-
Happy Birthday ICMag! Been 20 years since Gypsy Nirvana created the forum! We are celebrating with a 4/20 Giveaway and by launching a new Patreon tier called "420club". You can read more here.
-
Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!
Solar Powered Grow Room
- Thread starter Dion
- Start date
My first guess would be that it's super cost prohibitive to set up solar on the scale that grow rooms need. I single 1k is going to use 360kwh a month in bloom, to purchase a system to power that is over 10 grand for just the panels and batteries, let alone if you have to pay someone to install it. Maybe if you were just running CFL's or a low wattage LED it might work but man that's a lot of cash up front for the yield your gonna get.
To your point though of using the sun, I think as legalization progresses your going to see the industry shift more and more to climate controlled greenhouses. Once pot is a mainstream commodity companies are going to be looking for ways to stay price competitive and cutting the light bill is a great place to start.
To your point though of using the sun, I think as legalization progresses your going to see the industry shift more and more to climate controlled greenhouses. Once pot is a mainstream commodity companies are going to be looking for ways to stay price competitive and cutting the light bill is a great place to start.
Dion
Active member
but I'm talking about by-passing the DC to AC inverter by using DC powered electronics like COB leds.
I've seen solar panels in a kit that put out 48v and 2A for less that $100
thats plenty to drive cobs cobs and fans that can power through a scrubber are also 48v.....
so without the need for an inverter you can just connect your solar to a battery.... does that still cost so much?
junior_grower
Active member
solar only produces 70% max power typically, have a cloudy day and you have no power, sun not at right angle less power ect. Batteries are a necessity to ensure constant even flow of power.
so you want to grow indoors by converting sunlight into electricity and back into sunlight?
Drop That Sound
Well-known member
It's not that bad of an idea, only thing is, if you have enough sun to produce you might as well just use the sun to produce. But a hybrid setup.. wind, hydro, solar, geothermal, multi-fueled generators all in one...now your talking!
You would need more than one source to rely on. Having solar and alternative energy to keep a UPS or battery bank\inverter setup charged is a good way to keep vital gear running long enough to save a crop if the power potentially go's out... and generator noise is a issue or something. With the kind of setup it would take you might as well harvest the electricity and sell it to the power company.
You can salvage UPS's and hookup larger deep cycle batteries to them, with a few cheap solar trickle chargers I suppose, if your on a budget lol. And I agree about DC, Im building my house now and soon going to wire it up for mostly 12v.
If you are real handy just forget the panels and build a solar power sterling engine generator that sits in the focal point of a large parabolic dish, hooked to a sun tracking device that only uses 5% or so of the energy it makes. Then you could power your whole house and then some. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6egnf_vVJ8 The grid is a joke all homes could have one of these!
You would need more than one source to rely on. Having solar and alternative energy to keep a UPS or battery bank\inverter setup charged is a good way to keep vital gear running long enough to save a crop if the power potentially go's out... and generator noise is a issue or something. With the kind of setup it would take you might as well harvest the electricity and sell it to the power company.
You can salvage UPS's and hookup larger deep cycle batteries to them, with a few cheap solar trickle chargers I suppose, if your on a budget lol. And I agree about DC, Im building my house now and soon going to wire it up for mostly 12v.
If you are real handy just forget the panels and build a solar power sterling engine generator that sits in the focal point of a large parabolic dish, hooked to a sun tracking device that only uses 5% or so of the energy it makes. Then you could power your whole house and then some. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6egnf_vVJ8 The grid is a joke all homes could have one of these!
ugh, what a wank fest. the grid is NOT a joke, you just dont understand it properly.
nobody is arguing you cant go off grid for all of your power... just that it makes absolutly 0 sense to do so.
the grid capitalizes on efficiency's of scale. its almost impossible to compete with it.
the reason why people put solar on their roofs is because they get the benifits of the grid at night when their solar array is not producing.
this means 0 batteries which minimizes cost HUGELY.
when you are off grid completely, you need to up size your solar array by a factor of three and install batteries, AND install some alternative means of power... propane generator or somethign like that.
all in all that shit is going to be in excess 10 grand per kw installed. it makes 0 sense at all.
that solar thermal sterling engine thing is pure wank too. there is basically NO way it could compete with photovoltaics at this point. just a fucking pyranometer is like 900 bucks.
you are bang on with respect to cost. im not a green energy expert, but i can do the math... yes solar has gotten very cheap as of late... but its still like 3 grand per kwh( with incentives etc.) of name plate installed.
in states where there are no such incentives or tax credits its like double that... 5 or 6 grand per kw name plate.
so an average small house in a reasonable climate would be looking at like 20-40 grand for an 80% array.
the 80% figure is... from what i recall, the target installers use to get to 80% of annual electricity comes from the home.
that means you over produce during the day when you are not there, and the amont of over production should approach the amount that you use at night and during bad weather when the panels are not producing.
regarding your hypothesis that growers will go BACK outdoors and into heated light supplemented greenhouses... i 100% agree with you.
its going to be very interesting to see what plant breeders will come up with... so much cannabis plant breeding is now done by comparative ametures when you contrast them to the folks using gene sequencing and other methods to identify disease and virus resistant traits in wild plants, and breeding them into hybrid tomato cultivars.
imo... i think these massive dense buds will become less dense, and plants will get taller and less bushy as plant breeders address the needs of greenhouse growers. im not a cannabis expert, but it seems to me that super dense buds are a liability outdoors where humidity is far more difficult to control.
i could be way wrong though. it might be that cannabis goes 100% outdoors in climates like virginia and tenesse... the reason why the US has both greenhouse and field grown toms is mostly due to the need to fill the gap in field grown tom production in the winter months.
cannabis has a much longer shelf life though... maby that gap would just be filled by over production in and around september... kinda like how they handle potato production.
Ironically all the states that are going legal are for the most part states with very short growing seasons, it'll probably be 100 years before the southern states make any progress on the issue. You are spot on with the cultivars for greenhouses. I grew some indicate Dom pineapples this summer with colas 2ft long and 5 inches in diameter, absolutely gorgeous. But they got crushed by bud rot because something like that stays damp all the time. My better balanced hybrids and Sat leaning plants are rot free for the most part. Another aspect I have found is that establishing IPM is tricky because the hard-core pesticides and anti fungal that fruit growers use don't have legitimate information for use on cannabis safely. So you basically stay organic or blindly spray chems. I look forward to the day when more real science is applied to our trade
what you say is true regarding northern states. greenhouses there would be vital. perhaps even light supplemented greenhouses to push back flowering periods a month or maby 2 so as to get a second harvest out of the greenhouse before the coldest and therefor the most expensive months of winter set in.
one interesting aspect of heated greenhouses... is the possibility of co2 supplementation at little extra cost.
i think the production of various expensive flowers in northern Europe used gas heaters to both heat and provide some elevated levels of co2.
the point you make about chemical controls of fungi and pests is the biggest reason why idk if it will go greenhouse or go field grown.
control of pests and fungi is especially vital in a greenhouse, but once you achieve that control, you need basically 0 chemical inputs.
this is one of the reasons why you see so many greenhouse toms in wholefoods. they can get away without the abamectin mite control etc.
i think the demand for 100% organic pesticide free cannabis could very well dictate the means of production... on the other hand though, "organic" field production is almost mainstream at this point. "organic" farmers are free to use shit like azadiractin and spinosad( made in a fucking bioreactor)... they might as well be growing conventionally.
Drop That Sound
Well-known member
The grid is a complete monopoly, I suppose I understand the need for people with no choice but to hook up, especially if you are already jacked in or it's right there. It's a monster and you can literally see it growing from space as we slave to make it bigger, like a large parasite consuming the life out of the ground. It makes us dependent and lazy, plus the raw energy isn't filtered from unidentified signals like your own inverter can do. The smart meter's are known to know exactly what you are running and now days they can beam wifi through light so you really don't know exactly whats traveling through those wires in or out of your home.
Anyway If you aren't yet on the grid it makes much more sense to invest in good batteries and ways to charge them than possibly pay an arm or a leg to have the utilities hooked up. They also pretty much own your land where the lines run once you sign a contract, which I think you are forced to do anyway if you want to run a household depending where you live. Some people want to hide from the noise and they can't.
I was just saying the off grid technology has been there for a longer than the grid itself and ya the real joke is the price now days. Hell a guy could use potato's or even a garbage built plasma reactor to vaporize almost anything into fuel to grow pot. Energy can be converted into infinite forms, but the only way to actually store it is with batteries. 12v will be the majority of systems left running when an EMP strike happens or the ancient grids just up and black out . You really can't even rely on it now more than any other system, especially solar.. I totally understand the need for grow equipment to start adapting more to people who are going alternative. Its inevitable!
Anyway If you aren't yet on the grid it makes much more sense to invest in good batteries and ways to charge them than possibly pay an arm or a leg to have the utilities hooked up. They also pretty much own your land where the lines run once you sign a contract, which I think you are forced to do anyway if you want to run a household depending where you live. Some people want to hide from the noise and they can't.
I was just saying the off grid technology has been there for a longer than the grid itself and ya the real joke is the price now days. Hell a guy could use potato's or even a garbage built plasma reactor to vaporize almost anything into fuel to grow pot. Energy can be converted into infinite forms, but the only way to actually store it is with batteries. 12v will be the majority of systems left running when an EMP strike happens or the ancient grids just up and black out . You really can't even rely on it now more than any other system, especially solar.. I totally understand the need for grow equipment to start adapting more to people who are going alternative. Its inevitable!
dude i love those greenhouses. i used to think they were hilarious, but i was way off.
yea, each air gap in a multi layer greenhouse is only like r2 or r3... but a single layer almost cuts heat loss in half. when you are burning like 2 million btus per hour to keep your plants above 50 degrees... all the added costs come out just fine.
high poly tunnels kill it too... they have like double the thermal mass of a regular poly tunnel.
solar power for growing? Definitely greenhouse it!
dude no. its far more efficient to distribute electricity to people via wires than to have people ram litium batteries into their homes and cover everything with solar panels.
no you cant run your house on a plasma reactor or wtf ever you are talking about.
what how much power do you think it takes to run a plasma digester? they have been investigating them for years as a means to render activated sludge inert while extracting enough bio gas to get to net 0.... its not working as of yet. probably wont ever work.
yes the grid is expanding radically due to non dispachable renewables and smart grid shit. if you dont like it... support nuclear power then.
from a cost and materials standpoint... the whole "distributed power generation" fantasy is just about the most INEFFICIENT way convievable to power our country. you need MORE interconnects, MORE ROW, MORE access roads, MORE steel, MORE concrete etc.
did you know that the 100% WWS people want to run like 4 telephone pole sized EL pipes from east coast to west coast.... JUST to load shed in this theoretical 100% WWS super grid?
any idea how much electricity you need to create 1 ton of aluminum?
Drop That Sound
Well-known member
The GEET reactor for example, can vaporize and turn your piss into fuel to run a generator. I haven't actually built one but I have built a stirling engine and mounted it to a dish before. No photo cells I know of even comes close to competing with a stirling dish setup that harnesses a deathray straight into 10kw.
If I lived in the sun I'd be all into solar power and invest into it, but as of a week ago my place never see's the sun till spring, I live in a mountain shadow now lol. Ive setup so I'm pumping nice warm dry exhaust from a 2k room running at night out into an RV awning makeshift greenhouse bolted to the outside of the room, to save my OD's from molding up. Indoor and outdoor combo style, seems to be working
And for real queequeg, if I had a couple half spent fuel rods I would probably try to build a micro power plant to grow weed wouldn't you?. Maybe not in this lifetime but there's plenty of other experiments, like how about using a tesla coil with 1000's of volts to light up a box with t5 bulbs and do a wireless grow.
Not sure how much for a ton of Al, I wonder how many tons of coal they had to burn to create the electricity lol.
More about greenhouses, I got an old longer double axle travel trailer scrapped to the frame, and plan to deck it and then use 16' cattle fence panels arched across to make a mobile hoop house looking one, with an auto light dep canopy that rolls over it. I also got a grip of 8' vinyl fence post and want to setup a simple nft system. Suppose I wanted to take it off grid somewhere, would a small wind turbine, solar panel setup and a few 12v batteries be enough to run the pump and open and retract the shade? I even thought about pulling it up next to a fish pond and tossing the hoses out, and loading it with lettuce, then drive it to the farmers market down the road a few weeks later. People could walk through and pluck fresh heads, and I wouldn't even have to setup shop!
If I lived in the sun I'd be all into solar power and invest into it, but as of a week ago my place never see's the sun till spring, I live in a mountain shadow now lol. Ive setup so I'm pumping nice warm dry exhaust from a 2k room running at night out into an RV awning makeshift greenhouse bolted to the outside of the room, to save my OD's from molding up. Indoor and outdoor combo style, seems to be working
And for real queequeg, if I had a couple half spent fuel rods I would probably try to build a micro power plant to grow weed wouldn't you?. Maybe not in this lifetime but there's plenty of other experiments, like how about using a tesla coil with 1000's of volts to light up a box with t5 bulbs and do a wireless grow.
Not sure how much for a ton of Al, I wonder how many tons of coal they had to burn to create the electricity lol.
More about greenhouses, I got an old longer double axle travel trailer scrapped to the frame, and plan to deck it and then use 16' cattle fence panels arched across to make a mobile hoop house looking one, with an auto light dep canopy that rolls over it. I also got a grip of 8' vinyl fence post and want to setup a simple nft system. Suppose I wanted to take it off grid somewhere, would a small wind turbine, solar panel setup and a few 12v batteries be enough to run the pump and open and retract the shade? I even thought about pulling it up next to a fish pond and tossing the hoses out, and loading it with lettuce, then drive it to the farmers market down the road a few weeks later. People could walk through and pluck fresh heads, and I wouldn't even have to setup shop!
Yes, it can get very expensive, but the expenses will recover over time. As for me, I think it's worth investing in such a project even though it requires some capital. I more and more into these things, and recently I read an article on https://generatorpalace.com/solar-panels-vs-generator-for-home/ about solar panels and gas-powered generators and I want to research more about this. I already have a portable generator and I charge my car sometimes when I need it, but the house project is bigger and requires more knowledge. It's coming soon, so I'll keep you posted.
