alternative power/energy - NOT SHARE RELATED AT ALL

[#1]

Guys, anyone here in SA involved in alternative power/energy research/development. I am playing with a few home projects at the moment.
Solar I run almost all my lighting off 12V LED bulbs and a few 220V through a converter and the odd appliance/electric fence etc.
Have not installed solar geyser as yet as I think the cost to investment is not worth the recovery time. I calculate about 15 years for me to recover costs (even after Eskom rebate that will take 3-5 years to pay back) at my present costs and that is the expected lifespan of a solar geyser (10 to 12 years) so I loose in this case.
My cons to present setup - expensive to start with but has a return over a few yers (matbe 3-4 years) and then basically free - problem is storage of energy, basically batteries and the lifespan of these. Heavy duty deep cycle batteries are not cheep by any means but should last 5 years plus. I am told that forklift batteries have much better lifespans and one person i have been in contact with has used the same battery for his needs almost 25 years now. Any one know where to buy forklift batteries wholesale? I can get but mostly second hand and then maybe refurbed. Was told these are not as good as new? Anyine with exerience in these batteries?
Anyone used HH2 to power up energy? I have a nice little experiment at home that is starting to show really nice prospects in central heating, cooking and water heating through a special device.
Would like to hear of anyone else trying other alternatives.

[platsak]

CPS. Give me your email adres. I am also considering alternatives and have gathered lots of info plans and ideas over the last few months which I am prepared to share and would love hear about your experiences.

[platsak]

I am currently changing all my 220v 50 watt downlighters with 220 volt 3watt 6000 lumens downlighters. R100 a pop but worthwhile in the long run. Tried the 12 volt led's. Not worth it yet IMHO.

[richardw]

One thing I did was wrap our geyser in a geyser blanket. It's not a solar geyser but it supposedly helps. There seem to be varying reports about whether automatically switching your geyser off has any effect. Definitely keep us updated with any results!

[Happy]

Bit off the topic, but nontheless interesting to me. I have the whole shebang except for a wind generator. My conclusions are: Only get into this stuff if you have no Eskom power or it is prohibitively expensive to get power to your Karoo farm. There is very little in the way of savings to be gained. For batteries you can try Uniross in Jhb, they have a huge range as well as Exide and Willard. Give me your email and we chat some more.

[#6]

Mail me at [email protected].

Geyser blanket - Done, small effect but not 100% sure. I turn my geyser off (manually - diciplined I guess. Dont see the need to install a timing device when I can just train myself to be diciplined) all day and on between 4pm and 7pm dialy. Saving about 30% on elec bill every month for last 8 months.

Trying various lighting methods 12V seem a little dull in certain instances.

LP gas is way to expensive IMO for heating. Still have an old anthrecite central heater in our house. House was built in the 60's by a German and he imported this device from there. Built into the wall cavaty with heating ducts to most rooms and I am told better than the ordinary front facing ones usually found in SA. WAY more effective than gas and cheaaper to run in winter. About R600 for 24 hours runs from early june to late august.

Busy insulating roof and then all windows and doors with weather strips (rubber seals) This has helped a huge amount with heat loss in winter and cooling down in summer.

[#7]

Geez CPS are you trying to be more efficient than the carnot cycle?..lol

[#8]

Sorry just to clarify that is R600 for the entire period from june to August running 24 hours a day. So about R200/month.

Moose, just want to lower my footprint and get my family to be in the mindset of "waste not want not" in future generations. I think if everyone just made the effort to so something rather than the wait for the next guy to do it before I do it attitude then we could be ahead of many countries in the coming years.

[#9]

Further I am not a tree hugger type. I want to live a great life with all the trappings of a good lifestyle but need to make sure I give back some of what I take out. I have a commercial outlook for my HH2 experiments but it is still a while off so just want to share what I find (within reason as some of my stuff is IP and unique to the development phase) and see if anyone has similar projects. This way I can assist and learn but also stop wasting time when other have failed and maybe help other to bypass certain time wasters as well.

[MAGICIAN]

Platsak - what 220v 3w downlighters are those?

[#11]

CPS, I'm in the steam and condensate loop bussiness, i can help when it comes to efficient hotwater supply, heating, return of condensate etc.

[jack12]

Have you tried storing heat instead of electric energy. Heat silica (use magnifying glasses) and tap off your requirements for heating or hot water, a small steam power generator runs the electrics. I have used traction batteries used for mines etc nice and heavy duty good life span.