greenspree.ca at The Sietch

How much (useful) energy can you derive from rain falling from your roof? How can you best capture wind energy with many small wind turbines? Are there other options for using solar energy besides PV’s and solar hot water heaters? What are some other small options anyone could use that have cumulative benefits and are easy and cheap to install?

It’s a thought I had the other day when considering energy production for our house in the future. While on the road for my job I passed by an off-grid (even though the grid was 100 feet away) 3000+sf home with solar hot water, solar PV panels and a 100′ tall 3 or 5 KW wind turbine. It was massive and made the property seem very out of place next to smallish 1400-1800sf bungalows all around it. I decided that one large scale device to provide all or nearly all of my energy needs was not a route I wanted to take. I started doing mental calculations and plans to incorporate many small unobtrusive energy production devices into our house and land. We have a hectare so we have some room to play with and it is a former farm field so can plan around future trees, wind rows, etc…

One thought I had was to scale down the wind/hydro concept being implemented in Cape Breton where they use wind power to raise water in elevation and use the stored kinetic energy in the water through a mill to even out the variances in wind intensity. Could we dig a couple of ponds and do the same thing?

And speaking of stored kinetic energy in water, how much usable energy could be derived from rain water falling onto the roof of our house? Enough to power a few small (efficient) light bulbs? What the investment be worth the energy saved? On cloudy/rainy days you tend to turn on more lights, if it raining and that water powers two or three LED lights would the extra light be enough to stop you turning on you grid connected fixtures? No expensive batteries or net metering equipment, just extra light when it’s raining.

Would multiple home made low wattage (250-500W) wind turbines placed on relatively small towers or the top of out buildings capture enough wind on our site to make them worthwhile? And would this have to be net metered/batteried to be useful or could you use that power as it was being produced to offset some other power? Could if for example power an seperate electric heater in the winter and maybe a/c or something in the summer?

What about reclaiming solar panels from things like broken garden lights? Most of the time these flimsy consumer items have perfectly fine PV’s when they are thrown out, it usually the lights/batteries/wiring that goes on them. Is this a feasible idea? I have two 4W solar panels from VW vehicles, the kind they ship with to keep the batteries alive, could a person get enough of these for free or nearly free to make a dent in there electricity?

I intend to do some experiments when our house is finished on what exactly is possible and feasible in ultra small scale energy production. One of the things I have discovered in power generation is that the residential scaled wind and solar packages are just no cost effective on a life cycle comparison against utility power, but that large scale operation are turning a profit, PEI’s 18% wind powered electricity generation is a prime example. So maybe a smaller, more varied approach needs to be looked at.