Right click and open image in new tab for full resolution view.
Here is a an idea on how you can presumably store solar energy if you're looking to live off the grid.
The concept is simple and consists of a daytime storing cycle and consumption during the night:
- In daytime light, the photo voltaic panels power a water pump which pushes water from the lower tank into the higher tank.
- To power the house at night, you simply let the water fall down into the lower tank again. The water spins a turbine which produces electricity.
You need to know the average power necessity for your home. Then you need to figure out what volume of water needs to spin the turbine in order to actually produce that amount of electric energy. And the water must fall from a certain height in order to get enough momentum as to spin the turbine at a certain minimum viable speed.
But your energy consumption is not necessarily evenly distributed across a 24 hours period and that's another issue. Etc., etc.
That's why sending the energy that your solar panels produce into the national grid is a better option than actually storing it. (I won't mention batteries coz those are just too expensive to count as an option for a household.)
Does your government and national energy company want you to store your own energy?
Probably not.
Coz that would mean a very valuable form of independence for you and that's not good for their cash flow.
And that's a good reason for smart engineers and inventors to design and promote systems for producing and storing electric energy so that anyone can easily adopt them. But that's an utopia, isn't it?
Over to you
- Do you think there's a future where the households would be energy independent?
- Isn't the current system flawed since there is no storage of energy? It's all about consumption and immediate re-distribution.
- Wait a sec... governments build dams and then they sell us electricity. Isn't this system a mini-dam with a small electric plant attached (in your back yard)?
Go green (as much as you can).
Thanks for stopping by! Share this article with your friends.
Yeah the concept is interesting but I bet there's so much more to consider before building it.
ReplyDeleteLike the total watt hours of your appliances, the times when you consume more energy than usual (powering some hardware for doing repairs and what not).
Of course, Andy.
DeleteI'd love to have a solution for this. This was just a thought of mine.
I still hope the larger energy issue will be solved in a way without any negative consequences (see the oil disasters). And maybe we can all be a part of the solution, bouncing off ideas like this (which may be lame, I agree) until we find one that's worth pursuing.