Solar Apartment?

The random goal is to cut our on-grid electricity usage in half... even with winter coming up. (it's part of a bigger goal to see how small of an environmental footprint we can get away with, but I'm taking it one step at a time)

A couple days ago I was curious about how much it would cost to do this with solar panels or micro-wind energy alone, but then my president mentioned a radical new idea... something called cosovo... consovo... ah! "conservation!" that's it! "conservation"!. I started thinking "I'f it's good enough for the pres, it's good enough for me", so I have also added that into my plan.

I have to admit though, that if I can reduce my usage by half by simply conserving it's sure not as fun as buying cool high-tech solar panels. So yes, I will look for places I can conse... dang, forgot the word again... oh yeah, "conserve". But I am still curious to see how realistic it would be to use solar alternatives -keeping in mind of course, that I live in an apartment and can't do any construction on the roof or anything like that. And I'm pretty sure I can't sell anything back in.

To make it worse, some items, such as the ceiling lights and built in electric water heater controller are pretty much restricted to using the in-house energy source. (on a side note, while looking over the light fixtures I discovered that one of them is broken and could easily electrocute a curious bird -gotta remember to cover those exposed areas up). But... the lights that were in here when we moved in are not energy efficient, so I could replace those bulbs at least. -gotta figure out how much that will cost.

Anyway, I would be happy with reducing our on-the-grid usage by half. I made a quick audit to see what kind of things we have sucking up energy on a pretty much regular basis during the day. As I write this, the following items are plugged in:

• my computer
• computer monitor
• radio
• telephone
• fridge

And sometimes:

• microwave (usually unplugged unless it is in use)
• desk lamp (only used for reading when I am not using the computer)
• oscillating fan (on hot days, but probably no more this year)

And coming soon:

• small space heater (though the apartment is south facing and small enough that it doesn't need a heater on sunny days)

I was not sure how much I needed in an average hour during the day, so I checked it out today. One hour's usage with the things in first list: 200 W. I then unplugged the fridge (don't tell Tomoe) for an hour. Still using the computer, monitor, radio and telephone, the new total came to 100 Wh. Sure, I could be off by 50 Wh depending on which angle I look at the dial from, but it gives me a rough idea.

My first stop was Tree Hugger Solar section. Nothing much there that would be any help to me. Most of it was either large scale solar projects, or small, portable, useless-gadget chargers. I hate to be negative about solar products, but most of them are not even enough to run my iBook which uses around 50 W/h. Although it would be useful to charge my camera battery on the road, I am sure it takes more energy just to produce and ship the solar charger to me than I use charging my camera battery once a week. In the end, if the goal is to reduce energy consumption, we're much better off just not buying the iPod.

The most interesting thing I saw there were the 20 Watt Powerfilm and ICP Mobile Solar Panels which can be rolled up for portability. This Folding 30 Watt Solar PV Panel with Case also looked nice. When I first saw them I thought the wattage was too low, but after getting a rough estimate of me pre-conservation hourly electricity usage at home, which may be too low to justify the cost of getting a 150 W/h panel set-up, the small scale trickle charge option has started looking better.

The problem, of course, (besides not being able to run my radio and fridge with it) is that with these I assume I am paying extra for portability, but I don't need portability. The only "small gadget" I have to charge with this is my iBook (and my camera once every two weeks). I would much rather get something that puts out more power -enough to store in batteries that can then be used to run the appliances I use in the house, i.e. the radio, telephone, fridge, and maybe even space heater.

As for cost, of course I would love to quickly make up the entire investment by lower electricity bills, but it wasn't a requisite (again, I rent, so if I get a set-up that produces more juice than I use, I don't think I can really sell it back into the grid). As for how much more I can afford to pay per month, I am not sure yet, but thinking about how much money I waste on stupid shit like beer and the occasional i-tune, I guess I can afford to pay a little more for my kids' future.

And now the moment of truth..... The prices below are general ballpark figures after a couple hours of research. I guess I should add the electricity used by my computer or those couple hours to the cost of the PVs as well. I also have not yet looked into the second hand route for the battery, inverter, and controller.

140 W/h (2x70watt) solar panels (Japanese) small enough to hang out my window. JPY88,000 (US$776)
1 Battery (lasts about 3 years) JPY60,000 ($529)
1 Inverter 30-40,000 ($264 - $352)
1 Controller 20,000 ($176)

Total: 200,000 ($1,764)

So how low can I expect my post-conservation electricity bill to be, considering that I can't move entirely off grid without also buying a lot of new lamps and a solar water heater. Given the after-conservation usage, how long would it take to make up the cost?

Hmmmmmm. I have a little math to do when I get my next monthly usage statement, but it looks like I may have to stop conserving to make solar worth it. Maybe we can start turning the air-conditioner on when I am not home (when I am home I much prefer a fan), as well as use the central heating in the winter -but that will most likely cause me to die of heat stroke. I'm going to have to think about this a little more.

Even if I was not able to settle the apartment compatible solar power option issue, I did find this really awesome invention that blows my mind.

tan through speedos.

And what really looked enticing -if only we had more than an average of 5 m/h wind- is this 400 watt AIR-X Small wind turbine. For only $700 it can be put right up on your roof without a tower or anything.