rain we had that night, was an excellent turn out and was about all we could handle inside our little house. It made for a very cosy affair which was nice on a cold and wet evening in the Southern Highlands. We were very grateful for all the kind and encouraging comments we received from our guests. We love our little Greeny Flat and it’s nice to hear that other people appreciate it too.
What’s next?
Now that we’ve proved conclusively that it is fairly easy to build a small, simple, affordable, comfortable, energy positive, low-maintenance, elderly friendly, fire resistant and water efficient house we are looking at a number of ways to encourage more people to do the same. I have a number of consulting jobs for people who are either wanting to build their own energy efficient house or to improve the comfort and performance of their existing buildings. I have articles to write for ReNew magazine and I am involved in a strategic planning process through our local council to look at ways for our shire to encourage responsible and sustainable economic development.
This week I also started the process of talking to the big project home builders to see if I can persuade one or more of them to offer a small, simple, energy positive home as an option to their potential customers. It is going to be very interesting to see what sort of response I get from them. As I wrote in our Dec 14 Newsletter, I think that every new building in Australia should be made to be energy positive. We’ve got a long way to go to get there and it’s the project home builders that build the most number of homes each year. They have a lot of customers and they have a very efficient building process figured out. So, if I can get them interested in the concept, they might be the perfect vehicle with which to drive the Greeny Flat idea into the mainstream.
I’ll let you know how it goes…. meanwhile below are links to some interesting things I learned about this week.
More floating solar farms
Two weeks ago I wrote about a couple of floating solar farm projects, one in Brazil and one in Australia. This week I learned about a couple more being built in Japan. The more I think about it the more it makes perfect sense to place a large array of solar panels on water which helps to keep the panels cool (making them more efficient). The shade from the panels also helps to reduce algae growth in the water and evaporation from the surface. Plus, in the case of a man-made lake or pond, the land has already been inundated so why not use the same area to make electricity instead of taking over more land for the solar panels. If you were to build two ponds covered with floating solar panels, one at the top of a hill and one at the bottom, the excess power made by the solar panels during the day could be used to pump water from the lower pond to the upper one. Then when the sun isn’t shining or you need more electricity you simply let it run back down again through a generator. What a simple and elegant way to both make and store energy! Click on the following link for more on the projects in Japan http://www.gizmag.com/floating-solar-power-plant/37156/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=20ef66d781-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-20ef66d781-91792929
Smart home controller
The Oomi smart home controller.
I suppose it’s the way of the future but I’m pretty sceptical about the benefits of the ‘smart home’. Most of what I’ve seen along these lines seems to add layers of cost and complexity to buildings whereas I’m doing my best to make them simpler and more affordable. In spite of myself, I am quite impressed with what I have read and seen about the Oomi Smart Home Controller that is currently under development and should be available soon. It certainly promises to make the process of automating home controls much simpler (although it won’t be less expensive than controlling your home yourself).
The one thing I would like to be able to control automatically in our Passive Solar Home is the opening and closing of our insulated blinds in the winter time. As it is, if we know we’re going to be away from the house during daylight hours, we have to decide before we leave whether to leave the blinds open or closed. If we leave them open they’ll let the sun in to warm to house but if the sun doesn’t shine we’ll lose more heat through the windows. If we leave them closed it will keep the heat in better but it won’t let the sun in either. It would be nice to have a device that automatically opened the blinds when the sun was shining and closed them when it wasn’t. Not what the Oomi was designed for but I bet it could do it.
Energy Positive Office Building in Seattle
Seattle’s Energy Positive Bullitt Centre
It calls itself ‘The Greenest Office Building in the World’ and I think this might just be true. The Bullitt Center in Seattle has just become the first office building in the world to achieve Living Building Certification ‘the most challenging benchmark of sustainability in the built environment.’ Among a raft of other stringent criteria to meet the Living Building Challenge, the Bullitt Center had to prove that it could make more energy than it used in a year. It recently completed its first year and, like the Greeny Flat, passed with flying colours, producing 60 percent more energy than it used.
Also like the Greeny Flat (but on a much bigger and more difficult scale) the team behind the Bullitt Center wanted to show that it’s possible to build much better buildings. As CEO Dennis Hayes puts it…‘If Living Buildings can be built and operated in Seattle, the cloudiest major city in the contiguous 48 states, they can and should be built everywhere…’ and that should be doubly true for sunny Australia.
It’s a truly impressive achievement and our congratulations go out to all of those involved in making this vision a reality.
Graphene’s at it Again
In last week’s Newsletter I asked the question, ‘Is There Anything Graphene Can’t Do?’ Well, as if turning electricity into light and vice versa weren’t enough, now I read that graphene has been used to make a ‘high-density supercapacitor that ‘stores six times more energy than a conventional supercapacitor, holding more than twice as much charge as a typical thin-film lithium battery in one fifth the thickness of a sheet of paper’.
One implication seems to be that this form of energy storage could be built right into solar panels. ‘Supercapacitors are usually stacked on top of each other and packaged into a single unit, but the researchers have been able to take advantage of the thinness of their device by integrating it inside a solar cell array. In this application, it was found that the supercapacitor could quickly store electrical charge generated by a solar cell during the day, hold the charge until evening, and then power an LED overnight.’ This could really be a game changer…oh yeah, and they can also charge in seconds… oh, and it’s also completely non-toxic. Click here to read more.
I don’t mean to bore you by going on about it but the more I read about graphene the more astounded I am. ‘Graphene has unmatched capabilities in both electronic and material/mechanical capacities. For example, it has the ability to convert almost every photon that it absorbs into direct current, meaning theoretically it could be used to make the holy grail of solar cells – one that is 100% efficient. This unmatched conductivity also means it could greatly improve energy storage and transmission, meaning everything from EVs (batteries and super-capacitors, etc.) to large-scale grid storage to transmission efficiencies of power and optical communications, and other infrastructure components may become so much better as to be disruptive to existing approaches to all these things. Graphene’s ability to be formed into nanowires means it may provide the smallest and most size and speed efficient circuitry for electronics and LEDs to date, by far. Graphene is the strongest material ever measured, ~200x stronger than steel, making it extremely light and resilient, offering the possibility of making many things we use, from vehicle chassis to airframes both lighter and more durable, like carbon fiber did decades before. At one molecule thick, it is also transparent, meaning it offers possibilities in touch screens and displays and means that windows may become PV modules in time.’
The strongest material ever measured!!!! AND it can convert every photon into electrical current!!! It’s mind boggling to think what this could lead to and it will be fun to watch it develop.
The Economics of Off-grid vs Grid-tied Solar
Here’s another excellent article from Solar Quotes which takes an in-depth look at whether it currently makes economic sense to disconnect from the grid with solar power. It’s a long article and worth the read if you’re interested but the bottom line is that you ‘would save much more money with a much smaller investment by installing on grid solar rather than going off grid…And this should hold true for all on grid households in Australia.It is difficult to think of any circumstances where going off grid would currently be the better option.’
The Good, The Bad, and the AGLy.
I have read before that AGL is Australia’s largest single emitter of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) so I was astounded when I read this article from the Sydney Morning Herald which claims that AGL ‘has vowed to close all its existing coal-fired power stations by 2050 and will not build or buy new conventional plants in the meantime’. The company is also Australia’s largest single producer of renewable energy with 17% of it’s generation coming from renewables. CEO, Andrew Vessey, is quoted in the article as saying that ‘companies such as AGL need to take the lead’ in keeping global warming to less than 2degrees of pre-industrial levels.’ I wonder what Mr Abbott thinks of that statement… personally, I thought it was amazing.
But then I read this other article from the Energy Matters website about the ‘Dirty Three’; AGL, Origin Energy and EnergyAustralia who, together, are responsible for 13% of Australia’s carbon emissions.
‘The ‘dirty three’ power companies often present themselves as champions of renewable energy. They operate behind a smokescreen of sustainability that makes it hard for their customers and Australian consumers to understand the real story.”
Perhaps a signal of the ramifications of the axing of Australia’s carbon tax, the report states emissions from EnergyAustralia and Origin’s dirty power stations increased by more than 500% during the last year.
Following its acquisition of Macquarie Generation, AGL is now Australia’s worst polluter in terms of carbon emissions says the report, and emissions from AGL’s dirty power stations are now more than 20 times higher than five years ago.’
The article also claims that ‘AGL, EnergyAustralia and Origin Energy have been lobbying against Australia’s Renewable Energy Target’ which doesn’t sound like the actions of a company committed to reducing GHG emissions but does sound a lot more like the old AGL know and love to hate.
This photo shows the two electricity meters for the Greeny Flat. The one on the left shows the amount of energy we have imported from the grid since the house was built. The one on the right shows the amount of energy we have exported to the grid from our solar power system. Proof Positive!
It’s official… the Greeny Flat is energy positive… and spectacularly so!
Today is Earth Day 2015 and, appropriately, it marks the end of our first year of living in and monitoring the performance of the Greeny Flat. The photo above (taken this morning) shows the amount of energy we have imported from and exported to the electricity grid over the last year. As you can see, we have succeeded in exporting almost three and a half times as much energy as we have imported! This is far above anything we had hoped to achieve at the start of this experiment and goes to show that it really can be relatively easy and inexpensive to build a house that is energy positive.
Thanks to a very wet last month we have also managed to use about one and a half times more tank water than town water. So we have exceeded our water efficiency goal of using at least as much tank water as town water.
See our Results Table for more details about the amount of power and water we have used over the year as well as the indoor and outdoor temperature levels. This shows how comfortable the Greeny Flat has stayed (most of the time) with (almost) no additional heating or cooling apart from its excellent Passive Solar Design.
The other big success has been on the low-maintenance front where we have found the Greeny Flat to be extremely easy to clean and maintain. We can clean the entire house in about half an hour and the garden requires very little attention. Apart from maintaining the veggies in the raised beds out the front, it only requires mowing (using solar power with our electric mower) about once a fortnight or so.
Right now we’re preparing for the Greeny Flat’s First Earth Day Party this afternoon so I can’t linger. Please feel free to join us to celebrate from 3-7pm at 16A Queen St, Mittagong and keep an eye on our Newsletter for more about what we plan to do now that the we have proven the concept.
We started monitoring the performance of the Greeny Flat on Earth Day (April 22nd) last year hoping that we could make more energy than we used over a full year. This Wednesday will be Earth Day 2015 and, at the end of our first year, we will have exported to the grid almost FOUR TIMES as much energy as we have imported from it!!!
The Greeny Flat has exceeded all our expectations and we’re throwing a little party to celebrate. All are welcome to join us on Wednesday, April 22nd, from 3-7pm at 16A Queen St, Mittagong. Drinks and snacks will be provided as well as plenty of information about the Greeny Flat and how it works. Please join us and help us to spread the word.
With lots to do before the party I will keep the rest of this Newsletter as brief as possible. But I’ve come across lots of interesting things this week which I will outline below and leave it to you to follow the links if you want to know more about any of the following…
Battery Costs Dropping Fast
This article from ‘The Conversation’ details how the costs for battery storage systems are dropping faster than anyone predicted due to rapid development and growth in electric car sales. This is good news for those of us who would like to be able to store some of the excess energy we make during the day from our solar power systems for use when the sun doesn’t shine.
As with all articles on ‘The Conversation’ there is some very interesting and informed discussion in the comments that follow the article.
Green Guiness
It’s been so long since I’ve celebrated St Patrick’s Day in Australia that I can’t remember the local traditions here, including whether we drink green beer. Near where I used to live in Montana there’s a town called Butte (pronounced ‘Beaut’ although ‘Butt’ might be more appropriate) which, at one point in its history, was home to the largest copper mine in the world. Many of the people who settled there during its boom years (and have clung on ever since) were Irish. So, needless to say, the Paddy’s Day festivities in Butte are legendary. One of the customs there is for the pubs to serve green beer on the big day. They do this by adding green food dye to one of the lighter coloured lagers… I don’t think they can make Guiness go green because it’s too dark.
Now they don’t have to… as this article from Gizmag tells it, Guiness has turned itself Green (or at least they’ve made one of their breweries as sustainable as possible) which is great news for those of us who want to save the planet by drinking more beer.
Cloud Solar
Here’s a fascinating concept called ‘Cloud Solar’ which allows anyone to buy solar panels (or even as little as a quarter share in a single solar panel) and reap the economic benefits without having to actually install them on their roof. The first crowd-funded solar farm is scheduled for construction in the US this year with over $400,000 already pledge by individuals from all over the world. And they didn’t just buy a share in a solar power company, they each bought a physical solar panel which they can go and visit if they want to once the farm is built.
The FAQ section of their website states that… ‘As the panel owner, you will receive 80% of the total economic output generated. The remaining 20% is CloudSolar’s administration and management fee. In a 25-year period, the total economic output could be 300% of an initial contribution of $750.’
This probably doesn’t add up to an earth-shattering compound interest rate over twenty five years but it’s an intriguing way to fund a large-scale solar project.
Tesla to build Charging Station in Goulburn
According to this article from ‘Eco-generation’, the Tesla Car Company is planning to build a Supercharging station in Goulburn (about an hour from the Greeny Flat) to give its customers a way to charge their cars (for free) while they take a break half-way between Sydney and Canberra. This will be part of a whole network of charging stations slated to cover the south-east coast of Australia from Melbourn to north of Brisbane.
I’m sure the poor folks who forked out $97,000 – $200,000 for a Model S will be greatly relieved that they can keep their car going for free.
‘…researchers from the Institute of Photonic Sciences (Institut de Ciències Fotòniques/ICFO) in Barcelona have demonstrated a graphene-based photodetector they claim converts light into electricity in less than 50 quadrillionths of a second.’
Sounds pretty quick to me… and it’s just one of the many amazing things that graphene seems to be capable of doing. I think we’re going to be hearing a lot more about this stuff.
Thanks for reading. We hope to see you all at the party on Wednesday but if you can’t make it please remember that we are always happy to show off the house. So if you’re ever in the Mittagong area and would like to come and have a look please let us know. You can contact us here.
