Free Energy Growing

[Cannabis Motiva]

I know this isn't realistic, but go with it for a minute...

If you were able to move the solar panels inside the grow environment during lights on, and that time period was when it was dark outside, could you recapture some of the energy from the lights with the panels?

I don't believe so, because the sun is just ridiculously more intense than any bulb. Even if you put the panels directly under the grow lights - which means no room for plants - you'd probably get less than 1% of the power back..

But the question is legit!

 

[Cheesegez]

that was worth a read fair play , what a cracking little system.. im looking at a 16kw off grid solar system atm tbf

 

[miltiano32]

wow that was a read for 2012, wonder what the prices and parts would go for 4 years later now that its 2016. The OP said it cost about 3K for 1000 watts of power so im thinking it would be more viable and affordable to do this now or whats the more optimal way that anybody knows to achieve free power?

 

[wasgedn]

great thread....
the good people get always banned....the outstanding forum with outstanding members working with state of the art tech...but giving the site to unlearned and low level
mods is and will be not good for ic community...
as soon as there are more breeders subforums in other forums it could change the vorreiterstellung of ic..
there are ic refugee threads in a lot of the forums..
i kno you say he has broke the rules ...but why...cause the mod is bad and nearly everbody is using bad language when his threads which costs hours of work get trolled....
in my subforum no mod is reading all the posts...when you are a mod you have to kno about shit before you get a pm of somebody explaining his situation...

but i dont want to break the rules of TOU......pls dont ban me for my opinion....

EDIT i think ic needs some paid mods...no one is reading all the content...no offense

EDITEDIT..maybe its no mod problem...maybe wrong agenda...the best and biggest german forum is only a archive today cause of wrong agendas

 

[CrushnYuba]

y'all are into it, I can post pictures of my system. I can also answer basic solar system questions. I live and grow off grid. I really grow outside and in greenhouse but I do run lights for mom's and starts inside and I run supplemental lights in my greenhouse.
I have a 24v outback system.
2 800ah 1500lb forklift batteries.
7kw of inverter
Diesel generator.
Around 4kw of solar panels

Off grid power is always more expensive then grid power. No such thing as free. I do about 400w for mom's and clones off solar. Then they go to the heated and lit greenhouse.
When I want to run real hid lighting, it is on my diesel generator. My system starts my generator if it senses load over 3kw for over 3 minutes. It takes whatever power is left over and charges my batteries.
Running a diesel genny at high loads is less expensive then power from the electric company. I'd say less then half the price.

Heated greenhouse + diesel for supplemental lighting only when necessary= lowest cost per lb

 

[wasgedn]

Running a diesel genny at high loads is less expensive then power from the electric company. I'd say less then half the price.

wtf

 

[queequeg152]

wtf

yea that is absolutly insane... just the cost to transport diesel would amount to cents per kwh when you add in a 10 year amortization of a transport tank and transfer pump and another storage tank.

water plants have to maintain emergency generator capacity for all plants serving more than 250 people...the last serious hurricane we had down here had dozens of these small private water plants running on trailer mounted diesel gensets of like 10kva all the way to 100kva.

they scrapped this setup becasue just paying for private contractors to ferry disel fuel to and from the plants for a week or so was extremely expensive, so expensive that it actually made more sense to convert some gensets to permanently installed propane and natural gas and scrap the ones that were not able to be refitted due to age (no super strict spill containment requirements for gases), and lease new ones.

 

[wasgedn]

10 kva portable home used diesel generator ---US $880 - 1,500 / Piece

superthanx for heads up queequeg152
sry CrushnYuba , i forgot about the thread...you can always pm if you wonder why this dude doesnt talk anymore...


i was in forums reading about growing years before i started to grow...waiting for possibility to realize it..i hope this will be similar to this topic...

 

[CrushnYuba]

No diesel is the cheapest by far. There are some mega diesel gen indoor opps in the woods. There is a reason you never see ng or profane powered. Propane is so expensive it never really makes sense. Gallon per gallon you get the most energy out of diesel. That's a fact. Nothing touches diesel by a long shot. 129k btu per gallon for diesel and it's 84k btu for propane. Natural gas is significantly less btu then even propane. Propane and ng is really only for backup power. 99% of lp and ng gensets also can't handle the hours put on them for prime power generating. A diesel can handle 40,000 hours before rebuild. Diesels like to be ran at full load! You can't run lp or ng at full load and they simply can't be run 24/7 like a diesel. Total hours you can put on them are way less.
Gas companies deliver off road diesel just like they do propane if you have the storage. Delivery is free. It's off road died red diesel. It is exempt from road tax and about 50¢ cheaper per gallon or more. This is for farm equipment and is against the law to use in cars. I frequently pay 1.50$ a gallon. If you check fuel consumption data for diesel gensets and do the math, you will see that I am right.
Commercial diesel gennies are also mega expensive. Even used with reasonable hours. They good their value very well. Expect to pay around 1000$ per kw. These are 1800rpm liquid cooled 4 pole. They are usually hand built by a genny builder. They run at half the speed of a store bought genny for backup power. They are meant to run 24/7. Backup gennies can't be run 24/7. Lp or ng will cost more in fuel and will explode if you try to run them all day within a few months.

 

[CrushnYuba]

And when I say diesel is half the price of a power company I am talking about California power. PG&E. We have a tier program here and get charged over double the price per kw if we are high energy consumers. Diesel isn't actually less expensive then grid power in the rest of the country.
But wherever you are diesel is the only real alternative to grid power that actually works if you are running more then a couple lights unfortunately.

 

[queequeg152]

propane is insanely more expensive obviously, but does not have shelf life of even the stabilized disel they used before on the disel gensets. you can also have a massive fucking tank with propane and even tap a little bit off to heat the gas chlorine room... the heating is literally drops in the bucket though, it takes so so so so so little heat to keep chlorine bottles warm enough to eject properly, and the chlorine rooms are typically microscopic little CMU closets.they usually just have electric wraps over the tanks in use.

how much is PG&E power btw? even 12 cents a kwh is pretty high for us here in houston... can get as low as like 9 cents if you get a retarded plan that tiers you way up to like 17 cents during the day and tiers you down to 9 only at night... this a not a manditory thing though, its a marketing thing to trick morons into buying their random plans.

there is no manditory tiering for high energy users here far as i know... but it sounds like you could be paying like 25 cents a kwh then which is like hawaii prices.

i guess that makes sense then... basically you are running at normal electricity prices, but only because you get gang raped by that tier system?

1500 for a 10kva sounds crazy cheap too... is this thing a ghetto rig or just a rebuilt Chinese one? or maby an indian mahindra? ive heard mahindra shit is cheap.

this water company uses kholer units which are cheap, and apparently shitty, but they seem to run fine... even they are like 500 bucks per kva though. they are not little home units inside a nice little cabinet though, they are massive fucking skid mounted things with a big fat radiator in front and a fatty exhaust and muffler coming out the side.

 

[CrushnYuba]

California has insane power. There are 3 tiers. Our lowest tier (near impossible low energy consumption) is 19¢ per kwh!!. Our highest tier( all growers) is 40¢ per kwh!! And most households that don't grow are on tier 2 at 27¢ per kwh!!
Price for off road diesel adds up to like 12¢ per kwh I think for me when I'm running lights.. But that's just for diesel. Doesn't count equipment maintenance. But that is crazy cheap for off grid power generating. And it's cheap for cali.

1500 for 10kva is impossible even used. They just don't make cheap junk air cooled 3600rpm diesel gennies for home backup power the way they do lp/ng gennies. Diesels are pretty much exclusively 1800rpm liquid cooled.

The thing is solar isn't a real alternative to grid power. It will never be less expensive or even close in price. I am off grid only because I have no other choice. Why would you go threw all the trouble to convert the sun into energy to grow indoors anyway? Why not just grow in a greenhouse or outdoors? If you have enough solar for power you have enough to grow outside. People never factor in batteries. They are the most limiting factor of solar. I have 11k$ in batteries and I cant do an indoor grow with them.

 

[queequeg152]

and yet folks want to run the country on wind and solar w/ 0 nuclear...

i know exactly what you are saying on running solar only... it just makes no sense.

going solar + ATS to a generator on the other hand makes more sense, but you are just front loading even more cost that you have to pay down over the years and years...

40 cents if fucking insane though. what do poor folks do in the summer? most poor folks have shabby homes with poor insualtion, bad windows and old shabby construction... hence they often consume much more energy.
how do they even begin to afford 40 cents a kwh? that would be more than food costs at your typical power usage rates?

 

[queequeg152]

lol and wtf does industry pay? surely not 40 cents? nobody would build shit in california if that were the case surely?

here the largest users pay like a few cents off the wholesale... so like 6-7 cents maby for huge fatty 3phase 4 wire service. but they are consuming thousands of amps with wierd chunky copper buss bars and massive transformers.

hell the chemical plant a few miles down the train tracks has an entire building to house all their PLC switch gear and transformers and shit... i imagine they consume thousands of Mwh a month.

 

[wasgedn]

25-35 euro cent kwh in germany

we got the same red diesel here ...as heating oil... forbidden to use in cars..

i kno a guy who run his car with regular diesel and canola oil ...he did that when he was heading amsterdam back in the days lol..smelled like fries sometimes..

some peeps did driving their older diesel cars without bigger value , on canola oil only...

i bet industry has buried a lot of patents for long living 24/7 veg oil generators or even for generators which can be used with both and are long living without getting problems cause of to much soot or something like that..

anyway they made the price for diesel and canola equal ...

 

[queequeg152]

germany is fucked in the head with the energiewunden or wtf ever its called.

at least keep the nuclear plants online whilst you chase the fantasy of 100% WWS.

do you guys even understand how overbuilt your distribution system, and regional interconnects will need to be to handle highly variable outputs of wind and solar?

you guys are going to need hundreds of telephone pole sized aluminum conductors running thousands of miles all over germany and the adjacent countries to even begin to approach 100% WWS... not even going to talk about the demand side management issues and storage etc... you guys are fucked in the head imo.

 

[CrushnYuba]

Pg&e are straight up crooks. Allot of the middle tier energy users are using that much energy because they can't afford to make their houses more energy efficient. Poor insulation and space heaters in the winter. If you are really really poor you can get the care program and have electric subsidized. They do offer way lower rates for commercial users. Growing indoors here is pretty impossible here. Power is the most expensive and our market is at an all time low. Lbs of good outdoor are 1000$ at the moment. Indoor is 1500. Greenhouse is in between. Most of my friends that do indoor bought electric cars for the break on power. Pg&e doesn't even buy power back anymore if you have grid tied solar and you generate extra power. Crooks.

Nuclear is rad. The off shore wind plant that just went in in new England is pretty cool also. Solar just isn't a real alternative. What about the winter and night time? We don't have the technology for storing energy on that scale.
I try to be as efficient as possible. I live off solar and batteries 99% of the time but there are 2 situations that my outback solar system will auto start the gen. Battery voltage, or sustained large load. If there just hasn't been enough sun and my battery voltage drops too low, it auto starts the gen to charge the batteries and then shuts off. The other reasons it would start the gen is if I'm using large amounts of power for sustained periods. Charging and discharging batteries at high rates is inefficient and bad for the batteries. It's better to just run the gen during those times. If my system detects 3kw for more then 3 minutes, it starts up.

 

[queequeg152]

Pg&e are straight up crooks. Allot of the middle tier energy users are using that much energy because they can't afford to make their houses more energy efficient. Poor insulation and space heaters in the winter. If you are really really poor you can get the care program and have electric subsidized. They do offer way lower rates for commercial users. Growing indoors here is pretty impossible here. Power is the most expensive and our market is at an all time low. Lbs of good outdoor are 1000$ at the moment. Indoor is 1500. Greenhouse is in between. Most of my friends that do indoor bought electric cars for the break on power. Pg&e doesn't even buy power back anymore if you have grid tied solar and you generate extra power. Crooks.

Nuclear is rad. The off shore wind plant that just went in in new England is pretty cool also. Solar just isn't a real alternative. What about the winter and night time? We don't have the technology for storing energy on that scale.
I try to be as efficient as possible. I live off solar and batteries 99% of the time but there are 2 situations that my outback solar system will auto start the gen. Battery voltage, or sustained large load. If there just hasn't been enough sun and my battery voltage drops too low, it auto starts the gen to charge the batteries and then shuts off. The other reasons it would start the gen is if I'm using large amounts of power for sustained periods. Charging and discharging batteries at high rates is inefficient and bad for the batteries. It's better to just run the gen during those times. If my system detects 3kw for more then 3 minutes, it starts up.

i certainly and genuinely commend you on actually trying to be legitimatly green, generator not withstanding... its just not something i could afford or even find the time to research.

i get that its not that hard, but it seems like the only real way to get a system working thats semi affordable is to build your own battery bank with "retired" batteries that you then recondition and bring back to life.... or at least thats what i have read.

what i am doing to my place is a fairly agressive retrofit including FAR better attic ventilation... were talking 1200% more soffit ventilation, and ridge ventilation... at the hip roofs i will install like 8 new passive vents with 50% more surface area.

attic radiant barrier is a scam... but this palce already had it on the attic floor, so i went ahead and stapled that up to the roof rafters where it can atleast approach like.... r1-r2.

i am also in the process of gutting the entire duct system replacing it with an r8.7 ductboard system + merv 11 media filter... should cut summer energy usage by 50% minimum.

if i get a new ac it will drop another 12% minimum... so thats where i am, not enough to really matter, but its better than doing nothing... and this shit will easily pay for itself in less than 5 years.

 

[wasgedn]

not all are fckt in the head..but plenty of stupid fcks and brainwashed..our goverment is it...controlled by lobbies and occupied by nato...
political parties are all the same ...no difference...

many peeps buildin opinions from pure propaganda from the different corners....


i check how many reactors we have...
btw you just need a RPG to make some serious super-gau...

http://www.atom-aktuell.de/energiewirtschaft/atomkraftwerke-in-deutschland.html
check the statistics lists beneath on fiki
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Kernreaktoren_in_Deutschland

and then switch the same wiki site to english .....its little different picture then...not complete but little...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
kilo top haze cost 6-6,50 k....but normaly for 'normal' peeps around 8000 euro...sellin it for 12000 small/small....up to 15 per g for idiots and to young people....

 

[wasgedn]

greenhouses with additional lights is interesting to me...also when the winter grow is not possible anymore for me then..at least on proper energy bill

are silent gens silent enough when having neighbours near??