Solar Systems

[Lightspeed]

(26 September 2013, 09:25)Nix Wrote: What's the power of your system going to be?

Much smaller than yours Nix. Its only 0.6Kw, and ahead of permanent or long term grid down failure we'll only have 150w of permanently installed generating capacity.

Why you are probably asking? Its because we had a big rethink about Opsec. We're located is in an isolated upland hamlet. I realised that on our comings and goings to the property I've been automatically scanning other houses in the area to assess their level of resilience and also to identify any features that would be useful to have in a post TU world....PV panels are fairly thin on the ground up here and big arrays stand out like sore thumbs. We realised that we are almost certainly not alone in sizing up other's property. This was brought home to us in the village pub a couple of weeks ago when general conversation focused on the new fangled alarm boxes that had been noticed on the house. So, although pleasantly surprised to hear that our activities were being noticed, we also decided it would be a good idea not to make too big an impression with a display of too much technology. Our original game plan has always been to keep the external appearance of the house kind of rustically dilapidated, while bringing its underlying structure and services up to an advanced level of preparedness. Our decision on PV is to have minimal discreet power generation permanently installed ( and in fact Location of the panel will no longer be on the roof but in an elevated position on a south facing wall out of sight from the lane, and protected a good deal from snow). with the remainder of the array on ground mount frames, stored out of sight ready for deployment as and when required.

Our intended use of PV electrical power will be for minimal emergency lighting, occasional work lighting, alarm/ perimeter monitoring, comms equipment, and occasional computer boot up for data and research, and in hot weather a small 12v refrigeration unit. The system will be standalone 12v with no grid tie. All connected emergency lighting will be low power LEDs.