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Three recent advances will likely play a big role in advancing the off-grid lifestyle. There is a growing interest worldwide in off-grid living and making it more "doable" may lead to growth in many parts of the Baja peninsula previously thought too remote...



World record solar cell with 44.7% efficiency

Porous electrode batteries 2000x more powerful, charge 1000x faster, 30x smaller - TechSpot

New promises simple, portable, membrane-free water desalination : TreeHugger


I'd like to hear your thoughts...

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Originally Posted by BajaGringo

Three recent advances will likely play a big role in advancing the off-grid lifestyle. There is a growing interest worldwide in off-grid living and making it more "doable" may lead to growth in many parts of the Baja peninsula previously thought too remote...

World record solar cell with 44.7% efficiency

Porous electrode batteries 2000x more powerful, charge 1000x faster, 30x smaller - TechSpot

New promises simple, portable, membrane-free water desalination : TreeHugger


I'd like to hear your thoughts...

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Love the technology... it continues to defy the end-of-the-world types as we solve various situations with our brains!

What is the connection to the photo? Looks like the area near where I live...

It's incredible- the blend of architecture and technology. Seems like a lot of glass. Is the solar technology like computers- every year they get more powerful and less expensive?

Originally Posted by Woooosh

It's incredible- the blend of architecture and technology. Seems like a lot of glass. Is the solar technology like computers- every year they get more powerful and less expensive?

That has been the trend. Solar/wind energy and the grid are currently on a collision course as the cost of fossil / nuclear fueled grid provided energy continues to rise. As more folks go solar/wind, the cost for grid sourced energy will increase at an even faster pace as ever fewer users are paying for the cost of generation and utilities will always be guaranteed to make a profit.

I keep telling my friends and family that they need to get solar and wind now before the utilities make it harder / more expensive to do. Last month Cristina and I spent a week with family back east who live in between a class 3 and 4 wind region near the shoreline of Lake Michigan. They would love to install wind turbines but just found out that there is now a local ordinance that if you install a wind turbine it cannot cast a shadow more than x hours per day on any neighbors property to be permitted.

When they did a bit of investigating they discovered that the local utility had helped to write and back the ordinance via a "citizens group" that they created via their attorneys and funded. Those with existing turbines in place were grandfathered in for the most part but no new permits will be granted unless you meet the harsh requirements. In other words, you have to have a very large piece of property.

My cynical side tells me that they are scheming to come up with a similar strategy for solar so my advice is to get it before they do.

Pay now or pay even more later is my ever be it so humble opinion...

CFE is now allowing co-generated solar and wind direct AC power back into the CFE system through a seperate meter and account. You can either reduce or zero out your CFE bill, or bank the credits. Something to look into.

That porous electrode technology looks especially promising.

So when they electro-deposit that nickel scaffold into polysterene-on-glass, it must somehow follow the contours around those little round pellets that are observed when you break up say a styrene cup. It leaves little holes in it, in other words?

I just hope the engineers have that insulation thingy down pat this time.

Originally Posted by Marty Cortez

That porous electrode technology looks especially promising.

So when they electro-deposit that nickel scaffold into polysterene-on-glass, it must somehow follow the contours around those little round pellets that are observed when you break up say a styrene cup. It leaves little holes in it, in other words?

I just hope the engineers have that insulation thingy down pat this time.

Yeah, especially for putting this technology into phones, cameras and laptop batteries.

As far as off-grid use, they should be able to design the housing well enough as size will not be as much of a factor in that application. What I really like about this news is that with this level of storage capacity and charge speed it makes it more and more realistic to imagine creating small, off-grid, private utility systems for remote communities.

I suspect by 2020 off-grid living is going to be less expensive and actually perform much better. Right now, we have no complaints - our two systems here are working so well I actually forget sometimes that we are off-grid.

And I love not getting any electric bills...

Still waiting to pull the "trigger" on the solar here at the house .... but, want not to be tied to uncle ed ... they now have control over my meter .... new one installed last year, which they can control with their "operators" ....

Is this something which they are using in Germany at this time ?...as I had wondered how they were doing so well on their conversion .... with the loss of nuclear generation and their weather .... not a really sunny place Europe ....but, then ... it was many moons ago

Thanks for the info .. great stuff

And I really think an "off the grid solar system" will be a future "selling" point for a home... big time ... not to mention an increase in the determination of "value" by the appraisal process ... at selling time

At this time... cost per month is still relatively cheap here .... works out at about $60-$80 per person ,,, when down, the kid stayed in the house, and the utility bill for just him in the house ran about $60 dollars a month .... with three around $160 ... and thats with three refrigerators, three big screen tv's, three play stations and audio systems

When down our bill with CFE was around 35 a month which was very low IMHO for two ... the dogs didn't use much ...

Wiley - here we have:

2 Large refrigerators
1 Freezer
4 Large flat screen TV's with HD Sat and DVR's
3 surround sound systems
3 Computers
1 WiFi always on
1 1-HP water pump to lift water up to tinaco
2 1/4-HP on-demand water pumps
2 microwaves
1 set large clothes washer and dryer
1 HP air compressor
3 Kitchens
3 Baths
2 Garage door openers
1 Workshop w/ welder, table saw, radial saw, skill saw, routers, drills, etc running almost daily

Plus we run a lot of exterior lighting that is on from dusk to dawn .

Even with all that our battery systems never drop below 90%...

And here is another great advancement...















Oxford Photovoltaics uses non-toxic organic solar cell materials printed directly on to glass to produce clean energy.
Photograph: Oxford Photovoltaics


Colourful 'solar glass' means entire buildings can generate clean power
British firm develops colourful, transparent solar cells that will add just 10% to glass buildings' cost

theguardian.com
Tuesday 12 February 2013 17.05 GMT

A solar power company capable of "printing" colourful glass that can generate electricity from the sun's energy announced a £2m funding boost on Tuesday.

Oxford Photovoltaics, a spin-off from the University of Oxford, said the investment from clean-tech investors MTI Partners will help its solar glass, which can be dyed almost any colour, take a step closer to the commercial market.

"What we say here is rather than attach [solar] photovoltaics to the building, why not make the building the photovoltaics?" Kevin Arthur, the company's founder and CEO, told the Guardian. "If you decide to build a building out of glass, then you've already decided to pay for the glass. If you add this, you're adding a very small extra cost. [The solar cell treatment] costs no more than 10% of the cost of the facade."

These generally cost between £600 and £1,000 per square metre, meaning the new cell treatment wouild cost just £60-£100 extra per square metre.

The technology works by adding a layer of transparent solid-state solar cells at most three microns thick to conventional glass, in order to turn around 12% of the solar energy received into low-carbon electricity. The power can then be exported to the national grid or used for the running of a building.

"Within reason we can print any colour, there's a wide range of dyes, blues and greens and reds and so on. But different colours have different efficiencies: black is very high, green is pretty good and red is good, but blue is less good," said Arthur.

The £2m investment will pay for equipment and recruiting staff for the company's new base on the Begbroke Science Park near Oxford. The company is looking to build a much larger manufacturing facility next year, with full size panels available for sampling and trials at the end of 2014. A4-sized samples will be ready by the end of 2013. While the company is mostly targeting customers planning new buildings, it also "very interested" in retrofits on the facades of existing buildings.

Separately, a team at the University of Sheffield and University of Cambridge this week said they had succeeded in developing a process to 'spray paint' solar cells on to surfaces and, potentially in the future, roofs and buildings. The teams believe the process could significantly cut the cost of solar in the future, but currently only works on "very smooth" surfaces and is less efficient than conventional solar panels.

Professor David Lidzey from the University of Sheffield said: "Spray coating is currently used to apply paint to cars and in graphic printing. We have shown that it can also be used to make solar cells using specially designed plastic semiconductors. Maybe in the future surfaces on buildings and even car roofs will routinely generate electricity with these materials."

Solar power worldwide reached 100GW installed capacity last year for the first time, up from 71GW in 2011 and just 40GW in 2010, according to recent trade body figures.


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Good stuff ...