In the first part of Solar Energy Primer we discussed the prequel of planning your renewable energy system, reduced consumption and calculating the consumption of your main appliances.  Part two of Solar Energy Primer will discuss Solar Panels.  Subsequent parts of Solar Energy Primer will cover Power Inverters, Charge Controllers, Batteries and more... so stay tuned!

Solar Panels, also called Photovoltaic (PV), convert the sun's energy into electricity we can use to power our appliances and run our homes.  In very basic terms, solar panels capture photons in thin silicon wafers which cause electrons to get "excited" and move, thus producing electricity.  A solar panel is a collection of silicon solar cells wired in series to produce a specific voltage.

There are 3 basic types of Solar Panels on the market today:

• Monocrystalline: The most efficient and expensive solar panels are made with Monocrystalline cells. Long silicon rods are produced which are cut into slices of .2 to .4 mm thick discs or wafers which are then processed into individual cells that are wired together in the solar panel.
• Polycrystalline: Usually called Multi-crystalline, Polycrystalline cells are slightly less expensive and efficient as Monocrystalline cells because they are grown in a large block of crystals rather then on long silicon rod like Monocrystalline crystals.
• Amorphous: Usually called Thin-Film, a thin layer of silicon deposited on a base material such as metal or glass to create the solar panel. Amorphous solar panels are cheaper, but much less efficient then Monocrystalline or Polycrystalline panel.  Although less effective, Amorphous solar panels can be made into long sheets of roofing material to cover large areas of a south facing roof surface.

It is important to note that PV panels produce Direct Current (DC) electricity or most commonly called VDC.  Our home appliances require Alternate Current (AC) power (VAC), thus a power inverter is required to convert DC to AC power we will use in our homes.  We will get into Power Inverters and Chargers in Part 3, but keep this in mind that we are talking DC Volts when discussing raw electricity produced from Solar.

A typical 12V PV panel contains 36 solar cells and be rated up to 100 watts.  Solar Panels above 100W are usually 24V, two 36 solar cells wired in series.  It's more common to see 24V or 48V (two 24V wired in series) systems installed than 12V systems.  The advantage is the higher the voltage, the smaller the wire gauge required to transfer the electricity to from the solar array to the inverter.  The inverter will be configured to accept the VDC from the Solar Array and convert it to VAC for home appliance use.  In solar energy systems that have a battery bank to charge, the inverter will drop the higher 24V or 48V to charge the battery bank and when necessary convert the 12VDC from the battery bank to 120VAC.

Stay tuned for more Solar Energy Primer series covering Solar Energy Systems.

Preserving food is about as old as growing it.  The problem we come up with after a nice full season of vegetable garden growing is what to do with the excess yield.  It is common sense that food left exposed to air will spoil and rot unless it is preserved in some way.  There are microorganisms and enzymes that are part of this decomposition process.  This change is very present in our compost bins where you can see the decomposition and later use the transformation as compost for your garden and the cycles starts again.  There are three basic ways to preserve your food so you can enjoy them for months long into winter.

The most common way you will see is usually referred to as "Canning".  Although no "cans" are used in this process, this method used heat to to cook and hermetically seal the food in glass jars.  The nice thing about this process is that there are hundreds if not thousands of different recipes available for delicious preserves like Salsa, Chili Sauce and plain pickling to name a few.  This give variety over simply preserving each produce individually like the next two food preservation methods.

Dehydration is another time honored technique.  Dehydration removes the foods natural water content by up to 95% which basically stops the growth of bacteria and spoilage.  Preserving peppers this way is great and will provide you with fresh tasting peppers for soups and sauces.  Dehydrators have come way down in price and if you do a quick search you can find different technics in the Internet to sun dry.  Dehydrated preserves have an advantage over other preserving methods since it allows you to store your newly preserved vegetables in bulk and use in various quantities.  Only caviate is you absolutely need to keep dehydrated preserves dry.  Moister is the enemy using this method.

Freezing is another popular preservation method for vegetables.  This obviously delays spoilage and decomposition by extreme cold.  Freezing is quick and easy.  You can chop up your onions or wax beans for example, place them in a freezer bag, take out all the air you can and place it in your freezer or deep freeze.  When thawed, frozen vegetables will be limp and soggy but they will tast nice and fresh steamed or cooked in a sauce.  As with Canning, freezing as a food preservation method will require planning out the portions based on its intended use.  Once the vegetables are thawed they should never be frozen again.

All three preservation methods require specific preparation steps and packaging.  They each have their pros and cons, but the one thing they all have in common is they will allow you to enjoy your vegetable garden will into the winter months while dreaming of next years harvest!

Keep It Green!

Companion planting is the art of combining vegetables and plants that are mutually beneficial to each other.  For example, you can plant pole beans with corn to give the beans a natural trellis.  You can plant different herbs or edible plants as a natural pest repelant.  Of course you can't just throw just any plant together, so planning is key.

Native Americans planted "Three Sisters" which is corn, beans and squash which is a great time honored example of companionship gardening.  The beans use the corn as a natural trellis and the squash use the shade of the corn and beans.  Corn and lettus are also a good combination as the corn lends shad to the lettuce.  Examples of natural pest repelant companions are onions, marigolds, mint and sweet basil.  These examples have properties that either repel or lure away harmful insects from your garden. 

Research is obviously key and we will be picking up a couple of books this winter to help plan our garden for next season.  There are two books that come highly recommended and which we will do a review on after we read through them: Carrots Love Tomatoes and Great Garden Companion.  There is plenty of information out there on the Internet and forums as well. 

Our challenge is to find the best companions for our climate.  Although staples such as the "Three Sisters" can be grown in our Eastern Canadian climate, we want to expirement with other mixes.  Here are some ideas we have:

• Basil: Will plant to help repel flies and mosquitos as well as improve our Tomatos
• Sunflowers: Will plant to bring shade for beans and potatoes as well as attact birds and bees for pollination
• Corn: Will be planting with beans and squash
• Horseraddish: Will plant to deter potato beetle
• Marigold: Will plant as a natural pest repelant
• Onions: Will plant to protect against ants and slugs

These are just a few ideas and I'm sure they will change or become more elaborate as we research and put down our garden plan to paper for next season.  The key is how to put things together which is where your garden plan comes in.  Take the time to properly plan out your garden as noted in Garden Planning Helps.

Keep It Green!

In our quest to lower our energy bill and in essence reduce our energy consumption, we completed a few list items with regards to hot water.  We installed a hot water tank insulation blanket, lowered the preset on the tank and ran insulation from the hot water tank to the faucets.

I've read that if your water heater is new you may not need an insulation blanket.  Rule of thumb seems to be if you place your hand on the water heater and feel warmth, then you will save money using a thermal blanket.  For the minimal cost of $20-$30 dollars I think it's a wise investment either way.  Wrapping the heater with an insulation blanket can reduce heat loss by up to 45% and save you approximately 4% to 8% in electricity cost to heat your water.  We plan on also sitting the tank on a rigid insulation foam board which is supposed to further reduce heat loss through the floor.  Another item we're looking at installing is Anti-Convection Valves, but still researching these to see if it makes sense.

Before we put the insulation blanket on the water heater we turned the temperature down to 120F.  It was preset to 145F and so far showering has not been a problem ;o)  This move not only helps save on energy, but makes our taps safer for our young son, win-win.

Last thing we did in this project was wrap the copper pipes with foam insulation.  There are a few choices of wraps, but we went with foam pipe wrap simply for the cost and ease of installation.  We hope to see a substantial return on investment.  Total cost was $25 for the insulation blanket and $15 in foam insulation.  The insulation blanket went on pretty easy with minor trim for the power cable.  We used Tyvek tape usually used for house wrap vapor barrier to attach the blanket together.  Tyvek is by far the best adhesive tape for this job, which was also used to keep the foam insulation together as well.

If you have an attic, chances are you have a substantial heat loss if your attic door or hatch is not properly sealed.  For most of us, the attic and attic doors are not the first item we think of when we think of heat loss.  Usual suspects are windows, doors and outside facing walls.  How many times do you go up to the attic in your house anyways?

We had an air leak test in our 30 year old home and although our attic was rated above average for insulation, the attic hatch or better described in our home as the sheet of plywood held up by four latches, was just as effective as a 24 square inch hole in the side of the house.  During our EnerGuide test, our poor excuse of an Attic Hatch was the third item on the list of offending items to address.

I could have just worked with the sheet of plywood and some weatherstripping, but I wanted to address the size of the hatch as well so I opted for an engineered hatch from the local hardware store.  The pre-fabricated attic hatch is built with a sturdy structured pine frame, one and a half inch thick insulated door with magnetic strip that keeps the door air tight against the accompanying magnetic weather stripping on the hatch frame.  This system works like the seal on a fridge door.  The weight of the door sitting on the magnetic weather strip keeps it nice and tight, but also easy to remove for access to the attic.  For the price, ease of installation and piece of mind, you cannot go wrong with one of these pre-fabricated units.  All that was needed was to cut the existing hole to 32 inches and the attic hatch fit snug between the rafters.  I used caulk and insulation foam to create a tight seal around the frame and the rafters.

This is a pretty easy upgrade and good bang for your buck.  The entire process should take approximately 2 hours from start to cleanup.   Basic hand tools and handyman knowledge is required, but I would not consider this out of anyone's league.  If you own a saw, hammer, drill, 3ft level and a measuring tape you should be good to go.  Don't forget to seal the deal, pun intended, with caulk and insulating foam after the hatch is level and securely attached.

If you are wondering what the number 1 and number 2 items on the EnerGuide to do list where: Basement insulation and replace old leaky windows and doors.  Windows and Doors have been replaced and we hope to move on to insulating the basement before Winter comes to Atlantic Canada ;o)

Until the next time... Keep it Green!