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Sustainable Energy 

Solar

How many panels do we need?

I was planning to use 9 panels however i now thing this might be unnecessary for our frugal lifestyle.

The panels are part of a modular system so we will probably start with less then add more if needed.

9 panels produce 2.3kW and we only need 750 watts however the shady woodland is unlikely to give the maximum results ....

Where is the energy stored?

The panels charge at 48 volts and we will store this energy in 'wet' (lead-acid) cells rather than modern lithium-iron batteries. This is purely due to cost and reliability, and from a cost perspective, we will be using 24 x 2 volt second-hand forklift batteries.

Wind

Vertical systems over horizontal

Designing the rotor / vanes

Up-cycling direct drive washing machine motors

How efficient is this? 

Hydro-electric

At Coed Glannant, we have two ravines, one with greater flow than the other; both fall about 20 metres, giving a static head pressure of 2 bar.

Using a Pelton wheel and a rewired direct drive (fixed magnet) washing machine motor, we hope to get 400 watts most of the time although the streams respond quickly to heavy rain and in flows as pictured, we could get significantly more.

I will show the maths behind this as i get deeper into it.