My third power generation unit. Panels, charge controller, storage batteries. I think I’ll skip inversion this time. You don’t need 110AC as much as you think.
Discussion
Muh man!
100%, most electrical devices are low voltage DC already. Just need a cheap switching-mode converter and done.
Its only big appliances with motors that really need mains AC. And they are very hard on inverters, too. Experimenting with conversions to DC motors...
As a kid always dreamed of owning a home to be able to run DC directly to everything.
Most older switch-mode devices can run of high voltage DC on the mains input. That's probably still the case, at least in computing. I'm a little sure it's common practice in data-centers to run DC.
i met a bosnian electrotehnik who was doing exactly that at his house, 300V DC, was able to run a resistive element stove, washing machine, etc
That's pretty hot. Big fan of efficiency. Which admittedly involves AC sometimes.
AC is better for big generator installations
makes sense for gas and coal but i believe diesel is very efficient for generating power, and due to it's high compression ratio and combustion process can scale up and down, and even shut down completely and start back up when needed
the tradeoff we make is between a lot of expensive copper wires and ugly power poles versus the hum of an engine in our house, and not having to maintain a full tank, which would mean transporting the fuel to everyone
out in the country, power wires make zero sense
anywhere there is more than about 1 house per acre the transport efficiency kicks in i guess
the other thing too is that micro hydro is probably available in a lot of places, i know here in Madeira with all the springs and channels everywhere they could probably get a baseline of power just by making a tank every few dozen houses, and big tanks could handle a pretty high loading and a control system to drain the excess whenever needed... up the top of the mountain where i live, they have these giant windmill generators, and the whole plateau at the top is half way to desert as a result, meanwhile the water is constantly running down the hill, at any given couple of acres you can find an aqueduct that is constantly flowing, gallons and gallons per minute
anyway, i'd rather live somewhere that i actually need to have a giant tank of diesel, both for my power and for my vehicles and machines, people suck lol
I could spend all day talking about diesel engine efficiency or lacktherof really. It was kind of my thing for the past 7 years. I'll save that for another time, but I have engineer friends working in steam that will talk your ear off on efficiency and they're 100% correct.
Diesel CAN be made efficient, but reciprocating piston engines aren't it. Super heaters, EGR, intake air subcoolers are better suited for steam.
and that's the biggest reason why we have loads of copper wire strung around and the transformers and the ever present problem of peak overloads and off-peak underload, and geomagnetic storms causing broad blackouts due to the interconnection of so much generation capacity and exposure to the atmospheric radio environment
it works and is most efficient for a bit more than half the time but when you count the maintenance cost and deployment of such large amounts of wire and transformers and the periodicity of higher frequencies of geomagnetic disturbances there will be times when it will turn out to be less efficient even if more watts are getting to the use location, the cost of maintaining the distribution system will start to exceed the efficiency gain
i'm glad to not have to address the nonsensical issue of carbon dioxide though, that's pleasant
of course it would be great if we could all just have trashcan sized nuclear batteries and all but it's gonna take quite some transition for that, but at least it will actually solve problems versus the idiocy of wind and solar and their quite bad environmental effects that they don't like to mention (like altering the microclimate and precipitation patterns)
The way I had to think about it was to abstract every need, then look for different ways to accomplish it. I.e. refrigeration. How can temp be lowered and held. Then go down that rabbit hole. What I’ve learned is that RV tech from the late 70s to early 90s came up with decent solutions to a lot of this stuff.
Any resources you could point me to for alternative refrigeration?
It’s not like that really.
There really isn’t a central resource because it’s kinda fringe. But you can look into:
-Propane refrigerators out of RVs
-Super insulated DC fridges. (Sundanzer)
-Modifying chest freezers using a secondary on/off thermostat
- old school cold houses using a stream.
Personally, I am using a propane RV fridge, but I want to take a chest freezer ( top opening keeps cold air inside because it’s heavier than warm air. Stand up fridges pour the cold air on the floor every time you open them) and build a second layer of insulation around it, then add a secondary thermostat which turns the power on at 44 and off at 40 making it a refrigerator. A guy in Australia did this and claims it uses 110 watt hours per day. Which is incredible if true.
I’m a fan of the versatility of rv fridges. Ours runs on both ac and propane. Not sure how they compare on efficiency with the sundanzer. I like them as well.