Living with Solar Power for 26 Years, What We Have Learned

It almost feels like sun worship. Watching our garden grow, working, feeding our electricity habit and staying healthy by the sun. That is the point. The sun.

We live and work in an isolated spot in the interior of British Columbia. We started with two 85 watt panels and two golf cart batteries 25 years ago. Powered our 12 volt tv and a light. Now we run 3 small, independant solar arrays.

The smallest is made up of  a 75 watt panel fixed to our roof, facing south connected to a charge controller. The controller is connected to one 12 volt deep cycle battery. It powers a 12 volt light in the pantry, a 12 volt water pump from our well, a cd, tape player and radio.

A second system is made up of 4 panels (400 watts) mounted on a sun tracker 5 metres high that we built for less than $50. The panels are connected to a 40 amp controller that is connected to 4 x 6 volt deep cycle lead acid batteries. The batteries are connected to a 1750 watt inverter. The system is 20 years old. Two of the panels are 25 years old. The system runs electricity into our cabin and shop. It cost us $5000.

 

500 watts of solar panel

The third system is made up of  5 panels (500 watts) mounted on a sun tracker 3 1/2 metres high we made for less than $100. The panels are connected to two 30 amp controllers that are connected to a 2000 watt inverter.  One controller has a disconnect from the batteries for charging automobile batteries. This system is 2 1/2 years old. The cost was $1600. In the years, since purchasing the last panels 20 years ago, the price of panels and inverters has come down 80%. The price of batteries has risen about 10%.

Sun trackers can provide a 45% increase in power. 

We built this one 20 years ago. It has been modified since then to hold 4 panels vertically.

We live and work here. The trackers are manual. We turn them directly on the sun three or four times a day in the summer. Spring and fall, 2 or 3 times. In the winter they are static. Working with the sun. On dark winter days we run a 3000 watt inverter generator for a few hours, assuring everything stays rock hard in the freezer.

Besides lights, computers and the odd kitchen appliance, we power our shop. Our most demanding machine is the band saw with a 3/4 horse power motor. 

What we have learned to get the most from your solar panels is:

charging batteries and relying on that stored power is not the way to go. Battery technology is inefficient. For us stored power is just enough for lights and computers when there is no sun. When the sun is out we'll work. From March until October we have unlimited power for our needs. We work full time with smaller machines (10 amps and less) when the sun is out. The bigger machines we use intermittently and because of our lighter wiring we run one 3/4 horse machine at a time.When the batteries are charged and there is a 60% sun day the process is a lot more efficient. Solar energy flows through the panels. The batteries act like a conduit. Energy the inefficient batteries will not accept on a full sun day is the energy  we can use up.

After working in the shop, at the end of a day the batteries have as much charge as they had at the beginning of the day. If the day involved lots of heavy use, like using the table saw ripping or milling apple wood with the band saw  etc, all over 15 amps, then we would alternate system. Keeping the batteries charged.

Our shops

 

This power set up could be doubled, tripled, quadrupled... You would just need more. Heavier wiring, more wattage (panels), larger capacity controllers etc....

We help charge the batteries with a generator in the low sun months from November until the middle of February. We need to use a generator for machine power in the winter and on heavy load days in the early spring and fall. We slow our work right down in the winter. It works out.

Having two main systems that are interchangeable has proven to be a great asset in the low sun months. As one system is being used and discharges the other is charging.  

4.6 billion years old. The sun will start a tranformation into a red dwarf in 5 billion years. Swallowing the earth, Mars...

Consider, the sun provides enough power in one hour than the planet of people use in one year.

We are fortunate to live and work with the sun. A few panels and batteries have worked for us. What we've paid for our 1000 watt systems, today, you could buy  6 or 7 times as much power.  A system of 5 or 6 thousand watts would pay for itself in 2 or 3 years if not sooner. 

It almost feels like sun worship. Watching our garden grow, working, feeding our electricity habit and staying healthy by the sun. That is the point. The sun.

 

Regards,

Aki and Scott

www.caribooblades.com

 

George Sears (Nessmuk) and Henry David Thoreau

 

 Two Massachusetts writers who have had an impact on our lives here here.

The potato patch.

 

 

It wasn't until  Aki and I moved into the bush in '97, started to make hunting and survival knives that we learned of George Sears (pen name Nessmuk), his methods, bushcraft skills and the famed design, the "Nessmuk" knife. 

 

 "Go light, the lighter the better".   

We've sold many bushcraft knives fashioned after George Sears Nessmuk knife design. In total a few years of living here.

We read Henry Thoreau. He writes of freedom. 40 years later we're still reading. Testaments on freedom. Holding his belief in life close.... we persevere. We read his work aloud. Always amazed at how pertinent his insights remain.

Starting the green house with lots of greens. They go to flower and the bees come.

Before

After

 

Bees are amazing. Privileged to work with them.

Bumble bee and mustard.

 

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived". 

Henry David Thoreau

 

 

Aki sun dries, freezes, sauces and cans. We eat a lot of tomatoes.

 

Peas, Aki and fireweed.

Fireweed and rocks.

 

 "We do not go to the green woods and crystal waters to rough it, we go to smooth it. We get it rough enough at home, in towns and cities". 

George Sears, Nessmuk. 

 

Lots of rain this year. We lost our lakeside garden to the lake.

Salad Greens.

I viewed Thoreau's ideas as my own. It only made sense to me.

Living simply. Living with a light footprint. Feeding ourselves with the food we grow. 

So we live by isolation in the boreal forest while the world changes.

It felt serendipitous, a few years ago we made a connection. George Sears was born in 1820 at what is now Webster, Massachusetts. Less than 100 kms away from where Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1817. They grew up at the same time and essentially the same place. They were neighbours.

Photographs by Aki Yamamoto

 

Thoreau, July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862, was a an essayist, poet and philosopher. He was a transcendentalist. Thoreau wrote a book Walden which we have our son reading outloud to us these days when people are following rules and avoiding each other. 

"Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and attention to practical detail.^[5] He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs.^[5]

He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending the abolitionist John Brown. Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced the political thoughts and actions of such notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.^[6]

Thoreau is sometimes referred to as an anarchist.^[7][8] Though "Civil Disobedience" seems to call for improving rather than abolishing government—"I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government"^[9]—the direction of this improvement contrarily points toward anarchism: "'That government is best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have". 

(I copied this from Wikipedia only to give a little insight into Thoreau) 

Aki and Scott

www.caribooblades.com

 

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Henry David Thoreau
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/henry-david-thoreau-quotes

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Henry David Thoreau
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/henry-david-thoreau-quotes

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Henry David Thoreau
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/henry-david-thoreau-quotes

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Henry David Thoreau
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/henry-david-thoreau-quotes

Post-World Youth Chess Championship reflections

It's the start of a new year, 2014, the Year of the Horse.  The snowdrifts are creeping up the trunks of our fruit trees.  The silence of the wintry landscape is broken only by the occasional voices of chickadees and whiskey jacks, and of the dogs barking at distant coyotes and not-so-distant moose.  This makes it difficult to recall being in the Middle East just weeks ago.  The preparation, the trip itself, returning and recuperating (Kai brought home a cold bug and generously shared it with his folks), took a good chunk of time and energy out of our year, including the entire Christmas season.   Sometimes it seems as if the whole thing was just part of a dream, or a movie starring familiar actors whose names I can't quite remember.

 It was an extraordinary experience, one which we are still digesting.  I was never a part of anything so huge when I was Kai's age.  I don't think he fully understands that not everyone gets the opportunity to travel to the other side of the planet, or to participate in such a large scale international competition, all before the age of 11.  He says it was cool.
 One thing is for certain - Kai will carry a part of this experience with him for the rest of his life, as will myself and Scott, but for Kai it will undoubtedly loom much larger.  One of those unforgettable formative blips in a young one's existence.

Left Al Ain sadly, a beautiful oasis in the desert.  Palm tree-lined throughways, low-lying burnt orange buildings a few shades lighter than the ever-present sand dunes visible just beyond the rooftops.  We did manage to get to the desert by hiring a taxi to drive us to the city limits and wait for us as we ran barefoot into the dunes.  The thrill was tempered somewhat by nearby SUV-driving yahoos (similar to some of the snowmobile-driving ones back home) but we managed to climb and roll far enough away to get some sense of the mind-blowing vastness of the desert.
Visited the world's largest shopping mall in search of souvenirs, but were defeated by the seemingly endless covered walkway (serviced by a string of moving sidewalks) that connected the metro station to the mall proper.  By the time the actual shops began to appear,  all we could think of was finding food and escaping.  We did manage an escape of sorts, and ended up in the mall's theatre complex watching the Hobbit, with Arabic subtitles.  On the way out, we did see the mall's aquarium, which must have been about 3 floors high and housed stingrays, sharks and eels among countless other forms of marine life.  Quite stunning, and surreal, sitting amidst Starbucks, the Gap and other familiar retail names.
Still needed to pick up souvenirs so the following day we headed back to the old part of the city, this time starting from Bur Dubai, then crossing the Creek by abra (water taxi) to Deira, which we'd explored the first time.  Lots of narrow alleyways, colourful storefronts with apartments above, noisy hawkers.  Kai had his first drink of coconut juice from a green coconut, wandered through the Spice Souk and Gold Souk (one of the biggest gold markets in the world), had some tasty paneer and mutton kebabs, back to the hostel.
 Got to know the metro system, where there is a women and children's car which men are supposed to stay out of during peak hours, as well as a Gold car, which is roomier and costs more.  Every stop is announced in both Arabic and English, the diversity of passengers is fascinating, everyone is very polite and quick to give up seats to women with children.  I don't remember seeing any elderly people on the metro.  I read that expats must leave the country once they are no longer employed.  And perhaps Emirati elders take cabs.
Our final day in the UAE was spent relaxing on the sands of the Arabian Gulf before the gruelling trip home.  We rented an umbrella for 10 Dh and staked out a spot on the sparsely populated beach.  The Hungarian couple who had given us directions to the beach had declined to swim (too cold. Only Russians swim there at this time of year.  And perhaps a few Canadians, they had chuckled).  The water was cooler than I had expected, but lovely once in.  I realized I was floating effortlessly for the first time in my life. Salt. We swam, Kai built fortresses, across the water from Iran, and Iraq. 
 The metro was packed, and the hostel manager was unable to call a taxi to the airport for us due to the crowds heading to the World's Tallest Building (the Burj Khalifa, which we had seen from the World's Largest Shopping Mall) to see Biggest Fireworks Display Ever.  We did make it to the airport, dragging our suitcases through the crowds at the metro, and departed from Dubai at 11pm, just missing the New Year's extravaganza (see Dubai New Year's fireworks on YouTube)

 The bright sunshine, the sub -35C mornings, the pots of soup on the crackling woodstove, are the things shaping our thoughts right now.   And it's all good.

www.caribooblades.com

A Bushcraft and Sustainable Garden

We live in the bush and have created a garden that was unheard of in these parts. In fact, the old timers thought we were crazy. Cultivating wild flowers, greens and vegetables along with domestic greens and vegetables. Enriching the soil with what is around us. Doing it all by hand with the help from tools we've made. Simply. Leaving a light footprint.
We call it bushcraft gardening.

150lbs of tomatoes

We've learned about patience, stamina and how to relax here.

Fruit trees have been difficult but now we have a small orchard. Between moose, deer, bears, voles and mice it has been a challenge.

Honey bees have been emotionally draining because they die from causes we can't control but now they are thriving.

We now raise them in empty boxes, no frames, They build their own natural comb all the way down. We've combined a traditional Japanese method with Warre managment methods. No chemicals, no treatments.




Growing our own food has taught us in between frost, hail, bear, moose and deer, birds, rabbits, mice, voles, bugs, hillbilly pigs and the dreaded free range cattle to relax. The boreal forest is filled with animals that want almost everything that we grow.

This gardening method is sustainable, organic and has very little impact .

It's a state of mind going into the wilderness with nothing but seeds and a shovel, an open mind, relaxed and keenly observing your surroundings with a sense of freedom and balance.

Everything around you may have a use for your bush garden. Rocks act like sinks storing heat energy from the sun that can offset cool nights. They are fertilizers slowly giving important nutrients to the soil. They collect and trap water. They can also be protection from animals and cover for others, like toads.
That old stump – do I remove it, or can I plant a garden around it and let it slowly fertilize?

Rocks picked for a garden wall

Rotten wood has got to be the supreme bush fertilizer adding organic material and fluffing up heavy soil.There are droppings from animals like deer, moose and rabbit which are good "on the spot" fertilizers.

Harvesting what you need with care and never taking more than 1/3 of anything.

Surviving with respect and again, with a light foot step

Those “weeds” or wildflowers – pull them out or cultivate them, let them flower to attract the bees.

If the location of your plot is covered with grass or weeds turn it over and leave it in place. It will decompose and become food for your plants.

Fireweed shoots--Excellent greens

Certain bugs, wild plants and critters can help. In a wilderness garden you may cultivate dandelions, wild onions, wild parsnip, lambs quarters, mushrooms, chickweed, cattails. In fact one could have an excellent wild garden cultivating just wild plants.

Crops like garlic, potatoes and broad (fava) beans can be grown without the stress of everything else wanting to eat them. We grow these crops without any protection.
Location.

I asked my son what his first thought was on our gardening in the bush. He said food.
It is about the food, the sustenance.

Soil, your climate, exposure to

the sun, access to water, location of your plot, predators...

We've been fertilizing by mulching with green grass (before it goes to seed) covered with an inch of sand then covered with an inch of rotten wood. We have some chicken manure that we fertilize beans and greens with. After the crop is harvested we plant rye grass or Chinese vegetables. When the thick head is 6 to 8 inches high we turn it over.

17 years Aki and I have done it this way. Kai can pick any 2 x 2 foot spot in the garden and pick enough worms for a day of fishing trout.

Regards,
Aki and Scott

Our business, http://www.caribooblades.com/

Winter

We do live in a unique area. In the bush, a couple of kms off a logging road.Complete isolation except for the odd plane or two yet we can journey into Williams Lake for our mail.

It is simple. If it isn't we are doing something wrong.

We plant potatoes in three different patches. Something will probably fail. Frost, hail, bad seed, bugs, mice, moose. We are not the only ones in the bush that like garden fresh vegetables. We`ve done a lot of experimenting. Some great failures. We are dependent on our gardens so we learn.

Plants are amazing. When we've thought they were mortally wounded they`ve come back, almost every time.
What doesn`t kill them (us) will make them (us) stronger in most cases.

After 14 years every sauna we`ve had, somewhere around 1000, has been rejuvenating. Personal hygiene and r&r or when things get tough is when we take a sauna. Aki is making one now. Beautiful sunny day...



For us it has been a process of living with what we need.
Rather than start with everything before we moved in here, we started with nothing and have added little.

It is our fourteenth winter. Most of the catastrophes you can think of have happend. The major ones like death, severe illnesses and accidents haven't. Crop failures, food spoilage, injuries, flooding, vehicle breakdowns etc... have.
Aki and I are heathier and stronger, not to mention more resolute in our convictions than ever. We have a 7 yr old who is thriving. Home schooling, chess and being raised in the forest.


In the past few years on our blog I've described the simple way we've lived with solar power. For 9 years we lived without a computer and internet connection. With a little of today`s technology, like a computer connected to the internet by satellite, and a small cash flow life in the bush is easier.

I suppose it's not for everyone.

Aki and Scott

http://www.caribooblades.com/

Moving and Static Photovoltaic Systems.

By static I mean solar panels mounted on your roof, facing south and angled at 20 degrees. They don't move. Controller, battery bank or grid tie, inverter, your load...your demand. If you know how much electricity you want it's fairly easy to calculate the photovoltaic equipment you will need. There is so much information out there.

Pretty much maintenance free. Electricity generation on your roof top. Simple and 1/2 the cost of what it was. Now solar equipment is inexpensive and oil is cheap/life is cheap. Everyone is a bit scared of cloudy days.

This kind of system is replacing or enhancing your connection to the grid.

With the sun, taking advantage when the sun is shinning we track the sun manually as we work. Our main system is 416 watts of panels tracking the sun from a manual tracker that stands 20' high beside our cabin.

Tracking systems can be manual or automated, single or double axis and mounted on a pole or track. Some trackers use movable mirrors and concentrators rather than moving the panels themselves.

(picture is of our
panels and our dish to the internet).

We built a tracker with two axis and for years diligently tracked the sun at tilt and angle. We recently put a steel roof on our place and now track the sun only by turning the tracking pole leading the sun from the time it comes up until it goes down. The steel roof reflecting sun light on the panels eliminated the need to tilt.

The practice of tracking has increased our energy production by 45 %.

Tracking the sun sounds like a chore but is far from it. We work and live in the same location and the tracker is located on the way to our shop. We have become in tune with the sun, always aware of where it is in the sky and adjusting the panels leading the sun by an hour or two on either side. In a 15 hour high demand day we adjust the angle 4 or 5 times. A high demand day maybe a couple of loads of laundry, working with a tablesaw for the day, four hours working on the computer, a couple of lights for the evening and watching a dvd. Since we do all the heavy demand work during sun up our batteries still around 65% in the morning. Most days the batteries are hovering between 80 to 100%.

The pole swivels for angle, as the sun moves across the sky, on its base of 1/2" plate steel set in the ground with concrete. This mechanism, as shown below, is a "T" of larger diameter pipe slipped over the pole end and welded in place. Sliding a smaller diameter pipe through the top of the "T" accommodates tilt.

Click on pictures for larger images

We drilled a couple of holes through one side of the larger pipe at the ends, welded nuts over the holes and then screwed bolts snugging against the smaller pipe within to control the tilt.
We use to tie a rope to the top and bottom of the panels to adjust tilt and a cross on the pole to move with the sun across the sky.

If you snug up to the smaller inside pipe with the bolts you'll have complete control of the tilt with the ropes. It is very simple and effective.
By using standard bolts, there is very little wear. For the 10 years we've operated this tracker the bolts have worn off paint. We figure in about 100 years somebody will have to shift the assembly over a 1/2".

This method of tracking the sun may not be for everyone. There are many solar trackers on the market.
Using recycled scrap pipe our photo-voltaic panel tracker cost us $45 and a days work, installed.

We started living here in 1997 with no electricity and slowly built our system as we needed it.

A second action we perform happens on winter days. On a perfect solar energy filled winter day there are only 6  1/2 hours of sun here. After a couple of dark days in December our batteries are hovering around 20%. First thing when the sun begins to peak over the horizon we'll charge the battery bank for 20 minutes with our  S-10's 2.8L engine. We installed a 200 amp altenator. (*update: since 2015 we've used a generator) While the engine is on we'll pump water, charge batteries for the drill, computer etc... Our batteries are discharged to low levels in the winter. There is resistance that develops in the batteries from discharging, preventing them from accepting a charge. The low amperage the panels produce in the morning is not sufficient to wear through the resistance in time for a good charge during the short days. The higher amp and voltage charge from our charging system is sufficient, breaking through the batteries' resistance and allowing the panels to do their job. During really challenging no sun periods we'll disconnect half the battery bank (undoing a wing nut connection), charge half the bank to 60% then reconnect. A sunny winter we may burn $40 of gas. A dark winter we may burn $200. We are in a good spot on the planet as far as exposure to sun light. On average we are burning 80 - 100 litres per year for our fix of electricity.
This method of energy maintenance has increased our battery charge up to 70% on the darkest days of winter.
This all sounds like a lot of effort but it is not. With a bit of modification it could be simplified further to just flicking a switch. It is a fit that will become standard.

From March until mid October we have more power than we need.
Supposing that the whole point to this endeavor is to find the point at which we find what we need.

For more information on our sun power system and our back up power system please visit, 

Living-with-solar-power-for-25-years and  Solar Power, Engines and Alternators.

Enjoy the sun.

Aki and Scott

http://www.caribooblades.com/