Sun, Wind, and Sky(e)

Sun. We finally got our solar power system up and running about a week and a half ago. Our energy has been 99.9% supplied from our panels and battery since then, with our system just randomly pulling .1 KWh from the grid now and then. And we've learned a lot about how home power works.

Our general power usage is pretty low. I think that LED and fluorescent bulbs have gone a long way to decreasing the power load of a house. The big spikes come from a couple of things. First, showers just eat up the power (since everything is electric here, not gas). Second, the dishwasher, or even just running hot water gets the energy spiking, due to heating the hot water tank back up, I suspect. But the biggest draw we've seen has been the dryer running, though that was probably helped along by the hot-water heater reheating following the washer run. Together those two appliances spiked us to 8 KwH or so for a bit, which the highest we've seen (and just about the maximum we can possibly generate in the middle of the day: 3 or 4 KwH from our panels, 5 from our battery).

We've had two almost entirely rainy days since the panels went in, and we were surprised to see the panels running at between 25-50% efficiency over the course of the day. I'd expected much lower.

On a normal day, our battery drains to 25-40% over night, and refills by 1-2pm, after which we send power to KIUC until 5pm or so. On a rainy day, we instead didn't manage to entirely refill our battery, ending up at 75-90% by the end of the day. But we still have enough solar power to run all day and mostly refill that battery.

Does that mean that a few rainy days in a row will leave us dependent on the grid? Maybe.

Overall, it's been great. On an average day it looks like we offset about 150% of our power usage, which is about where I wanted to be, to give room for weather variance and for degradation of our panels (though they're much lower than I'd thought beforehand) and increase in our usage (since we've still got at least a chest freezer to buy — but there are currently none on Kauai). Our system should work well for at least 10 years, after which we're going to see sufficient battery degradation that we may need to look into a replacement.

Wind. Speaking our replacement, my dad and I replaced three of the six fans in the house over the last few weeks. I feel like I could do it on my own at this point, which I never would have before. We replaced the one in the Living Room because it made loud  death-fan sounds. The new one isn't threatening to decapitate us, but otherwise feels much the same. We replaced the one in the Dining Room because it's in the same large space as the Living Room, and I wanted them looking the same, especially since I'd picked a four-blade design for the new ones (because it was what provided the light and the air movement that I wanted). We also put a two-foot drop bar on the fan, which had previously been quite far up on the high ceiling. It turns out, that makes a big difference. We're getting much better breeze in the Dining Room now, and it even cools the Living Room. So, that's a win. (And a wind.) Finally, we replaced the one in my office, because it had horrible lights since we moved it, which made using my office at night subpar. The new lights are so much better that I sometimes dim them a bit so as not to blind myself, and it also turns out to move air better than the old one.

So, all around, great replacements. And I'm resisting the urge to replace the other three so that everything looks the same. (They don't need to, and two of the the other three fans are fine; I think the lights on the one in the Family Room might be subpar, but until we start using that room, it's not an issue.)

Sky. And finally,  we've gotten our second Roomba, which we've been planning to do for over a year, since we decided we really liked the first one. Her name is Sky (or maybe Skye, but definitely not Daisy). She's a fancy new model with built-in mapping. Our theory is that she should thus go in the upstairs, because we'd often find Hal under a couch after failing to find his way home. So she's run a few times, and is great, actually getting everything more methodically clean, and not wandering forever. Hal, meanwhile, has been consigned to the downstairs. Where he still gets lost and stuck after cleaning ... but I think I can eventually find a better home base for him in the central Family Room, which should allow him to get home, we just need to get that furnished and shelved.

And that's exciting life in Hawaii.