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sunburnt
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#21 Post by sunburnt »

Caneri; If it`s a thick electrical cable like a water pipe it may be 60 amps...

So if it`s 30 amps at 330 volts, that`s 10,000 watts of power!!!
That seems like a lot, enough to run an energy efficient home!
( Switched use of the A.C., electric stove / oven, and clothes dryer. )

Caneri
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#22 Post by Caneri »

Yup sunburnt it's 10,000 watts or 10kW/h as far as I know and the cable is approx 1/2 inch (including casing) with 3 or 4 leads to the main breaker then on to the transformer

So it should do 10,000 watts every hour in pristine conditions.

More to come when I understand it all.

Eric
[color=darkred][i]Be not afraid to grow slowly, only be afraid of standing still.[/i]
Chinese Proverb[/color]

tlchost
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#23 Post by tlchost »

Caneri wrote:Hiya Thom, you old hillbilly, fish eatin', piss me off, fresh fish access kind 'O guy. I hope you are well..... after that bad mouthing...
Man....what an accurate description! Yea, I'm as well as can be expected for an old curmudgeon. Trust you are well also.
I would like some UFO to save us from ourselves to put "peace" back into the equations and not just how long to stop war
Would be nice....and as probable as the folks in Redmond getting out of the computer biz.

T

Sylvander
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#24 Post by Sylvander »

1.
Caneri wrote:it's 10,000 watts or 10kW/h
As someone who was educated/trained/worked in Engineering...
If I can still remember...My old brain tends to fail to remember all that detail.
My understanding is...
(a) Watts are a RATE...
Like a flow rate...[e.g. gallons per minute]
Or a rate of production or usage.
(b) kW-hrs [there is no such thing as kW/hr]...
Is a QUANTITY.
(c) e.g. If you use electrical energy [Joules] at the rate of 10,000 Watts...
i.e. 10,000 Joules per second.
And you do that for 1 second...
You will have used 10,000 Joules = 10,000 watt-seconds
[A Watt is a Joule per second, a Joule is a Watt-second, i.e. a Watt expended for 1 sec]
(d) 10 kW-hrs = 10,000 watt-hours = 10,000 x 3,600 = 36,000,000 watt-seconds = 36,000,000 Joules = 36 Mega-Joules = 36 MJ.

And...
2.
Caneri wrote:So it should do 10,000 watts every hour
(a) Imagine cars travelling past a given point on a motorway:
Lets say there were 10,000 cars passing every hour.
And I invented a name for the RATE at which cars were flowing/passing.
Lets say cars-per-hour = cph.
[Like the name "watts" in the case of electricity]
Then I shouldn't say there are 10,000 cph every hour...
Unless what I mean is that there is a constant rate of flow...
It's the same every hour.
Only then might I reasonably say the there are 10,000 cph...
Not just this hour...
Or that hour...
But EVERY HOUR.
Actually, its every minute, of every hour, of every day, of every month, of every year.
Why choose to mention hours alone?
Doesn't make sense.
What you'd normally say is...
That the flow rate is a fairly constant/unvarying 10,000 cph.

(b) And one-hour of flow at 10,000 cph-hour =10,000 cars.
i.e. A total flow of 10,000 cph over the period of a single hour...
Is a total flow [which is a quantity not a RATE] of 10,000 cars.

2. Does that lot make any sense?

Caneri
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#25 Post by Caneri »

Thanks Sylvander,

Hope you are well.

Makes more sense then my guessing about it.

I never studied the math side of electricity even though I do wiring jobs from time to time.

Eric
[color=darkred][i]Be not afraid to grow slowly, only be afraid of standing still.[/i]
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RetroTechGuy
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#26 Post by RetroTechGuy »

aarf wrote:marvelous :D .
big commercial solar seems to be heading to those parabolic trough type reflector that boil stuff.
often wish i had the motivation and ability to actually do material things:)
Heat is a useful route, if you can convert it to electrical energy with some ease.

Most of the solar spectrum in not at a wavelength that is useful for PV systems (and heating actually decreases their output).

Bulk heating can consume all wavelengths.
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Aitch
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#27 Post by Aitch »

Sylvander/others

Watts isn't the originator of rate at all...it is the power of the pressure in volts MULTIPLIED BY the rate of flow of current in amps

Formula: P(watts)=E(volts)xI(amps)

The water analogy explains it

Watt-hrs is the number of hours the power has been flowing/is used/created

http://science.howstuffworks.com/enviro ... ion501.htm

Joules is a measure of the energy

http://ezinearticles.com/?Watts,-BTU,-J ... id=3883976

We used to measure energy in Btu, which equated to HP more easily, as 746watts=1HP=2545 Btu/hr

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/p ... y99x45.htm

ha ha, that's possibly added to the confusion...[I'm old school]

sorry to be late with the response guys

Aitch :)

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RetroTechGuy
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#28 Post by RetroTechGuy »

Aitch wrote:Sylvander/others

Watts isn't the originator of rate at all...it is the power of the pressure in volts MULTIPLIED BY the rate of flow of current in amps

Formula: P(watts)=E(volts)xI(amps)

The water analogy explains it

Watt-hrs is the number of hours the power has been flowing/is used/created
And so, you want to accumulate enough "gallons" to keep you going during the dry period.

Using that, at 10 kW, you accumulate ~ 10 kW-h of energy each hour at that rate.

Depending on your location, you might only get 4-6 hours of full sun, which would be 40-60 kW-h of energy (assuming 100% efficiency, etc).

Most homes draw well in excess of 1kW, or > 24 kW-h per day.
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Aitch
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#29 Post by Aitch »

To be aware of the extravagance of energy, that 10kW equates to about 13.4HP per hour - imagine feeding, watering and looking after those horses for all the work they are doing......

The simple [rough] memory reminder I used to use was 3kW per hour=4HP per hour=10000BTU [as BTUs is energy used, whereas Watts is a measure of power]
In modern parlance, a Joule per second is a Watt, so Joules mount up pretty quickly

http://www.mhi-inc.com/Converter/watt_calculator.htm

We really should be thinking in terms of using less, not how to (re)produce what we usually waste....generally as heat losses on our buildings

Aitch :)

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RetroTechGuy
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#30 Post by RetroTechGuy »

Aitch wrote:To be aware of the extravagance of energy, that 10kW equates to about 13.4HP per hour - imagine feeding, watering and looking after those horses for all the work they are doing......

The simple [rough] memory reminder I used to use was 3kW per hour=4HP per hour=10000BTU [as BTUs is energy used, whereas Watts is a measure of power]
In modern parlance, a Joule per second is a Watt, so Joules mount up pretty quickly

http://www.mhi-inc.com/Converter/watt_calculator.htm

We really should be thinking in terms of using less, not how to (re)produce what we usually waste....generally as heat losses on our buildings

Aitch :)
It's not so much that he will be burning 10kW, it's that in the depths of winter, he might only get an average of 2-4 hours full sunlight/day (NREL shows that November tends to be the worst month, due to general cloudiness).

But potential solar power is only part of the equation, the other half is storage vessel. The peeps I know who use solar recommend 3-5 days worth of storage capacity, in addition to a backup generator (just in case you get a long stretch of cloudy weather).

You can shrink the storage...the more willing you are to use the genny to cover shortfalls.

In the US, the average home uses about 11,500 kW-h per year.

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=97&t=3

There are 8760 hours/year, so they're burning an average of 1.3 kW.

Another perspective:

http://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/ac ... nergy.html

Because of the 3-5 day storage recommendation, those who run solar power also recommend working hard to get your average consumption down to about 500 W, before migrating to solar... Not quite a factor of 3 reduction for storage batteries...

Another thing to consider is, while the sun doesn't shine at night, the wind often blows -- a combo system might be a choice.

However, given the size of that solar grid, I suspect that Caneri is planning to produce surplus power, and sell it back to the grid (then the grid becomes the "storage battery").

From that standpoint, solar works well -- peak power generally occurs during the day, with everyone running their air conditioners and such. If their capacity increases during the day, this reduces the need to build new power plants. Decentralizing power production also has the benefit that you can potentially reduce the losses that occur in the grid (one drawback is that you also have a massive book-keeping problem, shutting down all those sources, when you need to work on parts of the grid).
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Caneri
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#31 Post by Caneri »

good discussions gents...very interesting.
I'll chime in later but for now some pics of the inverters and cable size.

The cables are closer to 5/8 to 3/4 in size with the plastic insulation.

Eric
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linuxbear
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#32 Post by linuxbear »

average power on the sine wave (at 60hz) is about .606 X peak power. If your cable is rated for 10k Dc and you are pumping AC through it, you'll have a a few extra atoms more than you need to help propagate the electrons....

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RetroTechGuy
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#33 Post by RetroTechGuy »

Aitch wrote:ezeze5000

The tide has turned against CFLs....it seems there's a mercury problem when they break...hoovering up spreads it everywhere...very toxic/carcinogenic......change to LED or ESL

http://epa.gov/cfl/

http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/3711

http://www.earth.org.uk/LED-lighting.html

7/11 watt LEDs provide good light levels, but are more focused than ESLs/CFLs, and work best in up/downlighters or reading lights


WE are such energy junkies....just use less! :D

Aitch :)
The other problem with CFLs is that they don't "cold start" -- relevant to us in the cold, northern climes.

I put some of the Phillips LED (75W equivalent) in my cold locations. They're pricey, but are basically "instant on" - there is a fraction of a second delay, like many indoor CFLs show - but have no "warm up" time.
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Caneri
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#34 Post by Caneri »

Thanks sunburnt, Aitch, RTG, Sylvander, linuxbear , aarf, AND Thom the hillbilly ;-) for being interested in this project/thread.

Solar power seems a good path, in my thinking, for earth's future energy needs..at least in the day time. Night-time is for the stored energy in salt based liquid batteries.

I'm storing power on the grid for now until I can use it to heat my house in winter.

This entails a storage of heat in my house.....we will see about the next direction for the project...hopefully more panels Eric
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Aitch
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#35 Post by Aitch »

RTG wrote:It's not so much that he will be burning 10kW, it's that in the depths of winter, he might only get an average of 2-4 hours full sunlight/day (NREL shows that November tends to be the worst month, due to general cloudiness).
From looking at Eric's panels, I'd have thought snow coverage would be the biggest problem in winter....?

Eric

I think the salt storage idea is for a different type of solar install

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/ ... r-in-salt/

This site is quite useful.....

http://www.altestore.com/howto/Solar-El ... -Bank/a94/

....although I'd have thought your rig to be configured for high voltage grid tie/inverter rather than battery charging

Also check out thermal solar water tubes, such as this

http://www.solarthermal.com/

or heatpumps

http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/res ... -pump/4345

http://www.cleanbreak.ca/2012/02/20/ont ... al-market/

...which has the advantage of still providing heat when it's cold/dark

You are fortunate to have the space [and maybe grants?] to experiment...

Aitch :)

Caneri
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#36 Post by Caneri »

Hi Aitch,
Night-time is for the stored energy in salt based liquid batteries.


I should have been more clear. The salt based storage is for solar heating with a heat storage chamber (aka battery) based on salt that turns gelatinous when cold and thins to liquid when heated thus losing heat as it solidifies (I think that's close).

One of these days I might even understand all this stuff.

Love the beard...Eric
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#37 Post by Sylvander »

Caneri wrote:based on salt that turns gelatinous when cold and thins to liquid when heated thus losing heat as it solidifies
Sounds like "Latent Heat" in action.

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#38 Post by RetroTechGuy »

Sylvander wrote:
Caneri wrote:based on salt that turns gelatinous when cold and thins to liquid when heated thus losing heat as it solidifies
Sounds like "Latent Heat" in action.
Yup. Energy stored and released during the phase change process (e.g. ice to water, liquid water to steam).
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Caneri
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#39 Post by Caneri »

One thing about solar heat is that it's seems to be geared towards commercial/industrial installs...or just a hot water tank which is not what I want.

I guess I need to get my pencil sharpened and look at a home build.

When I ask about what solution/solid that they use it seems to be a state secret.

The chase begins lads and lassies...Eric
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#40 Post by RetroTechGuy »

Caneri wrote:One thing about solar heat is that it's seems to be geared towards commercial/industrial installs...or just a hot water tank which is not what I want.

I guess I need to get my pencil sharpened and look at a home build.

When I ask about what solution/solid that they use it seems to be a state secret.

The chase begins lads and lassies...Eric
If you're doing a home build, how about just filling it with auto antifreeze solution (adjusted to survive your local low temps). If you want to heat water for internal use, couple it elsewhere with sealed heat exchanger of some sort (or use perhaps use RV antifreeze to eliminate toxicity, in case of a leak).

Of course, if you can ensure that your hot water will never freeze, you wouldn't need to run a dual system.

But in these cases, we just talking home heat and hot water (not mechanical work, or electricity).
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