Electricity In Remote Off The Grid Areas

[Guest]

Is it possible to make my own solar power station without using expensive photonic cells ???

 

Heres an alternative to solar cells which could be built fairly easily from off the shelf hardware or second hand materials. I'm collecting this info and posting it simultaneously. So its an idea that isn't fully complete and I'd appreciate help filling in the gaps. Its advantage over many other systems is ofcourse that the power is free once its working. The most costly components are the turbine and power converter, storage batteries, adaptors and so on. It should be

 

There are other methods of utilising solar energy but for our specific needs I found the following most interesting.

 

Concentrating Solar Power.

Concentrating solar power technologies use reflective materials such as mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy. This concentrated heat energy is then converted into electricity. Concentrating solar power is the least expensive solar electricity for large-scale power generation. Aluminum foil on a flat or curved surface is the cheapest option I can think of. Not the most efficient but the energy is free and cooking foil doesn't cost a whole lot so who gives a fuck right.

 

Trough collectors sound simplest. Parabolic trough systems use curved mirrors to focus sunlight on an absorber tube filled with oil or some other fluid. Best we stick with the oil. Simple and cheap. There you go, everything so far can be found in the cooking aisle at Woolworths. In short, the hot oil boils water to produce steam, which is used to generate electricity.

 

So how do we do that exactly. The backing for the foil mirror can be anything. The high tech parabolic troughs used commercially actually follow the sun across the sky to get maximum collection of rays. Using motors and other advanced technical crap. We wont worry about that shit. The wider your parabolic trough the more rays you will catch so use something cheap and rigidly flexible like a big roll of thick plastic from your local hardware barn. Keep it in shape with fencing wire bent to a roughly parabolic shape.

 

So what the fuck is a Parabolic shape I hear you cry.

 

Aside from flat mirrors, the parabolic mirror is the most common around. It appears in everything from the household flashlight to the Hubble Space Telescope.

 

Place a light source at the focus of a parabolic mirror, and the light rays are reflected into a straight parallel beam, heading away from the mirror. Conversely, light streaming in from a far away source is reflected toward the focus. This is how a large telescope concentrates and magnifies the light from a distant galaxy. Or in our case the light from the sun is focused on the tube running along the centre of the trough.

 

Now that I've explained that we'll dispense with paraboloids altogether. I just remembered we are keeping our trough rigid so a plain half circle shape is fine. Like a split pipe. So long as its curved you'll magnify the light and direct a lot of it at the tube. Remember, the wider your collector the better.

 

For the tubing how about some copper piping if you can afford it or some cheaper metal. Paint it black for maximum heat absorption. You want a good length of it running into a big drum of water where you can coil it around and around so lots of surface area is under the water heating it up. The drum has to be tight but with a relief valve for safety reasons. With the oil filled tube have the ends stcking up high to prevent overflow is all I can think of.

 

Have a tube running off the top of your drum for steam to come out and drive your turbine.

 

From there on its like a wind turbine.

 

 

 

Here's one I finished earlier!

 

http://www.solarpaces.org/eurotrough.jpg

 

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I need to go see one of these things and find out more about the engineering so I don't blow myself up but this ramshackle description of the principle with suggestions for materials gives you an idea of what I'm trying to make. The power could go straight to your house and nobody would be the wiser about where it went after that.

[Guest]

I'm fairly certain the guts of this operation can be purchased cheaply although quite a bit of labour is involved. To get around the cost of batteries and adaptors you might try ringing the electric company. They are always looking for electricity to buy. Its a bizarre but true fact that they will often build new power lines for free to reach new energy supplies. Even after saying to potential customers that it will cost them tens of thousands to be added to the grid. They will pay you for all the electricity you add to the grid and you can buy grid power at night or when its cloudy. Works out real cheap and the value of your property goes up too.

[everest]

hey chong , you might be better working out a device to rip the power company off , i know in the uk you can buy a black box , it changes the polarity of your electricity meter and spins the dial in reverse . i'm looking into options here in oz , right now , anyways keep thinking man , g luck .

[Ozzy420]

Hey chong it will turn out a lot more than u think as the batterys u need to store the power are a few hundred each and u will need a few of them too keep a house running as well to be running a hid, i dont know vweey much about this but i can bet u mate it will run into qiute a few dollars to do it, solar power is good but it is in most cases a costley thing to set and most stoners just aint got that sort of money, but hay dont let me put u off this just my 2cent worth on it i hope u can do it for next to nothing, good luck with it mate.

[Guest]

You don't need it to go in reverse Everest. That will look mighty suss if you over do it. What you want is to keep your bill low. Simple magnets do the trick. The needle is metal so whack a shit load of magnets on your meter and it will just stop. People have been doing this for years mate. The only way you can get caught is if the electric company come out to read your meter and see the magnets. Then your fucked. So what I always do is keep a big dog in the yard and a sign outside warning visitors. The electric company will then call you and say when they are coming around. Before or after tying up the dog you take the magnets away and stiock them on the fridge or whatever.

 

The power station I'm working on is for out of the way places without access to the grid. Remote yet prone to helicopter searches. Thats practically everywhere outside of the main cities and towns.

 

I know the batteries cost a lot ozmade but I think this is a lot cheaper than solar panels. Since the objective is to conceal the plants from aerial reconaisance while giving them light it might be possible to just use a converter and rig a timer to a single battery. So the power goes straight from the system to the lights and is switched on automatically. It will be like growing outdoors.

 

Anyway, like I said earlier, the power company will build telegraph poles up Everest to get at new energy supplies. Tell them you have electricity to sell and they will put you on the grid almost for certain.

 

An electrician told me and a class of tafe engineering students how a mate of his had built a house up a mountain. He called the power company and was told it would cost 20,000 dollars to get lines to his property! So he declined and spent the money on solar instead. It worked beautifully. So he had power and never got a bill. Only problem was he had too much electricity and didn't know what to do with it. So he called the power company again and asked if they would be interested in buying his surplus electricity. They replied that they sure would and built lines to his property for FREE. Now he is on the grid with mains supply AND has solar power which he gets paid for. All his power goes to the grid and he takes whatever he needs from the grid. He gets the best of both worlds and is getting paid by the power company.

 

So fuck the batteries. Try ringing the electric company first.

[gunjaponic]

The little disk than spins in an induction meter is regulated by `brake magnets'.

 

Over time these `brake magnets' get fucked if you put foreign magnets on the outside in an attempt to slow them down - and the meter will spin faster than it should when you pull them off.

[Guest]

Really? How long does it take? Thats useful knowledge. By spin faster what do you mean? It goes faster than normal until I put the magnets back on? That should be ok. I only take them off for a day when I know the meter reader is coming along. Sounds like it will take a few years before the meter is fucked and then an electrician will just come out and replace the worn parts. Thanks for the heads up. Something to keep in mind.

[Guest]

Alternative method of turning heat into electricity.

 

Thermocoupling.

 

A thermocouple is used as a sensor for measuring temperature and a way of making electricity from the heat of Plutonium in nuclear satellites. It consists of two dissimilar metals, joined together at one end, which produce a small unique voltage at a given temperature. When the temperature of the two metals is different the voltage increases. Simple as shit. Two metals joined at one end. Our metal pipe full of hot oil is one. Join it to another kind of metal and you have voltage. Put that other end in a dam to increase the disparity in temperatures and you get more power.

 

No need for complex steam turbine systems that have to be frequently topped up with water. The heat can instead be applied to a thermocouple, which generates electricity directly from that heat, with no moving parts.

 

Use the power directly through an adaptor and you are done. I'd buy a couple of car batteries for $70 bucks each and use them to power a timer to control the light regimen and watch a bit of TV in the evenings.

 

Its a bit more complex but a light sensor would also be a good addition to the system. If there is too much cloud and the lights wont get enough power then the sensor could override the timer by operating a secondary switch. Its no good having your expensive lights flickering on and off uncertain whether they want to work. It takes 5 minutes just to warm up an HPS.

[Tom]

If it is possible in your area how about wind or hydro generation? Also, if you put up a porch with a laser light roof would you be able to grow under there?

[Guest]

Not much wind where I'm thinking of growing. No water at all. The creeks run about 2or 3 weeks a year I reckon. Laserlite is pretty fucking expensive. Be alright if it worked. Does it? Thats what I'm after a simple low maintenance way of getting light to the plants without those plants being visible.