Running My Room Off-The-Grid

[ParkingLotLust]

Well, I have a lot of electronics in my room (higher-end computer, modems, stereo, tv, consoles, dvd player, etc) and me and my parents came up with the idea of running my room off the grid. Basically, because electricity prices are going up and up, and my room obviously uses a lot of power. I'd estimate that I would need around 1200-1500w of power.

Ive been looking at two options - solar or wind. There is a perfect place to put a few panels outside my window, and since its not windy here very often, Im thinking solar would be a more cost-effective option. Does anyone have any sites showing how solar setups have been set up? How much do solar panels cost, roughly (in $CAD), and how many would I need?

 

[Hero999]

How often do you need 1500W?

Is that peak power of continuous?

You really need to know how many kWh you use in a day rather than purely the peak demad.

You could probably save quite a lot of power by turning off all the appliances with an internal mains transfromer at the mains when they're not being used.

 

[ParkingLotLust]

Id say around 750w continuous. Any way to measure the kWh of just my room? I have access to the meter but that measures the entire house and farm. I turn off what I can, but my computer stays on 24/7, as does the modem, and the stereo (alerts me of various things, not to mention it sounds much better than computer speakers).

Also, my parents are planning on running the next house they build off-the-grid, so another reason for wanting to do this is to see how much it costs, and how it performs.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Also, my parents are planning on running the next house they build off-the-grid, so another reason for wanting to do this is to see how much it costs, and how it performs.

Obviously it's not good being in Ontario! - you are going to need pretty huge and expensive panels for that sort of performance, plus HUGE banks of batteries.

Cost wise?, I would expect it to cost considerably more (at a guess, probably 5 to 10 times more?) than buying your electricity off the grid over the life of the installation.

Solar power isn't really a very cost effective system, FAR more cost-effective would be wind power.

 

[justDIY]

long story short, you're too far North for PV to make an impact in your electric bills. now solar hot water is a different story. converting your hot water heater to solar (you'll still have to cover the entire roof with collectors not just a small portion) will save more electricity than your small collection of electronic gizmos.

plus building a heat collector costs a lot less than an electricity collector.

 

[ParkingLotLust]

Hmm, so basically its out of the question. Well, thats good to know. Thanks!

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Why would you leave your PC on all the time and your stereo. Both can use a fair amout of power. Let your PC enter standby, and shut off your stereo when you dont need it. I game with USB headphones and they give me an edge in BF1942

As for wind Canadian tire sells a wind turbine max 800W @ 12V for about $900 and solar is about $90 per 15W @ 12V
Stepping it from 12V DC to 120 AC will lose energy so you'll need quite a few to run 1500W

Some fellow in the GTA is running 2000W solar (cost him about $18000 if I recall)

And you'll need to store all that energy too... Solar not so good at night.

PS you can buy a kilowatt meter from CDN tire for about $24. It's a good start.
**broken link removed**

 

[justDIY]

Let your PC enter standby, and shut off your stereo when you dont need it.

turning it off is the quickest way to see immediate results in electric costs!

when I went off to college, it was all you can eat electricity in the dorms, so everything was left on, all the time. when I rented my first apartment, gas and water were included, so my only utility was electric, and I didn't worry much about savings. years and years go by and I own my own home now and pay for everything. I try to economize on all the utilities as much as possible now, the most expensive being electricity. most of my computers as well as all my other gizmos stay off except the computers i use in my business. I need to get in the habit of unplugging wall-warts now, since over a 5-10 year period they too waste noticeable amounts of money when they're sitting there not connected to their rechargeable device.

I recently purchased 72 watts of PV cells to see how much energy I can squeeze out of my Northern latitude. At best I hope to power a small irrigation pump one hour at night with the entire day spent collecting. At worst, I'll hook my garden shed up with some LED lighting.

 

[ParkingLotLust]

You guys mentioned that wind would be a better option; maybe not now, but when we do build a new house, what kind of costs are involved with wind? Also, I recall seeing the solar water heating in Australia, do you have any sites on that?

As for the computer, its on for two reasons; I run an irc/http/ftp server, and it acts as the WiFi AP in our house. The stereo Im getting better and better at turning off when I leave, but I prefer 5.1 surround sound when Im watching movies and tv shows, vs headphones.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

As for the computer, its on for two reasons; I run an irc/http/ftp server, and it acts as the WiFi AP in our house. The stereo Im getting better and better at turning off when I leave, but I prefer 5.1 surround sound when Im watching movies and tv shows, vs headphones.

Looking for a lower power solution might be an option. Linux can be installed on wee low power devices like the NSLU2 or for more power look at something like Clark Connect for a full server.
**broken link removed**

 

[justDIY]

use a public IRC server and sign up for one of those $2.99/mo hosting accounts for your web and ftp

 

[Andy1845c]

After moving into my own house, I have become a big fan of those power strips with the switch on them. I have my TV and DVD player on one, computer on one and my electonics equipment on one. I switch them off when i'm not using them and it A.) saves a small amount of electricity by keeping wall warts disconnected and B.) more importantly, protects the equipment from surges in the line.

Call me an anal and cheap, but in my house, I shut everything but the fridge off when i'm not home or when i'm sleeping.

 

[justDIY]

if I were organized, I could group all my chargers together and have them on a strip like Andy

i used to turn my TV off with a switcher thing, but that didn't last long - it forces me to go through a "setup procedure" after it detects "power was lost" - they probably designed that to punish people that don't believe in "instant on"

how is Europe coming along with its ban on "standby" power devices? I remember reading something on the BBC months ago that the EU wanted a ban on all gizmos not having a hard wired power switch. That is a LOT of gizmos!

 

[Thunderchild]

I remember reading something on the BBC months ago that the EU wanted a ban on all gizmos not having a hard wired power switch. That is a LOT of gizmos!

yea it is a lot of gizmos, I've always hated not having a hard wired switch that cuts the main off and guess what when we wired our own houses a lot of sockets we put switches next to. things don't need to be left on standby it is called stupid f*cking lazziness and lack of consideration,

750 W per hour ? how do you use that ? and average PC uses like 200 wats at the very most, todays standard pc's compete very well if not better than the long addored workstations and servers of once so you can't have anytrhing special, the service that hosts my website has no better computers as servers than my own,

what type of screen do you use ? LCD screens save a lot over CRT, what lighting do you use in the room ? i sure hope it is fluorescent lamps,

750 W sounds like a lot of wasting going on to me,

you might as well move the whatever to a hosting service, i think the best I have found is freehostia they offer good free accounts as well.

 

[ParkingLotLust]

Big honkin' power supply in the computer (rated at 600w, Id guess around 300w continuous - a lot goes on in there), plus a satellite modem, plus a 5x100w stereo, plus a crappy CRT tv, dual 17" LCDs, satellite receiver, xbox, NON-fluorescent lighting and whatever else happens to be plugged in at the moment. 750w was just a rough estimate, and Id rather (had the idea worked out in the first place) be able to provide more power than too much power.

I'll probably end up transferring most of my stuff to online hosting services, but the IRC and FTP servers cant exactly be put online, because Im sharing about 500GB worth of stuff on both of them (by IRC I mean DCC, not an actual irc server server)

 

[Thunderchild]

well firstly change the lighting you will save 75 % of power
the 5 X 100 watt speakers are not really drawing 500 W of power i don't think a human in a closed room can survive 500 w of sound lets say you are using like 50 W in power on the stereo,
why the TV ? you have a computer and as it is on 24/7 then just install a tv card if you need it to watch TV and if you are just watching films you can use the pc
why 2 pc screens ? you can turn the secondary off when not in use
your computer is not neccesarily using even 200 watts start to make a count of the power consumption of its various components I sure hope your not running a sh!tty pentium 4 that eats 130 W of power if so consider a C2D mine is the 6300 and uses 65 watts versus the pentium 3.2 GHz @ 130 watts

 

[Hero999]

how is Europe coming along with its ban on "standby" power devices? I remember reading something on the BBC months ago that the EU wanted a ban on all gizmos not having a hard wired power switch. That is a LOT of gizmos!

The BBC has a TV programme called "The Dragon's Den" where entrepreneurs pitch their businesses to rich tycoons in the hope they will invest in them. Someone had developed an ingenious product that allows appliances to draw no power in stand-by mode. The idea is that the remote control receiver is powered from a battery which is only charged when the device is being used, when it's in stand-by mode the remote reciever operates from the batterty. The device comes in two forms: an add on unit that fits in between the TV's power plug and which learns the remote control codes and turns it on and off accordingly and a unit that can be integrated into new appliances.

I agree that this is a good idea but the bad news is that it uses batteries (which isn't very environmentally friendly) and new TVs fitted with it will cost more as they have the pattent rights to it (this won't be a problem unless they're greedy). I can think of many alternative solutions like powering the remote control reciever from a very small power supply that doesn't draw much power or operating the reciever from a solar panel.

I think the idea of banning standby mode totally is stupid, I would prefer it if they introduced guidelines to tell the manufacturers that a device running in standby mode shall consume no more than 1VA which should be more than enough for a transformerless power supply powering a microcontroller and remote control receiver controlling a TRIAC.

 

[ParkingLotLust]

Thunderchild, Ive got 3x75w bulbs, I think, so thats definately taking up some power.

Ive got two screens purely out of convenience. I run the IRC server on one screen, and do whatever on the primary screen. Not to mention the second one was free, so I couldnt turn it down.

I have a tv, again, because its free. A tv-tuner card would cost money, which I dont have a lot of at the moment. I use the xbox to stream movies from the computer to the tv, which also gives me full surround sound. As a side-note, 500w of sound isnt all that much, I wouldnt think. Im not sure about highs and mids, but the sub in my car is running around 400w (fused for 60A), and while its loud, its not unbearable.

Nah, I sold my P4. Im running an e6400, 2x320gb hard drives, 1x200gb hard drive, XFX 7600GT, etc.

By the way, thanks to everyone suggesting stuff. Even though I might not stick to my original idea, it will definately help me cut power usage in my room, and the rest of the house too.

 

[mneary]

The idea is that the remote control receiver is powered from a battery which is only charged when the device is being used, when it's in stand-by mode the remote reciever operates from the batterty.

And how does this save total power?

 

[Thunderchild]

The BBC has a TV programme called "The Dragon's Den" where entrepreneurs pitch their businesses to rich tycoons in the hope they will invest in them. Someone had developed an ingenious product that allows appliances to draw no power in stand-by mode. The idea is that the remote control receiver is powered from a battery which is only charged when the device is being used, when it's in stand-by mode the remote reciever operates from the batterty. The device comes in two forms: an add on unit that fits in between the TV's power plug and which learns the remote control codes and turns it on and off accordingly and a unit that can be integrated into new appliances.

I agree that this is a good idea but the bad news is that it uses batteries (which isn't very environmentally friendly) and new TVs fitted with it will cost more as they have the pattent rights to it (this won't be a problem unless they're greedy). I can think of many alternative solutions like powering the remote control reciever from a very small power supply that doesn't draw much power or operating the reciever from a solar panel.

I think the idea of banning standby mode totally is stupid, I would prefer it if they introduced guidelines to tell the manufacturers that a device running in standby mode shall consume no more than 1VA which should be more than enough for a transformerless power supply powering a microcontroller and remote control receiver controlling a TRIAC.

no actually standby mode was made for us lazy humans, no I wouldn't use such a device what does it cost to turn the whole thing off ? it's stupid, am I to understand nobody wants to switch a unit off when not needed ? that's crazy are we lazy or what, sorry but consider 1 w of power for every unit in the house and over the whole world. now:

1 computer
1 monitor
1 speaker set up
1 stereo unit
1 printer
possibly 1 scanner
1 video machine
1 tv
1 xbox or other game console

now thats up to 9 watts per hour, thats 216 watts per day, that's 78.84 KW per year.... go figure all cos we are stupid lazy humans

of course on top of that you may add many other things like phone chargers people often leave plugged in and many homes have more than one computer and tv so we look at over 100 KW per year my house will run for 20 days on that