--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 272 HOME POWER Ref: DA100001 Date: 05/30/96 From: JAMES DI PAULO Time: 02:46pm \/To: KEN FINNEY (Read 4 times) Subj: Re: Solar Hot Water > Get a copy of Rodale Solar Greenhouse book, it has been out of print > for a while, but your library should be able to get it. It details > several greenhouses they built over several years, and details what > actually works. Thank you, I'll look for this. Jim --- DB 1.58/003790 * Origin: The Rain Forest * Denver,CO * (1:104/901) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 272 HOME POWER Ref: DA100002 Date: 05/30/96 From: JAMES DI PAULO Time: 02:48pm \/To: FRANK DUNN (Read 4 times) Subj: Re: Solar Hot Water Hi Frank, > volcanic rock in solar box's and opened sliding doors in the > evening to take the heat off for the greenhouse at night. He > used 3X6 discarded window thermal panes that had lost there > seal > and was able to pick them up real cheap. Sorry I don't have > any > more info on it. It was in a solar engineering mag some years > ago. > It was about a two layer bed of rock in a well insulated box. > It > sounds like a cheap enough way to go to hold heat for night > use. > Lots of luck. > Frank Dunn > On The Columbia River > ... SENILE.COM found . . . Out Of Memory . . . > ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 > --- Platinum Xpress/Wildcat! v1.2f > * Origin: E-Source BBS : 512-463-6257 (1:382/503) --- DB 1.58/003790 * Origin: The Rain Forest * Denver,CO * (1:104/901) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 272 HOME POWER Ref: DA100003 Date: 05/30/96 From: JAMES DI PAULO Time: 02:49pm \/To: FRANK DUNN (Read 4 times) Subj: Re: Solar Hot Water Hi Frank, > I heard about a person in Wyoming that used a very dense black volcanic > rock in solar box's and opened sliding doors in the evening to take the > heat off for the greenhouse at night. That sounds interesting, I'll add this to the list of things to talk to the engineer about. Thanks.. Jim --- DB 1.58/003790 * Origin: The Rain Forest * Denver,CO * (1:104/901) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 272 HOME POWER Ref: DA100004 Date: 05/31/96 From: JIM MCANDREW Time: 12:07am \/To: ALL (Read 4 times) Subj: RISKY HYDRO Follow up on Risky Hydro thread... ...and the question of using negative pressure in a pelton turbine housing to augment power output. This past week we got our home made ('shop made') 14kw pelton turbine back together and running after rebuilding the runner when last years' model proved to be too lightly constructed. The new runner, estimated as 7 times stronger at the bucket attachment point that was the trouble before, seems plenty sturdy. This time we have provided three 6" outlets for the turbine discharge water (two was not enough). The outlets have 6" corrugated drain tubing leading down about 20 feet of vertical to the stream bed. The ends are submerged in half a 55 gal drum kept full by the flow in the stream. During operation, air entrained with the discharge water does cause a slight negative pressure to develop in the housing. The vacuum is slight , however, and will not register on a gage calibrated 0-30"Hg vacuum, but can be felt by removing the gage and placing a finger over the hole. Measuring by water gage I got only 2" water column. In an effort to get the effect started, I hooked up a jet pump to aid in evacuating the housing. This produced only about 2' of vacuum on the water gage. I think we must not have the housing sealed well enough. Perhaps the shaft seals are the problem. Otherwise I'm real pleased with our 'home built' turbine. Spec's. : Head: 470' Flow: up to 300gpm (pipeline limits flow) Water source: 18,000,000 gal reservoir formerly used as an industrial water supply. Max. depth 20'. Watershed: about 70 acres (.. wish it were more!) Pipeline: 1840' of 4" HDPE (Black poly) heat welded in 40' lengths in staged pressure ratings from 110psi to 200psi. Generator: 20hp, 1750rpm, 3ph, 575V, TEFC Toshiba Premium efficiency motor used as an induction generator at 480V system voltage Wire run: about 2000' of #8AWG Tray Cable strung on insulators attached to trees. (Up to 60V drop in transmission = 1.5 kw loss at max. power) Capacitors: 7 Kvar at generator end of transmission line to correct power factor and minimize amps and losses in the wire run. Grid Intertie: Power Co. required Over & Under Voltage, and Over & Under Frequency relays. We used inexpensive devices from TimeMark Corp. and got off cheep at about $350 total for the two. This system is on an industrial property served by a single meter. The Mill is now shut down and dismantled on that site, but there are 10 occupied Company owned homes and some support facilities remaining. Since the average power use at the site exceeds the capacity of the hydro system by several times, (and probably because we are a good customer at the New Mill site) the power Co. did not require any special metering, and just lets us run the hydro downstream on the electrical system to partially offset our use. Turbine: Designed (by me) and built-in house in our Co. shop. Two nozzle (at 90 deg spread, end and top) Pelton type. Runner is 24 bucket 9" pitch dia. w/ 1-3/8" shaft. Housing is a welded steel box with 1" thick plexiglass side panels and a removable (for nozzle access) plexiglass partial top panel. Nozzles are 2.5" Std. Pipe fittings flanged to the box (steerable) and reduced at the tip to 3/4 NPT to take interchangeable brass nozzles w/ various bore sizes. The pipe fittings are faired w/ 'liquid metal' internally at the reducer. Runner: Bolted-on bucket construction. Hub is machined from 3/4 Stainless steel w/ 24 pairs of 3/32" deep x 3/8" wide x 1-1/2" long 'keyways' machined into the rim radially to accept the bucket tangs. The buckets are made of a castable plastic molded around two 3/8" SS square bar pins (tangs) connected by 3/4" x 1/8" SS flatbar welded to the pins. The pins are spaced 9/16" and straddle the rim, like a riders legs straddling a horse, sliding into the keyways for a tight fit, and pinned at the 'rider's ankles' with a machine screw. Bucket Pattern: Was taken loosely from detailed drawings in "The Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers". The pattern was carved first in paraffin wax and then transferred by an impression into autobody putty. A durable 'rough' was cast in plastic from the bodyputty mold which I sanded and shaped on a grinder to make a finished pattern. The bucket is 2-3/4 wide x 2" long and will accept a jet up to about 23/32" dia. Performance: The turbine is running today at about 220 gpm w/ a 1/2" and a 9/16 nozzle and w/ a dynamic pressure of about 175psi on the gage. We are getting about 12.4 amps @ 550V w/ nearly 100% power factor or about 11.8 kw at the turbine shed. At 100% efficiency, 16.86kw would result, so we have about 73.5 % efficiency, "water to wire" using those numbers. The usual expectation from purchased commercial equipment is about 75%. So we are pretty close to commercial equipment efficiency and I wouldn't trust our pressure gage and volt and ammeter accuracy to make a call that it is better or worse. We have a manual reset arrangement to turn off the water in the event of an electrical fault or grid outage. This is advisable so as not to waste water or overspeed the motor and bearings. This shutdown arrangement is a real Rube Goldburg. A solenoid keeps a latch closed until a fault condition. On a fault , a cable is released allowing a weight to drop which pulls on another line closing the ball valves feeding the turbine. To prevent rapid closing of the valves and possible water-hammer trouble, the weight is restrained by another cable connected to a hydraulic door closer used as a dashpot. We spent about $7,000 on pipe, wire, motor and other items, but much of the electrical stuff, starters and meters, was scrounged or salvaged from storage. Depending on yearly rainfall, I expect a payback on materials purchased in 2 to 3 years assuming 8 months operation per year (It would freeze in our -20 deg. F winters) with average output of 9 KW and our incremental cost of $.06/KWH. I've had a lot of fun with this! --- FLAME v1.1 * Origin: Telnet toltbbs.com or call 313-854-6001, Boardwatch #55 (1:234/2) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 272 HOME POWER Ref: DA100005 Date: 05/31/96 From: JIM MCANDREW Time: 12:10am \/To: RICHARD PEREZ (Read 4 times) Subj: Rates for HP Watts Richard, I like your magazine. Thanks. I do think you put too much blame on utilities and ignore global and national economic realities in your editorial in the June /July issue of HP and in your response to a letter in that same issue, where you argue that utilities pay an unreasonable pittance for the electricity generated by the couple who own the wind generator in Illinois. They are paid 1.7 cents/kwh for their excess production and pay 10.5 cents for their purchases. I'm not associated with any utility nor am I an investor in one (they don't make ENOUGH money, or offer a high enough rate of return for my tastes, and therefore can't attract my capital, small amount though it is), but I have thought about these issues in connection with my job responsibilities. Among other things, I monitor energy use and pursue strategies to reduce energy expenses. The Illinois utility is probably paying at or above the federally mandated floor of 'avoided cost' set by the PURPA act. The utility will argue that this amounts approximately to avoided fuel costs, less the system average cost per kwh of maintaining the 'marketing service and associated apparatus, equipment and organization' that makes it possible to transport the couples' excess wind power to market. The 1.7 cents/kwh sounds reasonable to me on that basis. You argue that the couples' electric power bought by the utility is "... of the finest kind- renewable, no pollution, no carbon dioxide, no waste of any kind." But these fine qualities have little or no economic value to the utility and its' investors. Contrarily, the utility views the couples' power as of slight economic value since it is not reliably available, so, while it is true as you state that the utility has no capital investment in the couples' generating system, the utility cannot realize any reduction in their own capital investment to justify an increased payment to the couple. On that hot, peak demand, windless day in August, the utility must rely entirely on their own investment in generating capacity to meet their obligations, an investment not decreased by the idle windmill. No individual utility can afford to take a 'best solution: hidden or indirect environmental factors fully considered' approach. Their investors would revolt and fire the management idealists. The experience of New York State is evidence that even a state by state approach won't work. New York went 'more catholic than the pope' after the federal PURPA act was passed, precipitated by the mid 70's oil crisis. New York law mandated that a minimum of $.06/kwh be paid to any supplier of electric power, including home scale systems, which qualified under the PURPA act for 'avoided cost' purchase. New York further encouraged utilities in the State to agree to even more generous contracts via arm twisting and an informal system of 'brownie points' and implied threats whereby a utilitie's behavior would be rewarded or punished when it came time for the Public Service Commission to consider the utilities next rate increase request. The (false) expectation at the time was that oil prices would continue to rise. NY Utilities were encouraged to sign contracts that took into account projected increases that in oil prices that never occurred. Escalator clauses based on the erroneous projections now require payments in the teens/kwh to many lucky contract holders. Some hydro was developed w/ long term debt. The projects were made economically viable by the guaranteed artificially high minimum prices and escalator contracts. The legislature went out to lunch on this policy area after patting each other on the back. They didn't come back to the topic for more than a decade. In the interim, oil prices stabilized and decreased and natural gas went down, but the law, setting a fixed high price in a dynamic commodity market, remained the same. Opportunists (can you blame them?) flocked to New York. Many Co-Gen type qualifying projects were undertaken. In some cases w/ foreign capital. They were a slam-dunk. Find a factory that uses heat, - sell them steam to qualify under PURPA as a Co-Gen, and sell as much electricity as you care to at significantly above the 'natural' market price, probably three times or more the utilities' current cost of generation. Now the owners and investors in these 'PURPA Qualifying Facilities' drive Feraries and Lambrogenies. New York utility rate payers have nearly the highest rates in the nation. Some NY Utilities are talking about declaring bankruptcy. Their stockholders are in revolt. There has been a mass exodus of industry from NYS to S. Carolina and other States where power is cheaper. Oh yes, the legislature came back from lunch two years ago and repealed the law. But the damage was done. The Contracts negotiated during that period have many years remaining. There is an over-supply of power in NY. The utilities must buy power they don't want at high prices: $.06 and way above, and must sell it elsewhere on the North East Power Grid at market prices, about $.03/kwh ... at a loss. NY rate payers makeup the difference that buys the Lambroginies. Now we've got: Legislators talking in concerned tones about the NYS economy and the utility rate crisis. Lambrogini owners waving Green flags and talking in pious tones about the environmental benefits of their modern facilities. A State economy in the gutter heading toward the drain. Still more industry and jobs leaving. Remaining ratepayers holding the bag. Still rising rates. Yup, still those escalator contracts, escalating. OK, so what's my point? Electricity is a commodity market. Artificially fixing prices makes a mess... even if its for a good cause. What happened to NY would happen elsewhere if prices are fixed based on environmental benefits that the dynamic market doesn't recognize. A national policy could fail as NY's did. Some Capital and industry would flee overseas. Maybe a large amount. A large amount fled New York. RE and Home-Power can stand tall on its own legs in many circumstances, site specific. The rest of the consumers of electric power cannot be expected to subsidize RE at overmarket rates based on benefits not recognized global until they become willing to suffer economic pain locally in exchange for local environmental benefits. Most people don't see enough of a problem to make that swap yet. Utilities are not to blame, they are constrained by larger forces, they are no more greedy than anyone else, they are probably only just barely greedy enough, given regulated profits, to attract the investors or get the loan needed to buy the generator needed to support the peak demand on that hot summer day two years from now. When there is no wind, it's cloudy, the streams are low, and the homepower people don't care to sell any juice. --- FLAME v1.1 * Origin: Telnet toltbbs.com or call 313-854-6001, Boardwatch #55 (1:234/2) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 272 HOME POWER Ref: DA100006 Date: 05/28/96 From: TERRY JACKSON Time: 08:32pm \/To: ELVIS HARGROVE (Read 4 times) Subj: Hot water heater ?? Terry spied a message from Elvis Hargrove to Terry Jackson on 05-2396 11:45 about HOT WATER HEATER ?? Hello Elvis -> Where does Methane produced from organic waste rate? Are any of -> these fuels interchangeable? Have a good one. Take care EH> You've doubtless seen where Jim Dunmyer and I discussed methane and EH> natural gas. They are substantially the same thing with minor EH> chemical differences. Yes that is what I was refering to. So you are saying that methane made for organic waste will work in any natural gas appliance without any hardware alterations? EH> The other gasses are all frequently interchangable if the device using EH> them is adjustable for mixture and can accept the appropriate EH> pressures. Propane and Butane need to operate at approximately four EH> times the pressure of natural gas, and require a MUCH leaner mixture EH> for complete combustion. Ok that is good to know. Thanks for the information. Have a good one. Take care Terry ... "All I Want For Xmas Is My Two Front Teeth" - NHL Theme Song. ___ Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 [NR] --- DB 1.58/004759 * Origin: SkipRidge CompuNet System * Green Valley, Ont (1:248/203) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 272 HOME POWER Ref: DA100007 Date: 05/30/96 From: TERRY JACKSON Time: 12:48am \/To: ALL (Read 4 times) Subj: Lost mail * Crossposted from: PENPALS Hello All I recently posted some messages here and did not get responses. We did however have a week to a week and a half of mail interruption here and it is quite possible replies went astray. If you have written to me in the last say 2-3 weeks and I have not replied assume it never made it to me and please send the message again if you can. Thanks and sorry for any inconvenience. Thanks in advance. Take care Terry ... Hal 9000: "Dave, put those Windows 95 disks down....Dave... ___ Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 [NR] --- DB 1.58/004759 * Origin: SkipRidge CompuNet System * Green Valley, Ont (1:248/203) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 272 HOME POWER Ref: DA100008 Date: 05/28/96 From: EDDIE SHELDRAKE Time: 10:52pm \/To: ELVIS HARGROVE (Read 4 times) Subj: MAINTAINING BATTERIES Elvis, EH>-> After testing, I found that the timer turns when the battery is not EH>-> yet charged, this can be fixed by adding a reflector dioed, and 10K EH>-> varable restor, and a 470uf capastor EH>Still, a VERY innovative system. Someone probably sells the EH>intervalometer on the surplus market. Great idea! EH>^..^ Sorry about the spelling errors. I got carried away typing this message in WordPerfect, and the computer crashed when I tried to spell check. I had no idea that this message was posted untill two days later. How it got posted, I do not know, it just did. I posted a spell checked and edited version of this message. I spell better then this, but not a 3 o'clock at night. Eddie, ___ * UniQWK #5173* I'm not a poor speller I spell creatively --- FLAME v1.1 * Origin: Home Power BBS - Renewables R Us (707) 822-8640 (1:2002/442) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 272 HOME POWER Ref: DA100009 Date: 05/29/96 From: MICHAEL WELCH Time: 08:45am \/To: SCOTT PARKS (Read 4 times) Subj: WRONG ECHO > Hmmmm... the focus has changed since Don had the Echo. > Sorry!! Nope, not a bit. It has always had the focus of living with home made electricity. By the way, for all you folks who know Don, he's currently up here at Home Power Magazine working on the next version of the Solar CDrom. It'll be interactive instead of just a bunch of files, and all the files will be in Adobe Acrobat format. He's doing well, and wait til you see the solar electric system he installed on his micro bus... to be featured in HP#54. --- FLAME v1.1 * Origin: Home Power BBS - Renewables R Us (707) 822-8640 (1:2002/442) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 272 HOME POWER Ref: DA100010 Date: 05/27/96 From: THOMAS L. KISH, JR. Time: 08:40am \/To: LEWIS COSPER (Read 4 times) Subj: HOT WATER HEATER ?? Re: HOT WATER HEATER ?? > > You need to get a lot more sophisticated with your solar water > > heater, Elvis. Gonna need a pump and a valve or 2, thermstat, > > etc. Nothing real complicated, but more'n what you have now. > Just what kind of pump can one use that will tolerate the hot temperature and > high pressure of most water systems? > Lewis You can use the recirculating pumps for a hydronic heating system. They come in all sizes and HP ranges, including fractional. Bell and Gossett also makes a 120v pump specifically for recirculating domestic hot water, which is primarily used in commercial buildings for "instant" hot water at restroom and kitchen taps. If you would like more specific information, leave me a little info on the system you have in mind, and I'll look up the appropriate part numbers for you. Tom --- Virtual Advanced Ver 1 for DOS * Origin: Dark Star VI (1:2250/21)