South Australia powerless as wind generators don't work.

Can't we get another song-and-dance, how mountain top removal coal is a wonderful thing?

 

Yeah the refrain would be "cough cough hack hack - here we go my lungs are turning black"



Black lung disease has resurfaced in Australia despite all of our workplace health and safety precautions

 

Let's get some Trump cult members to sing and dance on stage here. They hate alternative energy, we already know that. Let's hear it for all the coal miners who died underground. Some of them 12 year olds.....But hey, what does an alleged billionaire from New York City, born with a silver spoon, care about coal miners?

 

Or the environmental damage caused by the pollution the aged and corroding coal fired power stations are spewing into the atmosphere

Not to mention the cost of land rehabilitation

 

I voted for Trump and I'm all for alternative energy. I just see it's advantages and it's shortfalls. RE will become more practical as utility rates rise. It's just not plentiful enough to cut off coal, natural gas, and nuclear. It's not an option for everybody yet. Until then, drill baby drill. We cannot afford to be dependent on other nations. We can do both cleanly.

My dream is to build an off grid home to retire in. Even if the up front cost is greater, I will save big when I retire and won't have to worry about grid failures. I work on UPS systems, so I can do my own maintenance and get free used batteries. The key is to build the house super insulated and very energy efficient. I may even include some basic home automation to get rid of ghost loads and manage appliances. Any extra electricity produced will go to water pumping to a storage tank for water pressure or a garden if the tank is full.

 

overly exuberant idealism/utopianism and bad government go hand in hand.

 

Mate I know I am selling Australia but do look at some of the innovations in relation to off grid that we have come up with, We are a big sparsely populated island and there are a lot of isolated communities. We had solar public phones long before anyone else thought of it

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I agree to an extent but it gets a leeeetle more complicated. Why don't we have more natural gas fired power - well it seems it makes more money to sell the gas overseas

 

Give me some things to look up. I can usually spot what is useful and what isn't.

You should check out the home power link I posted. They are a gold mine for anybody off the grid.
www.homepower.com

 

No problems because I know that Google defaults to the country your are posting from so your search would not be the same as mine. Not sure what you would like so some random sampling
http://www.offgridsolarkits.com.au/...//www.energymatters.com.au/stand-alone-power/

http://www.entura.com.au/power/remote-area-power-systems/?gclid=CNS406acoNICFRQJvAodwSIMuw

There is lots more - if you ever want a search let me know

If you are going truly remote Australia has developed a mobile phone "hotspots"
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-12/mobile-hot-spots-in-remote-nt/6688924

 

If you are lucky enough to live on land with running water, look into micro-hydro generators. With a steady supply of running water, you can supply all of your personal electricity needs.

 

Sorry mate - living in North West QLD which is basically semi- desert with a short "wet season" our rivers are mostly just sand and dirt 90% of the time

 

Ever hear of Best Power UPS's?

 

Sounds good for solar and wind. Off grid is doable if plan ahead on construction. Plan overhangs, building orientation, and window placement. Get rid of ghost loads and buy energy efficient appliances. Plan a use for excess electricity. I plan to use it to pump water. Most people waste the energy on a light bulb or heater. If you do 12VDC, you'll have to install heavier gauge wiring. Most inverters are about 93% efficient, so DC loads are best when possible. RV stores have a lot of 12VDC appliances and light fixtures. Avoid air conditioning use as much as possible. Look into heat exchangers and air circulation through the ground to preheat/cool house air. Use all LED lighting.

I plan to put all of my batteries, Chargers, inverters, solar and wind generation in my shop and feed the house from my shop/garage. That minimizes the risk of battery fires while my family is asleep. I plan to build simple metal buildings and heavily insulate and furnish it nicely inside with open ceilings. I'd like to incorporate a basement for air circulation to avoid some air conditioning, but that is expensive here with our soil.

 

Or you could build into the side of a hill and use the earth for insulation. Something to look into I suppose.

 

Best was bought out by Powerware in 1996. There are still a few Best units around. The FERRUPS is most common. They are a single phase off line UPS that ranges from 1.5 to 18kva. Their 3 phase Unity is a clone of the APC Silcon series. Powerware (Eaton) remanufractured a few FERRUPS units about 5-7 years ago. I've been working on them for 23 years along with just about all others.

 

I worked as an engineer at Best Power and Powerware for 20 yrs.
When they took over and moved the Ferrups line to NC, I figured it would be done in 5 yrs or less. That was in 2003 or so. They made it longer than I figured. The Ferrups were a tank, but expensive.

 

A PF best of thread if I've ever read one.

A Brietbart fanatic attempts to downplay the significance of AE based on an almost insignificant problem in Australia, and it ends up being thread where everyone discusses AE as an actual alternative energy source.

*******n do I love America.

 

It was scary how the inverter didn't start until the power outage, but it worked well, at least the FD and FE series did. I didn't care much for the FC or the FB. One good thing about the FERRUPS was that you had fewer batteries to replace. It made the cost of ownership cheaper in the long run. I also like that Best always taped a spare key on the inside of the front cover. That has bailed me out a few times, but I usually have a key ring full of UPS keys. I work with several former Powerware guys. Small world. I bet we know some of the same people.

Another similar UPS is the Deltec 2000. I've always wondered if you could hook up solar panels to the DC bus and back feed power onto the grid with the bidirectional converter. Powerware also bought them in 1996 when they bought Best and IPM.

My favorite box to work on is the Powerware 9315. They are pretty dependable and failures are usually limited to batteries, fans, and the monitor control board. We wrote our own software for programming those boards. Good boxes.

I also used to work for GE. They were just introducing their American made SG line when I left them in 2004. I started the first one in Albequerque.

 

The Ferrups from the early 1990s onward did an inverter test 1X per week.
So, it was always testing to see if it was active before an actual outage occurred. It would alarm if it detected an inverter problem or a battery problem.

Not familiar with the 9315. I also was in on the design of the 9170. It was Best Powers attempt at double conversion. But was bought by Powerware at about the time of product release.

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Fanatics are trolls and deserve to be treated as such.

 

If I had to live under the rule of such liberal kooks, I'd have my own generators and solar electric system.

 

If you looked into this... you would see that alternative energy in that part of Australia plays a minor roll in the total amount of energy producing ways. So its absurd to blame the alternative energy part for this.

 

If I can generate a MHh of power from natural gas for less than the price of wind what place does wind have?

 

I'm a survivalist, putting all my hope and trust in Big Brother to me is absurd. When the lights go out, it's going to fall to me to take care of my family.

PS, back generators and solar are alternative energy.

 

I would think those power companies in Australia are privately owned businesses, and not part of Big Brother.

 

It is the government forcing them to move away from more reliable fossil fuel plants.

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It is the government forcing them to move away from more reliable fossil fuel plants.