New Tesla Battery (PowerWall)

[Huck]

Good article at technomadia by Chris.

Tesla’s Lithium Powerwall – Awesome, But Not For RVs

Chris is already using lithium batteries in his bus.

[Byron Kinnaman]

Originally Posted by honda03842

David,

It looks like you're using that 'insane' number of K watt hours per day.

Interesting when you consider you're an energy conscious person. In Florida in March we averaged 15 k-watt hrs a day. In the worse winter month we averaged 21 k-watt hrs per day. Our house is fully electric in FL.

In our trailer we average 6 k-watt hrs per day in a cold month using electricity for everything except cooking. I suspect in the trailer it's mainly electric heat.

WOW that's almost an insane amount of power used in your trailer. I just calculated how much we use in our trailer. It varies from 0.01 kw/hour/day to less than 0.3kw/hour/day depending on the weather.

[RogerDat]

Wants to run AC for 3 hrs. on high off of battery, with all other power draws as normal.. Worth $3,000 + to be able to. For some maybe, not for me.

[honda03842]

Originally Posted by Byron Kinnaman

WOW that's almost an insane amount of power used in your trailer. I just calculated how much we use in our trailer. It varies from 0.01 kw/hour/day to less than 0.3kw/hour/day depending on the weather.

When we're dry camping we certainly use virtually no electrical power like you suggest, however when we're hooked up to AC and it's cold we run the electric heater... we hate the gas heater. I probably should remove it.

As well we run the hot water heater on electricity, the electric blanket, tv, computers, coffee pot and toaster.....

It's easy to burn up 3 k-whrs if you run an electric heater for a couple of hours,

As I've aged I have found my personal thermostat doesn't regulate my temperature as well as it used to regulate it. I generally feel cold unless it's warm. Today we went grocery shopping and I had to put a jacket on even though it's 80 F., store air conditioners make me feel cold. When I'm cold I run the heat, to me that's anything below 70.

[David B.]

Norm, if it's anything less than 80 degrees, I think it's cold.
Dave & Paula

[honda03842]

There's some truth to getting used to temps. When the pools 84 I know it without looking, it's the lowest water temp I now find acceptable and I used to swim in the 60 F water in NH. I 's love to fix it because my metabolism would be higher.

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[Briantb]

When I'm hooked up to power with the trailer I don't really care how many kWh I use, however when talking about battery usage much easier to understand in how many amp hours is your battery (or batteries), how much can your solar produce and most importantly how many amp hours are you using. Perhaps over simplified but that's the way I understand it. Works with the trailer and at home where we have no electric pole and rely 99% on solar year round


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[honda03842]

Originally Posted by Briantb

When I'm hooked up to power with the trailer I don't really care how many kWh I use, however when talking about battery usage much easier to understand in how many amp hours is your battery (or batteries), how much can your solar produce and most importantly how many amp hours are you using. Perhaps over simplified but that's the way I understand it. Works with the trailer and at home where we have no electric pole and rely 99% on solar year round


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Brian, How big is your solar panel and what do you have for a battery system?

Thank you

[Carol H]

Originally Posted by honda03842

I checked out North Vancouver, partially because I find geo-heating interesting. The Pacific coast is a good place for it with all the near surface hot spots.

It turns out that North Vancouver is heated by a hot water system powered by 16 natural gas distributed hot water plants. Geo thermo is not a significant factor, if any.

Actually Norm what I pointed you to is NOT North Vancouver proper but instead a small energy company put together by a VERY SMALL city called North Vancouver that is only a couple of miles wide and long & located in the middle of a much larger area known as North Vancouver ;-) not to mention the majority of the retail sector is mostly found on one street (so not a real big city) and yes your correct the system that small city energy company built primarily did not at first include a lot of Geo thermo but there most recent fairly large projects have.

As it reads under the heading Geothermal Energy:
" Geo-exchange systems use the naturally stored heat in the earth's surface, in oceans and large bodies of water. In many parts of the world, the earth's surface under the frost line maintains a nearly constant temperature between 10-degrees and 16-degrees Celsius, remaining warmer than the air above it in the winter and cooler in the summer. LEC has recently completed a heating and cooling ground source heat pump project as part of the former Lonsdale School site redevelopment. LEC uses a ground source heat pump system to transfer heat from the ground to the district energy system. The heat pump system also provides cooling to the new North Vancouver School Board office and the Gordon Smith Art Gallery, transferring the waste heat to the district energy heating system."

Now that may not sound like much to you but its a big deal to that little city as the projects mentioned are probable the biggest projects its undertaken in awhile ;-) The School board office is actually a 6 story building that takes up a city block (its big as it services the much larger community known as North Vancouver not just the little city). The former Lonsdale School Site was actually a large site taking up a city block and it now contains a number of large new apartment buildings as well as a large number of town homes all geo thermo heated. On BIG city terms it doesnt sound like much but to a little city such as it is, trust me its big

As far as the much larger area known as North Vancouver goes and as far as private homeowners within the small City of North Vancouver goes, as I mentioned homeowners do receive grants from the Province for installing geo thermo systems. Which are not connection at all to the small energy company the little City is running. I know through my serve on a community development board that reviews new home building applications that a large % of new construction is taking advantage of that, as well as those undertaking major home renovations. My neighbour had a drill sitting in their driveway for a few weeks just last month.

As I said we are known to be just a tab green in them here parts Norm, as anyone who has ever made the mistaking of thinking they don't need anyones permission to cut down a tree on their property has found out.

[Briantb]

Originally Posted by honda03842

Brian, How big is your solar panel and what do you have for a battery system?

Thank you

The trailer has a group 27 battery and we have a 100 Watt (2 50 watt) folding suitcase style with the cheap charge controller that came with it. More than sufficient for our needs.

At home we have a 1440 amp hour battery bank. On the roof 815 watts of solar 24V system. Outback fm80 mppt charge controller which on a good cold winter day will bring in over 1000 watts from the roof. We step it down to 12 volts to a Magnum 2800 Watt pure sign inverter (it's actually designed for RV'S).

We cook with propane and heat with a woodstove with a propane furnace for when we are away. Generally the generator is run once a week for laundry, vacuuming or if we use the infrared sauna. Power to spare 7 months a year. Occasionally during the winter, probably 4 - 6 times the generator is used to charge the batteries. 3000 Watt Honda EU generator hooked into the system does the job.




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