What are /r/RenewableEnergy's favorite Products & Services?

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From the Vox story on this,

>Back in 2011, Pruitt wrote a letter to the EPA arguing that federal regulators were overstating the amount of air pollution from natural gas wells. As the New York Times’s Eric Lipton later discovered, this letter was actually written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of the state’s largest oil and gas companies. Pruitt appears to have simply passed it along.

EDIT: The NY Times article linked in the Vox post.

Strangely, I've recently had trouble with the mods in /r/UK. I went in there saying that a story about Israeli lobbying of the UK media was being downvoted and I couldn't see any good reason why.

They responded by, to all intents and purposes, issuing a death/violent threat to me. They said I wouldn't be worried about Israeili lobbying any more. That they would 'put an end to my worrying' immediately, and they would show me their razor sharp star of david sug

I have to say I am deeply unimpressed with their attitude and propose we do something about it.

There is some information on http://plasticphotovoltaics.org/. Within the next week a learning center page will open, and this will contain a lot more information on the solar cells. I can also highly recommend the Coursera course "Organic Solar Cells - Theory and Practice" by the same group (https://www.coursera.org/course/opv). This course will start in June.

We use all types. The one in the picture was a high end Sanyo. We use whatever the customer can afford.

Marcos also co owns El Camino Cantina. Next time your in there tell him David from Hawai'i says aloha.

Inspiration for the project came from an instructables article. http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Solar-Boombox/ . I used the Dalton Audio amp that is in the instructable article, 8 ohm speakers, 10 AA Nimh batteries (14 awg silicon wire to connect them in series) and 2 15.4V, 100mA solar panels connected in parallel. Cheers. And which one of my troll friends are you mr. troll friend

If anyone is interested in more free online university courses, I can recommend to see the courses at Udacity and Coursera.

The courses are not specifically related to renewable energy, but whether you already have a university degree or never had the opportunity to study at university, I can only recommend to follow one of the courses. Learning is living.

I have so far done 2 courses and I intend to follow the above Stanford uni course.

All the best, Rif; MSc Engineer + Master in a business degree

It uses less not more watts and more efficient. 1800 watts two burner 120v. However if in an oven it would still be 40-50 amps 240 for the oven burner? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JCECBPQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_MTTxFbCBE1XG1

Not one mention of storage. Pumped-hydro, chemical battery, thermal, hydrogen, compressed-air, etc. Not one mention.

[Edit: no idea why OP deleted the link, it was https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/07/30/5-misconceptions-about-renewable-energy-that-could.aspx ]

This uses a similar mechanism: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319904003295

Since the chemotrophs use hydrogen - hydrogen fueled cars could be analogous to the chemosynthetic bacteria. That is the cars - the hydrogen fuel source is analogous to the hydrothermal fluid.

Cool info. Thanks. Google translate for dummkopf Englanders.

It must be fun to be 'that kind of person' who can create a reality by deciding what they want to be true....

Before you reflexively downvote based on title, make sure you read the article.

Try http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Ftp%2Fartikel%2F35%2F35019%2F1.html for a machine translated version.

I envy your opportunities, but I would personally prefer other projects. My personal favorite with these specific preconditions would be looking into thermochemical and thus permanent storage of heat. If we could store more of the heat collected in summer from solar-thermal for winter, this could really save a lot. Until now only very few substances have been proven to work, even less are applied in large CSP-plants, mostly I read from molten salt. One of the most promising substances due to price and low risks could also be soda as applied in the famous <strong>soda locomotive</strong>.

I think it's worth a thought, working on thermochemical storage. Because it's still a wide unexplored area, where lots of theoretical (and researchable) knowledge hasn't yet been tested in small scale renewable energy appliances.

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

NB: I had to remove the affiliate links because the automod removes Amazon links with affiliate codes.

Could you get some weather stations that measure air speed and direction.

People upload their data to websites like https://www.wunderground.com

You can view weatherstations on the maps, and it will give you some idea what people are using.

Currently reading these two books, I highly recommend them

Green Energy (WIRED guides): How... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09KZKV764?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

How to Spend a Trillion Dollars:... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08DDK211P?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

1st book talks a lot about U.K. solar and wind. Very interesting.

I have no idea what level you are on but since I work within the offshore wind industry my answer will focus on this. Below are two “manuals” prepared by Haynes (in collaboration with Wind OEMs) that will give you a VERY basic understanding on offshore wind and electricity storage:

https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/BenBackwell/haynesoffshore-wind-manual-edition2-68597316

https://thinkrcg.com/haynes-manual-electricity-storage-launched-by-renewableuk-co-edited-by-rcg/

I can provide a free pdf of the first one if you are interested. Just pm me

Be careful with statements like "Germany has the most solar panels in the world"... since according to this: https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/09/07/5-countries-with-the-highest-installed-solar-capac.aspx

it's not true.

Now it is true that Germany has been a leader for many years in legislation to establish the solar industry, and it may be that germany has the most solar panels PER CAPITA (I haven't looked for that stat) - and I totally get that your point was about solar irradience, and yes, they've done a marvelous job even though they are disadvantaged compared to many other nations.

For single person cars? I can't say I see much of a future for artificial diesel - electric vehicles have solved just about every serious problem but cost, and artificial fuels probably aren't going to win on a cost front.

But the energy density of hydrocarbons is phenomenal, and there are applications where that matters. Ships, trucks and planes need either huge improvements in battery chemistry to electrify, or need to find a way to reduce the impact of their fuel sources.

Anyway, if you're interested there are people looking into synthetic diesel technology. The US Navy wants to use the nuclear power plants on its aircraft carriers to make jet fuel for their planes. And there are a number of organizations looking into renewable energy sources for the production of diesel or other oil products from CO2. Here's one

Some analysts believe that the current dive in the stock price is a significant over-reaction:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sunedisons-plunge-doesnt-tarnish-wall-street-views-2015-11-10

What do others think? Strong pipeline going into 2016, one of the stronger international portfolios of the US solar-majors, along with the fact that they're obviously realigning themselves with their strengths (ie developing and building RE, rather than trying to do absolutely everything like they were 6 months ago)...

For small off-grid systems, they do. costco, amazon.

Those are heavily marked up though. There are loads of other suppliers, and almost all of them will sell to anyone. If you want 5kw,you would be better off buying them from a wholesaler or direct from the manufacturer.

That said, there has to be a Master certified electrician to sign off on the work or the utility won't allow it. Most cities require both a building and electrical inspection, which you can't even pull permits for without certifications.

Basically, it's a power plant. You don't want random unqualified people building power plants, because very bad things happen when you do it wrong.

I don't know about the technical advantages and disadvantages, but I do recognize the name Tigo Energy - the company was in an article I posted on here a while ago.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trina-solar-launches-trinasmart-solution-in-north-america-2012-07-09

It seems the DC optimizer/monitoring system is going to be built straight into the panel!

Udacity gives a free course on self driving cars, among many other free courses. Meanwhile Prof. Agarwhal is giving free EE out of MIT.

http://www.udacity.com/faq

http://www.openculture.com/2012/02/enroll_in_the_mits_first_free_certificate-bearing_course.html

Stanford gives a course of $195 for, Batteries, Solar Cells, Fracking. Basically fundamental 9th grade science.

I would actually suggest getting some vertical wind turbines and putting them on your roof. The netherlands is known for its high wind speeds, and you can produce more kwh for a lower price than with solar. here is a 750W (max 1kw) vertical turbine. 4 of these producing 750w for 8 hours a day would cover your 10MWh yearly demand. Put in 5-6 if your wind is less. The beauty is you can start with one (and a charge controler/inverter to hook up to the grid) and expand your system as you see what the average monthly production is.

Thank you!

> First you need to figure out how much energy you need on a daily basis,

This is a prototype so I can learn the basics. I'll probably end up with a small hobby motor, or stepper motor from an old printer, to charge a 12vdc battery. Maybe the small ones for kids electric cars or skateboards. The test case is to light a couple LED lights for night time. I'm familiar with wiring LEDs, just not the wind generator part.

> calculate the gearbox to get that voltage above 14V for charging

Do I need a certain voltage output from my motor to charge a 12v battery? What would that be? Where can I find a quick and easy start manual on charging batteries via wind power?

> I strongly suggest you start with theory/homework first.

Yep that's what I'm doing. I'm saving all my notes in a TiddlyWiki. It's really handy and supports tags, which I like. A TiddlyWiki is a self-contained wiki viewable/editable in a major browser.

Here is a complete solution:

https://www.amazon.com/soyond-Generator-Flashlights-Bluetooth-Emergency/dp/B07VNJW46C/

Unfortunately it comes with absolutely no specs whatsoever (why do they do that?) so it's impossible to say if it would meet your requirements.

Here is one that does come with specs:

https://www.amazon.com/ECOBOXX-Portable-Generator-Emergency-Adventure/dp/B07XWW8S44/

You would need to add the audio equipment. This thing holds 150 watt hours, so if you keep your power draw down to 6 watts, which should be entirely do-able, you can run for 24 hours on a charge. Add a 40 watt panel and you can get a full charge in about 4 hours.

A modern off grid solar system has PV solar panels, batteries, a charge controller and usually an inverter (which may be integrated with the controller).

PV solar panels are obviously the key to solar generation. These are not common in the Caribbean and whatever supply there is is being marked up extravagantly right now.

The controller is a circuit board or appliance that hooks up between the batteries, the panels and the load. It's small and usually not terribly expensive. There's probably a non-solar part that could be easily bodged into the role but I can't think of what it might be so assume it too is in short supply.

Lead acid batteries are readily available throughout the Caribbean and, even (maybe especially) after the hurricane there should be some that can be salvaged or used in situ. Lead acid is much heavier than lithium ion and has a shorter service life but it is much cheaper.

On the assumption that weight and cost are your main constraints and not knowing anything about your situation. Amazon has tons of panels and PWM charge controllers (often as a package) Notice that the shipping weight and the price of the batteries-not-included option are much lower.

If you're interested in learning a bit about the technical side of renewable energy and the electric power grid, Renewable and Efficient Electric Power Systems by Stanford professor Gil Masters and Electric Power Systems: A Conceptual Introduction by UC Berkeley professor Sascha von Meier are great resources.