The Greening of Gavin

Fun with the Sun

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Today, I volunteered to help man the Alternate Technology Association (ATA) Solar Trailer at the yearly Djerriwarrah Festival here in Melton. The trailer is now looked after by the Ceres Community Environment Park, and is taken to shows and festivals all around Victoria. I had the pleasure of spending the day with Bruce McKenzie, who works for Ceres part time, and helps spread the word about wonders of renewable energy.

I arrived at 0900 to find the trailer like this.

It took Bruce and I about 40 minutes to make it look like this.

Here are some of the features of the trailer. First the wind turbine.

It is a 400 watt Air-X Marine 12 volt wind turbine. As it wasn’t very windy, we didn’t get to see it in all its glory. There was one time however that a big gust of wind whipped up, and the turbine started whirring. It scared half of the festival goers half to death, myself included. Even though it looked like it was spinning at a fair rate, it was only producing about 20 watts. Apparently, it has to be very windy for these turbines to produce their rated output. As it was only stuck on a 3 metre mast, and placed next to a building, it didn’t have a chance at getting up to speed. Bruce told me that in a windy position and on a 18 meter mast, this turbine was far better value for money than solar.

Next are the solar panels.

These three 75 watt, 17 volt panels were connected to the trailer, where the DC current was passed through a regulator, then into a 200Ah sealed lead acid battery. The energy from the battery was then fed into a 240v AC inverter, which produced enough current to work all of the displays in the trailer. There were also two other solar PV on the roof of the trailer, but I forgot to ask what these were rated at. The displays inside the trailer were focused on educating the public about energy efficiency. The first was about energy efficient lighting.

You can see by the photo, that there is a watt meter surrounded by 4 light switches. Each switch corresponded to a different type of light bulb. The incandescent sent the needle of the meter hard to the right, and the warm light CFL hardly moved the needle at all. I wish this sort of display was replicated at all lighting shops. Maybe the general public would then see the light about the energy that can be saved by installing CFL’s throughout their homes.

The regulator (little black box on the red panel) and Inverter (blue box) are pictured to the right. You can see my spare camera batteries charging in the power socket! The 200Ah battery is the big gray box sunken into the trailer. It has the red and blue caps on it. Above the Inverter are two amp meters that measure the current input from both the solar panels and the wind turbine. As it was a fairly cloudy day, we were producing on average about 100 watts (6 amps x 17 volts). Certainly enough to keep the battery charged throughout the day.

The other energy efficiency display demonstrated the power consumption of tools and appliances.

There was a power drill, blender, toaster and a cassette radio. The Toaster was the biggest consumer, and all the kids who visited the trailer loved to have a go at this one because it made the most noise!

One of the other displays that drew a lot of attention was the solar water pump.

Basically, this was two small solar PV panels connected to a bilge pump submersed in a bucket that fed back into itself via a tap. A closed system, just to demonstrate that you can use the sun to pump water. It would be useful on a farm to pump water from a tank to water troughs or some similar application. One person even told us that we were wasting water! We had to explain that it was a closed system.

Some of the other table displays were an evacuated solar hot water tube, that you fill up with water and it just about boils.

It is marketed as a Solar Billy, and you can take it camping and make a cuppa from the suns energy. Here is the thermometer showing that the water was at 56.6 degrees C. Pretty good for tap water that started at 10 degrees, and being a cloudy day as well. By the time we packed up, the temp of the water was at 72 degrees C. Certainly hot enough for a cup of hot tea.

Next to the tube is a Pyranometer which measures the amount of energy that the sun produces per square meter. It was hovering on about 600 watts for most of the day. To the left of the Pyranometer is a display to show kids about the heat absorption properties of different coloured metals, giving them an explanation of why most solar hot water collectors are black in colour.

On the other table, we had a few nifty gadgets.

There is a hand dynamo that produced 12 volts DC with a current strong enough to power a 12 v fan. The kids all had a go at that one. The faster you turned it, the more current they produced and therefore the faster the fan spun. Next to the fan to the right, is a great little toy the demonstrates two things. Firstly a solar cell generates power to split distilled water into its two component atoms of one oxygen and two hydrogen. The gas was stored in the two plastic tubes in the centre. The hydrogen and oxygen were then combined in a fuel cell and generated power to turn a small fan. This demonstration showed that solar energy can be stored in the form of a gas, that can be then utilised at a later time. It was a pretty cool display, and we received the most interest from it. Most people had heard of hydrogen powering prototype cars, but none had actually witnessed how it all worked. I was impressed with the simple technology, and wondered why this was not available in the mainstream right now. I suppose it is the oil companies who want us to keep using fossil fuels in our transport systems that keep this type of technology suppressed.

The last display was a Micro Hydro generator.

It was an older model, and in this instance it had a pump connected to it to demonstrate the amount of pressure that was required to generate electricity. It requires a 15 meter head (height of the water above the generator) to work at its rated output. We guessed that it was rated at about 400 watts, so if you have a stream on you property that you can divert a little of the water, then this is an ideal system for you.

That was about it for displays at the trailer. We had a lot of people enquire about PV systems, and how big did they need to be to power their house, how much did they cost, what were the available rebates, which type of solar hot water was the best, and so on. There was a fair bit of interest by a few keen visitors who were obviously doing their own research about purchasing Solar PV for their homes, and I think they just need some confirmation from someone who had done it before. I certainly had no hesitation sharing my experiences with Solar PV, and gave it a glowing big thumbs up for the area we live in.

There were a few other displays in the Environmental hub area where we were set up. Across from us was the compost and mulch tent.

They had examples of how a compost bin worked, and how to make good compost. There was a cut-away showing the insides of a plastic compost bin, and a worm farm.

Pretty cool I thought. It even had plastic worms working their way through the plastic food scraps.

We also had a visit from Vasli from the SBS TV show Vasili’s Garden. He was very entertaining, and played the piano accordion whilst getting everyone up to do the zorba dance.

There were a few other tents, one from the Melton Environment Group, showing native fauna from around our district, and of course the snake tent, which must have been the most popular display at the entire festival! The kids and teenagers flocked to it like bees to a honey pot. It is amazing what interests some people. I personally thought the solar power was far more exciting, because once you have seen and run away from as many snakes as I have as a kid, they really don’t hold that much interest any more.

All in all, a great way to spend a Saturday, promoting renewable energy. I hope the people of my town got something out of it, and I thank Bruce for bringing the solar trailer to our yearly festival.

Solar Is The New Sexy

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Call me crazy, but I think that solar panels are a thing of beauty. That is especially on a brilliant sunny winters day like today.


I often stand and stare at the 16 panels that are mounted on my carport roof (the above photo was taken about a week after the installation by my daughter), and admire the technological brilliance and the manufacturing effort that went into making them. My solar installer, Energy Matters, imported them from Japan, as they were made by Sharp and not made in China like a lot of panels these days (it said made in Japan on the boxes they came in). The panels must have been made in a massive factory, hopefully powered by the very same modules that they manufacture, but do you think I could find a video of how they are made in said factory. The answer, alas, is no. However, I did find this cute little video on youtube that demonstrates how a small factory in the US makes solar panels from imported solar cells.

Six panels a day, can you believe it. I suppose when these things sell between $1200-$2000 each for the high wattage type, they would make enough profit to be viable.

Which leads me to another twist on the subject. I was contacted by the Alternate Technology Association the other day, of which I am a member, and was asked if I would like to participate in a survey. I jumped at the chance to share my experience.

A nice gent called Bob Johnstone gave me a call on Saturday morning, and we when through the list of questions. Here standard questions direct from the initial email. My responses are in blue.

The case studies will look into:

– motivation for installing solar system

Purely environmental, I wanted to make my house carbon neutral or as close as we could.

– the obstacles to installation (cost, information, location)

The information was all out there on the Internet, you just had to look for it. The $8000 PV rebate from the government helped, but I had planned the installation before the rebate was doubled in the May 2007 budget. I secured a loan at a slightly reduced rate for the installation.

– how household electricity consumption has changed since installation

Well, we have now generated 3.6 Megawatts of power since installation in September 2007. I believe that we export between 80-90% of the energy to the grid each day. We draw back from the grid during the night and are signed up with Origin Energy 100% GreenPower.

– how the feed-in tariff legislation affected plans to install

Firstly it made me angry because my system is rated at 2.8kW and the tariff in Victoria is capped at 2kW, so basically I won’t see a cent from the legislation. Once again it was not my motivation whatsoever for the installation.

– how the tariff impacted solar homes who installed systems before the introduction of the legislation

Don’t think Bob asked this question?

– what govt. incentive homeowners need to install more solar

I believe that the legislation needs to be changed from a net metering scheme to a gross feed in scheme, and remove the cap. That would drive installations through the roof, very similar to schemes in Germany, Spain and some US states. I also believe that the State Government needs to stop kowtowing to the Coal industry and Power companies.

– future plans for solar installation, in light of tariff (additional panels, disconnection, saving for future)

I have been told by my installer that I have room for 6 more panels on my system and that my grid-connect inverter could handle the extra wattage, so further down the track I may add extra to the system. However, I have found that as my kids begin to leave home, the energy consumption in our home reduces, so by the time the adult kids leave home, we might not need any extra wattage. We had a quick discussion on how to encourage adult children to leave home, and had a laugh about it!

– future plans for solar installation irrespective of tariff

None as yet, but I have hear on the grapevine that people are actually thinking about reducing their systems Kilowatt rating so that they come under the tariff cap. The state government are supposed to be promoting renewable energy, but obviously have their heads so far up the power and coal companies bums that they are scared to be bold and have the courage to make Victoria a world leader in renewable energy. I have been keeping an eye on a simple stand alone wind energy system, and am hoping that they will come down in price. That way I will have some power if I loose connection to the grid. Or I could simply modify my existing system but don’t have the funds for either at the moment.

Bob then thanked me for my participation, and I thanked him for allowing me to participate and have my say, and hoped that the information was useful.

I felt pretty good after the interview, which inspired me to write this post. Hope you enjoyed it.

The Solar Revolution – Photovoltaic

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During our Eco House challenge for electricity we determined that for Autumn, Winter and Spring, that our average daily usage was 14 Kilowatt hours (kWh) per day. Not bad for a family of six, I thought as the daily Australian average was 16.44 kWh. Still, I knew we could do better than that. As over 90% of Victoria’s electricity is generated by brown coal which vomits 1.2 Kg of CO2 into the atmosphere for every kilowatt hour generated, we had changed to GreenPower from Origin Energy in January 2007. They had a deal at the time, whereby if you stayed on GreenPower for 12 months then you would receive one months free electricity in the 13th month. It was a good start, but I yearned for more. I wanted to generate my own power from renewable sources.

I set myself a goal that I wanted to generate at least 65% of our own power, and I believed that as the kids began to leave home (one can only hope!) then our energy consumption would drop and the total percentage of generated power would rise. That was the theory and the long time plan.

I researched extensively on the subject of renewable energy, and studied Photovoltaics (PV), Wind, Mini Hydro (I was thinking of what to do with the pool water in winter), and even had a look at steam power! I figured that my house was best suited to photovoltaics as I had the roof space and did not have the land are that wind required or suitable conditions for wind. Besides, I didn’t want my neighbours taking pot-shots at a noisy wind turbine.

Now that I had decided on PV grid connect, I had to figure out how size of the system we required to hit my 65% goal, and how much we could afford. To determine this we need to find out how many peak sunlight hours we received in our area. The Government “Technical Manual – design for lifestyle and the future” was a good resource for this type of thing and I discovered that we received about 4.6 peak sun hours. We live about 50 Km west of Melbourne, and have less rainfall than the city, so I was hoping that the peak sun hours would be more like 5 for our area. So all I had to do was multiply peak sun hours by the kilowatt rating of the system and you get the average kilowatt hours produced by the system per day. So as I needed about 14-15 kWh per day, I calculated that we needed a 2.8 kW PV system (5 * 2.8 = 14). I now asked for a quote from three installers and they ranged from $30,000 to $40,000. The $30,000 quote came from a company called Energy Matters based in South Melbourne. I was the first customer from Melton! They came and did a site survey to see if they could fit a system that large on my house, and told me that I could only get about 6 panels on the main roof. However, they could fit about 20 on the garage roof and it had a northerly aspect with very little shading from trees. With that settled and the quote firmed up, all I had to do was find the money!

I was aware of the Federal Governments decision in the 2007 budget to increase the PV rebate from $4 per watt up to 1kW to $8 per watt up to 1kW. So therefore I would receive back $8000 as a rebate. That was $8000 less I had to find. Also I discovered that my system would generate enough renewable energy to receive about $1400 in Renewable Energy Certificates (REC’s), which I could sell on the market. So the total amount I had to borrow was $20,300 to pay for the system. Energy Matters said that they would take the PV rebate as part of the payment and all I had to do was sign the rebate over to them after installation. I also was entitled to discount of $300 as I was a member of the Alternate Technology Association (ATA). By being a member I also received a subscription to “Renew” magazine which focuses on renewable energy systems. It also helped me understand what I was getting into.

I managed to successfully apply for a personal loan after a lot of hassle with one of our banks, and received a small interest rate discount for being a staff member. I paid the deposit and applied for the PV rebate via Sustainability Victoria in the first week of July 2007. Energy Matters told me that it would probably take 6 weeks for approval, however, Sustainability Victoria replied back within 5 weeks with the approval to go ahead. There was a slight delay after the approval because all of the components had to be sourced from Japan and Germany. I thought at the time, why couldn’t the equipment be manufactured in Australia? Apparently, reliability is the issue for outdoor system. My grid connect inverter would be exposed to the elements. I did find this hard to believe!


Anyway, the installation date was set for August 25th, and after many frustrating days of waiting, the day finally arrived. I took the day off of work so that I would watch the installation. it was a very cool and windy day and the wind got stronger as the day went on. The three installers decided to postpone putting up the panels until later on in the week and we all agreed that this was for the best as I didn’t want any of the guys flying off of the garage roof like a kite holding on to a panel. However, they worked tirelessly to ensure that all of the frames for the panels and all of the electrical work was completed on the first day. This included the installation of the Fronius IG 30 grid connected inverter. The next window of opportunity was the 4th of September. They had everything ready to go and I even stored the 175 Watt Sharp Solar panels in the shed for a week.

The final day arrived and it was a wonderful sunny day. Two installers returned as promised and it took them most of the day to fit the 16 panels and to wire them up to the junction box on the roof. At about 3pm, it was installed in its entirety, and I had the gracious honour of throwing the main breaker. It was a wonderful feeling to watch the inverter start up and then synchronise with the power grid. It registered 1850 watts at that time of day. We all ran over to the electricity meter in the main switchboard, and sure enough the meter was spinning backwards as we were not utilising that amount of power at the time. I was elated!


I thanked James and Jan and after they had packed up they departed. I must have stared at the display on the inverter for about 30 minutes when I had a brilliant idea. I raced inside and presented a chilled bottle of Rose and two glasses to Kim, and we toasted the PV system and the power of the Sun. We both were ecstatic and stayed in the garage until sunset and watched the inverter power off. We went to sleep that night very happy with ourselves.

Over the past 7 months we have generated 2.3 Megawatt hours of clean electricity and are producing 64.3% of our own power needs. When we reach the 1st anniversary of the system we will have a better indication of our generating capacity. It is in the Summer months that we consume the most due to air-conditioning, ceiling fans, and longer operating hours for the pool pump. I believe that we will ultimately generate between 75 and 80 percent of our electricity needs, but only time will tell.


On a final note, the PV system has had an unexpected effect on all the family. By generating our own energy, we began to respect all of our power usage much more than our simple effort of energy efficiency. Lights and appliances began to turn off without a word from me, and the kids all became power savers instead of power wasters. All a fantastic effect if you ask me as all family members are now energy conscious!