Excellent. I realize you haven't really talked about it on the thread but I saw the video so...I figured it was not on the down low.
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Plan: Off grid solar with a Model S battery pack at the heart
- Thread starter wk057
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- Energy Environment Policy
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
So, got a reasonable deal on an HVAC system update. One of my heat pumps went down, and decided to just go all out one last time.
Now I have some leftover Nest thermostats... what to do what to do...
Oh, right! Hack them.
Nice hack.
I'd still like to replace my home thermostat. I have a touchscreen honeywell but it only does 4 times a day / 7 days scheduling and I want more time periods per day.
If you seriously have too much hardware laying around I'll always accept hand me downs
I've been reading the Amazon reviews and it seems the amazon crowd prefers Ecobee.
snort
Member
There's an elegant solution to both of these things and more: Personal Rapid Transit. There are several systems working now (Morgantown WV, Masdar, Heathrow) which are all relatively low capacity systems. There's no particular reason a better design can't carry as much as a fairly heavy rail system, with 1 tonne GVW vehicles operating half a second apart. (at an average occupancy of 1.5, that works out to 10800 PPHPD. The biggest subways can't do much better...but PRT only needs 6 feet of right of way 8 feet high, and can easily be elevated) It can also carry garbage and other freight loads. But unlike today's system, it can be completely demand driven. garbage pickups are scheduled as rarely as they can, to minimize labor and disruptions from the big vehicles. but if a small dumpster were to be picked up and replaced on demand and merged with passenger and freight vehicles, it wouldn't be a disruption at all, and the dumpsters could be small and adapt automatically to varying demands. the same solution works for goods delivery too.
I'm with you on making the big able to charge our cars. for a passenger car, it can be less than 20kw (HPWC speeds) but it may need to be bigger for heavy trucks. it would reduce the need for big battery EVs like the tesla anymore.
portable generators and compressors are a significant part of every present-day construction project. today's batteries have far inferior energy density than carbon based fuels. your proposal is a substantial fleet of battery shipments to the construction site. the solution is to have trailer full of whatever the cells-du-jour are with whatever inverters are necessary built in. this would have a form factor similar to today's present generator trailers. charge them up at the local supercharger and tow them to the site and replace the current "generator". cutting in a new one might be a little disruptive so large sites would probably have a seamless switch which would allow two to be plugged in at once. small sites would just tell everybody to stop work for a minute...and they'd try to arrange for most swaps to happen during breaks and at night. the energy density disadvantage of batteries would require roughly 50 times the bulk/weight of batteries to be shipped to the site compared with gasoline or diesel.
another option would be to adjust the infrastructure to make temporary megawatt installations practical. not sure how this would work. a supercharger cable is carrying only 1/8th of a megawatt and it's mighty big. moving hundreds of feet of something ten times that capacious for a construction site would be quite an undertaking. the grid keeps high power conductors separate, so they don't need insulation and can run at higher temperatures. that's not a practical solution for a temporary installation though.
--Snortybartfast
Fancy.
So you're presumably not running any Nest thermostats anymore? I don't particularly care for those, and I can't quite figure out why average consumers think they're great.
I have to ask, what equipment did you get? Presumably you got pressured into a communicating stat, and theres only one thats any good...
So you're presumably not running any Nest thermostats anymore? I don't particularly care for those, and I can't quite figure out why average consumers think they're great.
I have to ask, what equipment did you get? Presumably you got pressured into a communicating stat, and theres only one thats any good...
So, got a reasonable deal on an HVAC system update. One of my heat pumps went down, and decided to just go all out one last time.
Now I have some leftover Nest thermostats... what to do what to do...
Oh, right! Hack them.
Heh, too bad you can't spin the dial part to crank-up the amount of sun hitting your panels. Though I'm sure you can find something creative to do with that instead...
It's not a lie!
The cake is a lie though...Work is still in progress, but I won't be using any Nests once everything is done.
Here's what's happening:
I currently have three heat pumps. A 2 ton unit for the 1st floor and basement (undersized and overworked). A 2.5 ton unit for the 2nd floor (does OK with A/C, poorly with heat). A 1.5 ton unit for the attic loft area (died).
I'm replacing the attic and 2nd floor units with a 4 ton, 3-zone unit that handles the attic loft area, the bonus room on the 2nd floor (which I'm making into a little theater), and the rest of the 2nd floor. The first floor unit is getting replaced with a 3 ton, 2-zone unit that will handle the 1st floor and basement finished areas.
The systems will be Lennox XP25 systems with their iComfort thermostats/zoning. Around 21 SEER. The folks doing the install are re-insulating my attic duct work also, among other things. While it definitely is more expensive than just fixing the one busted heat pump, I think this will be better overall, and I think the zoning will help with energy usage by not needing to condition areas that aren't being utilized.
The folks at least appear to know what they're doing, and they have years of history and decent reviews. They spent a half-day going around taking measurements of my windows, room sizes, ceiling heights, outside wall sizes, and all sorts of other stuff to come up with the system sizing. Was definitely more than just X tons for X square feet.
*shrugs* Hopefully it works out well. Long story short the company doing the work is owned by the company that helped me out with my roof and ground solar panel installs, and I'm getting a pretty good deal with the equipment pretty close to cost.
Yeah, that'd be nice.
Rainy week unfortunately. Thursday should be good, though.Currently I'm just taking over the frame buffer on the Nest screen and writing out my stats (320x320 frame buffer with portions unusable due to the round screen). So no input yet. Maybe later. I have some ideas down the road. Just need to find some good spots for them and get power to them.
It is a poor business decision for the HVAC contractor to install a just big enough system, as you probably know.
Good stuff! Sounds like they definitely know their trade.
Which is why most end up oversizing the system which has its own set of drawbacks - comfort, efficiency and noise being the primary ones.
In other news. String of rainy days has my storage batteries down to ~55% currently. My P85D is at ~55% also, and my wife's car will be at ~10% by the time she gets back today. She has no travel planned for tomorrow, but leaving her pack < ~30% isn't a great option.
The bigger issue is that I need to drive ~175-200 miles tomorrow morning. I have enough power to put the power back into the cars, but I think it's going to be pretty close if tomorrow is as bad of a solar-power day as the last couple of days, which it looks like it will be. Weather Channel is calling for 100% chance of rain for tomorrow and partly cloudy for Thursday, but probably clear enough to get a normal production day.
I'm going to try. But I have a feeling I might have to hit up Duke Power for the first time in two months in order to make it through tomorrow night due to all of the extra driving my wife and I have been doing. And while I designed the system with this in mind for times when I need to do so... definitely not going to be my favorite thing to do.
So the questions become: Do I want to drain my stationary pack down so low, knowing that I probably won't have sufficient power in the end anyway, or do I switch over to the grid, top off the cars, and switch back so that the storage batteries never get super low in the first place. Then the other question is: Do I stick with trying to get 0 kWh utility bills and just charge my car somewhere else instead?
*shrugs*
I'll probably be stubborn and just drain my storage batteries to their set point and let the system kick over on it's own if it comes to that... that way I don't have to press the dirty button myself...
The bigger issue is that I need to drive ~175-200 miles tomorrow morning. I have enough power to put the power back into the cars, but I think it's going to be pretty close if tomorrow is as bad of a solar-power day as the last couple of days, which it looks like it will be. Weather Channel is calling for 100% chance of rain for tomorrow and partly cloudy for Thursday, but probably clear enough to get a normal production day.
I'm going to try. But I have a feeling I might have to hit up Duke Power for the first time in two months in order to make it through tomorrow night due to all of the extra driving my wife and I have been doing. And while I designed the system with this in mind for times when I need to do so... definitely not going to be my favorite thing to do.
So the questions become: Do I want to drain my stationary pack down so low, knowing that I probably won't have sufficient power in the end anyway, or do I switch over to the grid, top off the cars, and switch back so that the storage batteries never get super low in the first place. Then the other question is: Do I stick with trying to get 0 kWh utility bills and just charge my car somewhere else instead?
*shrugs*
I'll probably be stubborn and just drain my storage batteries to their set point and let the system kick over on it's own if it comes to that... that way I don't have to press the dirty button myself...
Clearly you need to just buy more batteries and solar panels!
Or you could drive down to Charlotte and supercharge! (course that comes from coal)
I just would switch over to the grid sooner. Not worth the moral victory of not using the grid at the expense of straining your packs.
Or you could drive down to Charlotte and supercharge! (course that comes from coal)
I just would switch over to the grid sooner. Not worth the moral victory of not using the grid at the expense of straining your packs.
Kalud
Active Member
Well, the good thing is that letting it kick over on its own is not totally straining the pack. The kick over point is actually more like ~8-10% equivalent on the Model S dash. So probably not too hard on them to run them down. And really, that's what I designed the system to be able to do, so that's probably what I'm going to do. Just use the power I need, and let it do its thing. If that means the system uses some dirty coal power... so be it. That's what it's there for.
And that way I can continue hoping the weather forecast is wrong and that the sun peeks out for an hour today or tomorrow and drops 30-40kWh into my pack.
And that way I can continue hoping the weather forecast is wrong and that the sun peeks out for an hour today or tomorrow and drops 30-40kWh into my pack.
Andyw2100
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure if charging the car somewhere else is out of the way, and/or time consuming, etc., and thus a PIA, or if your only reason for being reluctant to do that is the whole "Superchargers are for long distance travel" thing. If it's out of the way, only you can make the call, but if you are factoring in any guilt about charging locally, I say to hell with that! You certainly aren't abusing the Supercharger system, so if it will help you out to use a local Supercharger this time, (or one on or near your route) I wouldn't give it a second thought!
Ah yeah. The supercharger is out of the way for my route tomorrow. It would add an hour plus an hour of charging time. I have the time tomorrow, but I'd feel silly adding 2 hours and ~65 miles to my trip just to avoid using Duke Power... to use Duke Power. lol.
