Day 796 (Daily Post)
Day 796. As much as I don't really like the cold weather I have to admit that I am liking these sunny and chilly days that create optimal conditions for my solar panels to produce higher than usual amounts of electricity. The physics/science behind how it works really excites and fascinates me and the extra electricity being generated sure is nice and all but the understanding (to some degree) of the actual mechanics at play just makes me feel a bit giddy.
I tend to geek out on a lot of technology and science stuff that is really out of my depth or even my practical experience so I guess that because I actually 'get it' (understand) in regards to the efficiency of the solar panels under such conditions I can't help but feel the way that I do about it. I often think of ways to replicate those sorts of conditions throughout the year and although I do have a few interesting ideas about cooling a panel with spring water, or installing them over a pool of water, or using various materials to reflect more light onto a panel, as things are now I have a functional and (weather dependent) reliable system so the old adage about 'not fixing it if it is not broken' holds off any inclination I have to experiment.
Some day I hope to have the excess gear to be able to experiment though and see what I can come up with. It is kind of like that pumped water storage system that I have mentioned before where I want to use an independent solar panel and battery system along with a small water pump to pump water uphill to either one or several large holding tanks so that when I have incremental weather that water will act as a 'battery' to drive my micro hydro-electric turbines. Also as I have stated before this is historically one of the oldest methods of storing energy and it's not some quackery where I make more energy than I initially put in. It is just a method of storing energy for later consumption. This is especially useful in situations like my own where on days like today (where it is both sunny and chilly) I am producing more electricity than I can practically store in my batteries. A big part of that is because I am using cheap PWM charge controllers but even if I was using MPPT charge controllers that could actually utilize all the energy coming off the panels (instead of dumping the excess to the heatsink) I would still be producing excess electricity because the batteries would be fully charged rather rapidly by the MPPT controllers and they would then dump the excess to their heatsinks.
Having more or larger batteries is an obvious solution but like I said I am looking at it from the way my current scenario is and doing something (anything) with that excess energy (especially storing it for a cloudy day) would be pretty awesome. As I have also previously stated I often utilize that excess electricity by charging lithium-ion battery packs, small devices that have internal batteries and my cordless tool batteries because it is better than it just getting dumped to the heatsink but sometimes all that stuff is charged and I still have excess electricity being generated so my imagination is always speculating about what to do with it and how to find/implement practical applications for storing it.
The water system is tricky at best because I have a long run of gravity fed water that makes it into the 'yard' at low pressure but it's end-point is in a shaded area where a solar panel, battery and water pump system would be totally useless to then drive the water uphill especially because pumping water far enough up hill that it can create sufficient water pressure on it's return journey is a high energy process in itself. So I have to get the gravity fed water to an area where there is not just sun but also the appropriate terrain that features a gradual increase in Incline instead of a steep and rapid incline because then a small pump will function well and the system won't waste a disproportionate amount of energy compared to how much can be stored then later extracted via the hydro-electric turbines. Then there are also the factors of where does the overflow water go and where does the water go after it has passed through the turbines which lead me to the idea of having a pool/pond where both the overflows and the output water from the turbines could be collected then some could be recycled back into the system and be pumped back up hill and the rest could be used for irrigation purposes. Which all leads into an entirely different set of things like having fish in the pool/pond to enrich the irrigation water and then having the actual crops to irrigate.
Visualizing such systems are something my mind does rather easily and I generally iron out the details of such things by drawing detailed sketches and making lists of all the necessary components long before I get overly excited about actually implementing them. Some ideas don't really stand up to practicality but some do and I think that this particular system (which is actually several interconnected systems) is a pretty damn good one and the total cost is going to be minuscule compared to the gains. I have been slowly laying the groundwork for it all for over a year and equally slowly gathering the supplies, refining the details and telling myself 'just one damn step at a time and you will get there eventually' which is pretty much my modus operandi with everything....just one wee step after another.
Anyway it is looking like it is starting to warm up a bit outside and the early morning frost has all melted so I should probably get this edited and posted and get to doing something productive with my day. Be well and all that jazz and I will undoubtedly do the same.
