DIY energy project solar hot water project
http://www.voltscommissar.net/index.html
DIY Baseload Renewable Energy Project (a do-it-yourself solar hot
water project) A solar water heater on every Australian home within
the decade, would be eight million units, saving about 32 million
tonnes CO2 annually, compared to present day coal or gas powered water
heating. Over time, it is as cheap as present-day off-peak
electricity, and would be equal to three 1000MW nuclear power
stations, but much cheaper, and without any radioactive waste.
Politicians continue to LIE REPEATEDLY when they assert "Australia
must go nuclear, because there is no cost effective baseload renewable
technology yet." Get your plumber to put this system on your roof, and
prove what liars they are!
The Mini Maximiser is a simple electronics construction project. This
amazing gadget squeezes the best performance from solar photovoltaic
cells, especially in the applications of driving electric motors, air
fans and/or water pumps under conditions of partial sun or even bright
overcast conditions. Electronic hobby stores can supply the necessary
parts, and here is how to make one. It is an integral part of the DIY
solar hot water project (above), but has many other uses (see next
project!).
Prototype off-grid cooling system: Free plans for empowering
consumers with a solar powered evaporative cooler. It has the
potential to save lives during a heatwave, if market forces cannot
deliver reliability of supply to the elderly and young children during
extreme summer weather. Build your own for US$500 with these free
plans. That's for regular summer use, but if you choose to run the
unit briefly only during emergency situations, it can be operated from
an ordinary 12 volt car battery for up to twelve hours. The cost
without any photovoltaic solar panel is then reduced to around US$150.
A "heat scavenger" experiment, seemingly able to recycle 75% or more
of the waste heat down the plug hole of your daily shower
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Them's fightin' words:
Basslink is an HVDC undersea electricity cable about to link Tasmania
to Australia's east coast "National Electricity Market", and has
frightening potential to increase Australia's greenhouse gas
emissions: "Basslink sucks coal out of the ground." would be fair
comment, according to this analysis.
Do power stations cause severe bushfires? Local tropospheric plumes
from power stations could be "seeding" regional forests with carbon
during wet seasons, and severely exacerbating bushfires during
subsequent el Nio droughts.
Wind energy development in Australia is about 20 years behind Europe
and the USA. Most of the coastline of the Australian continent has a
world-class wind resource, currently only being exploited in a few
scattered places. To keep abreast of recent developments, visit the
Australian Wind Energy Association's web site.
A donation to the Alternative Technology Association's Renewable
Energy Development Trust is a highly effective way to support
environmental education and sustainable development. Donations from
Australian residents are tax deductible. Simply make a cheque out to
"Renewable Energy Development Trust" and snail-mail it to Alternative
Technology Association, PO Box 2001, Lygon Street North, Brunswick
East, 3056 Australia. A special receipt will be promptly returned to
you: retain it for tax time!
A solar water heater on your roof can save up to 5,000 kg of CO2 every
year (this claim is based on fifteen years' monitoring of my own 5m2
solar water heater in suburban Melbourne, compared with a standard
"off-peak" electric water heater.)
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Supply voltage affects electricity customers:
Voltage Primer: 6 min. radio interview. Audio introduction to the
supply voltage story, hear the radio interview (MP3 format or
RealAudio format) of Michael Gunter, broadcast on 5AA Adelaide 11th
August 2000. Interviewer: Leon Byner. The audio copyright holder is
Bilote Pty Ltd, whose permission to have the audio files online is
acknowledged with thanks.
Overview document on voltage, Issue Number 68 of ReNew magazine (click
here to view the cover) contains a controversial article, detailing
how increased supply voltage can substantially increase your
electricity bills.
Federal Court hands down decision on "electricity as a good"
(commodity). September 2001: Mr Justice Finn's judgement went online
at Austlii. In a nutshell, the Competition and Consumer Commission won
on the complex legal technicalities. The ESAA technical expert reports
and affidavits to the Federal Court appeared to have serious factual
errors and omissions regarding the physical properties of electricity,
and specifically the way that voltage can affect customers' power
bills was completely ingnored due to the failure to mention Ohm's Law
or its implications for consumers' energy bills. The Expert's
description of current, power and voltage was particularly
"illuminating" (!):
159. The voltage of the supply is a measure of the power which is
given up by 1 Ampere of electric current moving from the active to the
neutral conductor. [sic, double checked] The voltage is always present
while the power system is healthy.
The court case is disappointing that it has not adequately addressed
the technical issues, but at least now that the judgement has been
handed down, consumers are free to challenge the electricity industry
through the courts to recover money that has been paid in excessive
power bills. Overbilling is due to the distribution networks being
operated, whether intentionally or not, at an average voltage which
has been set at a significantly higher voltage than the product
description (240 volts, soon to be 230 volts), where the industry
demonstrably has the infrastructure to provide the correct lower
voltage if they chose to do so.
*** WARNING *** Any person who is curious about the electricity supply
voltage to their house MUST NOT attempt to measure the voltage UNLESS
they are over 18 years of age, have extensive experience and/or
qualifications to handle lethal voltages, and their mental abilities
are not impaired by fatigue, alcohol or drugs. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!
In late August 1999 the Victorian Regulator-General convened a
technical meeting between myself and two electricity distribution
businesses. My 20-minute presentation is now online here: Voltage is a
Market Issue. It shows how a three per cent increase in average supply
voltage from 240 volts to 247.5 volts could easily be costing
commercial and domestic customers in this state (Victoria, Australia)
$60 million in extra electricity alone. Then there's the cost of all
the blown light globes and appliances with a shortened lifespan....
Experimental proof: a table here shows exactly how much the running
costs of a range of home and office appliances can be increased by a
high voltage supply to your premises. Ohm's Law has not been repealed
by electricity privatisation.
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Document Archive.
1.In 1987 the Victorian Wind Monitoring Study Report was published. It
seems to have had a very limited distribution. To redress this
situation, an electronic version can now be viewed here (with
important notes, containing links to wind data files).
2. New evidence against Daylight Savings Time. This data from official
Australian electricity industry sources demonstrates a significant
effect of Daylight Savings Time has in flattening the daily load
profile of electricity consumption in Victoria, Australia. The author
concludes that this plays into the hands of baseload electricity
generation companies, by facilitating their market penetration
(presently running at over 80% of market share). Baseload generators
are generally more polluting in terms of greenhouse gas emissions or
intractable nuclear fission waste, and on environmental grounds it
would be better to (i) abolish Daylight Savings Time, (ii) reduce
off-peak and night-time voltages to 230 volts to honestly reflect the
new Voltage Standard AS 60038, and (iii) slap a hefty carbon tax or
fissile waste tax on all off-peak electricity tariffs. What is the
point of having allegedly "cheap" electricity if the technology is
poisoning the planet for future generations?
3. Submission to the 1999 Australian Senate Inquiry into the adequacy
of Australia's response to global warming. Synopsis: not adequate, not
even totally inadequate, but worse!!: a bunch of greedy corporatists
being enthusiastically counter-productive!!
4.2% renewable electricity by 2010. The scheme chosen by the
Australian Greenhouse Officewill have a profound impact on the final
cost. Market distortions must be removed to allow the true value of
distributed electricity generation ("embedded generation") to be
transacted.
5.Wind farms are coming. Exciting economic prospects for Victoria wind
energy. This analysis claims that wind energy looks attractive even in
the current depressed wholesale market (NEM1).
6.Karlsson and Hill "Modelling and identification of nonlinear dynamic
loads in power systems" from IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Vol.
9, No. 1, February 1994. A zipped, user-unfriendly hypertext/facsimile
version is available here to download and view (838kB: unzip to a
temporary folder and start with file "new-0.htm"). Wording in the
abstract, and the discussion that followed, both seemed to caution the
reader to use the information only for the purpose of "system
stability analysis". But of course, the clear demonstration of the
increased volume, and therefore cost, of electricity delivered at a
higher voltage is of vital interest to the customer. A scientific
paper should not try to restrict the uses to which the information is
put.
7.Specialist Industry Magazine Electricity Week (Australia) Volume 24,
No. 12 (317 kBytes Adobe Acrobat file). Two important voltage problems
are extensively covered in this document: the effect of high steady
state voltages on the running cost of existing appliances, and the
likely increased running cost for appliances manufactured to a
proposed new 230 volt standard. The synergistic effect of these
changes could lead to an 18% increase in running costs, unless the
regulatory authorities mandate the lowering of steady-state voltages
in line with the new 230 volt appliance rating standard.
8.The Australian Broadcasting Corporation web site has a science forum
called "Self Serve Science" where a lively debate ran for much of 1999
on what excess voltage can do to your power bill. A table of contents
(no frames) on the ABC site allows you to view a wealth of archived
material on their discussion forum.
9.Browse this document folder for a selection of other DIY energy
projects, copies of published articles, and a smorgasbord of
curiosities like: a pre-911 diatribe against US hubris by Richard
Neville: "americanpsycho.pdf".
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Feedbackalways welcome.
End of page....last updated Monday, 11th December 2006.
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