Renewable Energy Engineering

RENEWABLE ENERGY

PROJECTS

Solar Electric Energy

Photovoltaics (PV)

USB Devices 

Radu purchased these panels from us and says he put together this USB charger in about one hour. Directions for construction are in his article and he says it's good for charging MP3 players, video cameras, and PDA's.

Solar Electric PV Charging Systems

General Purpose

Solar Charging Power Station

Charging/Power Station Electronics I

12 Volt Panels

(Three 6.5V Panels in Series)

Charging/Power Station Electronics II

12 Volt 110AH Energy Storage

(Two 6V 110AH batteries in Series) 

Charging/Power Station Electronics III

Charge Controller, Jack, and Inverter

Electric Scooter

This electric scooter charges from the above PV charging station. It runs on a 24V charging system made from of two 12V 10AH batteries. It's range is about 8-10 miles to easily cover most around town errands. Traveling powered by the sun is a neat feeling. Love that clean solar power. Collect the sun during the day and charge anytime!

RV, Camper, and 5th Wheel

PV Charging Systems

Complete System and Backup Charging 

Boat and Marine Vehicle

PV Charging Systems

Boat Charging System and Drain Pump

Captain Kid purchased these round panels from us and uses them to power to provide solar electric for his complete charging system.

School Speed Limit Sign and Signal Lights

 

Gas Substation Charging System

This natural gas sub-station is located at 199th street and Null in Overland Park KS right in the middle of residential homes. Its communications tower is pictured below.

Communications for this natural gas power sub-station is powered by an off-grid solar electric charging station even thought power is readily available in the development just behind it.  Perhaps it is less expensive to have the station operated by solar charging than trenching power lines to it and also it is perhaps a safer option.

Operated by the US Geological Survey, US Government Property. From the sign posted on the front of the cabinet, "This station is part of a national network for obtaining water-resources information. The recorded water level and corresponding rate of flow are used for flood forecasting, reservoir operations, design of bridges and culverts, interstate and intrastate water-rights claims, and many other uses." This sub-station is located one block north of Hwy 69 and 179th street exit in Overland Park KS.

Wind Energy 

Harness the Energy of the Wind

Ron purchased our charger controllers for this site and says,  "Here's a photo of where I just used one of your solar charge controllers. It's a wind/solar powered repeater that supplies 800MHz TDMA cellular, 1800MHz GSM cellular and high speed broadband Internet to the new RIU resort hotel in Playa Matapalo, Costa Rica. You cannot see it in the picture but the resort is on the beach over 1km away and 600 meters below."

Solar Thermal Energy 

Solar Thermal Energy Panel

Solar Thermal Energy Collection

Seven custom designed thermal panels for space heating and domestic hot water for an entire home.

Solar Thermal Energy Storage

Hot Water Storage Tank

With two banks of heat copper coil exchangers for heating and domestic hot water heating for an entire home in this custom built thermal storage tank.

Graywater Domestic Hot Water Pre-Heating

Brian's site is called GOON and he wants us all to Get Off Oil Now! 

Solar Hobbies & Experiments

Video: Pick It Up

Video: Let It Run

 Solar Remote Controlled Car

Physics Class - College Competition 

Junior Solar Sprint (JSS)

LED & CFL Lighting 

LED Bulbs

LED bulbs are more efficient at using energy and converting energy into useful light. They do not produce the heat that incandescent bulbs do and also use far less energy, which equates to far less watts being used. Also, LED bulbs have a life expectancy far greater than incandescent bulbs. If it wasn’t feasible before, it becomes more realistic to power by solar after selectively converting certain of your incandescent lights to LED bulbs. 

LED Night Lights 

LED night lights are now available everywhere. Many can be obtained for under $2. This night light is 1/4 of a watt and replaces typical 4 watt night lights. They last for 14 years or more and use up to  95% less electricity. For about $1 more you can get a one with a photo sensor so that it will go off during the day and on in the night. There are many to choose from, all different colors and styles, and you can get them in three packs for even less!

Pictured is a 13 watt CFL bulb, which is the equivalent to 60 watts incandescent. A 10 watt CFL is the an equivalent to a 40 watt incandescent.

You may also want to look into CFL bulbs, which brings lighting within the feasibility of solar. By selectively converting to LED and CFL bulbs you will be able to begin taking your home off the grid one bulb exchange at a time and perhaps one room at a time. Converting to LED and CFL bulbs even makes sense if you are not using solar. You can save more watts for the same energy or more likely since you only need the same amount of light you will be saving energy by reducing the watts. As an added benefit to being energy responsible, saving energy usually has an associated financial reward.


Swapping out the incandescent for the CFL in this hall light was a breeze and the energy savings were from that day forward. Can you tell it is a CFL? In the house the only way you can tell is that with the CFL there is a short delay before the light turns full on. That took about 10 flips of the light swith to get used to and now seems quite normal. Such a simple solution, just fantastic!!!

Unfinished compost bins out in the woods in nature seem to blend right in

Compost bins in the herbal garden...

 

 

Artist Daniel Chadwick likes to make mobiles and kinetic art and about 15 years ago designed this piece. His new version can be seen one our home page and is crafted from our solar panels where he has very skillfully removed the cells and fitted them into his artwork. Another picture of his newer version is displayed below.

Daniel Chadwick Solar Artwork designed for and exhibited at Kenetica 2007.

The Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens  Environmental Education Visitors Center building (EEVC) showcases innovative and practical environmental building features such as geothermal heating and cooling, passive solar and also utilizes a radiant fireplace insert.

The EEVC buiding above is geothermally heated and cooled into this lake and the Arboretum's ecosystem appears to be unaffected.

Contact Us

RENEWABLE ENERGY

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Light Energy

How Do You Determine Ambient Light?

Solar Panel with LED and Limiting Resistor

Is that going to work? You bet!!! Funny thing is that you can light up many, many LED's this way, perhaps up to 30-40 or more in bright light. In the pictures above you can see 8 LED's being lit.

Indoor Light - How Much Energy From a 75 Watt Bulb?

How Much Energy is Stored in that Grass?

 Things to Think About:

Global Warming?

How much energy is stored in wood?

How much energy does the sun give us? On a sunny Day? On a cloudy day?

What can we do with that energy?

Take some solar lights and string the them together. Add a battery, charge controller and inverter. Is this going to work? 

Solar Electric PV Panel Optical Enhancement

Here experimenter Jim has enclosed his solar panels in a box and covered it with a lens.  Jim comments "the lens is to help collect more light from a fixed location, I thought that was worth trying." Is this going to work? Thoughts, comments, suggestions, questions to Jim here: email "Subject: Jim PV Optical Enhancements". Thank you!

Polycrystalline vs. Amorphous vs. Monocrystalline 

Above is the monocrystalline panel experimenter Herb Perkins built himself his first panel and was finished in March 2008.
Herb then bought this set of fifteen 1.2 watt smaller polycrystalline panels from us and built this larger panel, his second panel. Later Herb bought a third 45watt amorphous panel not yet pictured. Herb is building a tracker (PLC) for the panels and then will have three independent solar panel setups following the same orientation that he will test and record data on.

Cornell Biological Field Station

Bridgport NY

Summer Internship 2005

Fish Vision UV Growth Research

Growing Yellow Perch Under UV Light

Can Fish See UV Light?

How Do Fish Respond to UV light?

Collecting Zooplankton on Lake Oneida

Solar Thermal Collectors

 Thermal Solar Panels

This is a excellent example of one of the many home made thermal collectors in this roof mounted system. The thermal solar collectors are integrated into a wood boiler system which also takes care of domestic hot water heating.  

Solar Thermal Fin Nipple

Pictured is a single copper fin nipple. The tube is laser welded onto the fin by machine. You can less expensively purchase just the fins and make your own panels using a tubing notcher to help make the necessary holes in the headers. Then braise the fins to the headers and test for leaks. With some practice it can be done very nicely.

Solar Thermal Fins (Raw Stock)

Design an experimental thermal collector or make a standard type. You can use a tubing notcher to create your headers or you can go with a serpentine pattern.

Thermal Heat Exchangers
 

Copper Coil Heat Exchangers

These copper heat exchanger coils can be used between  the thermal collector and the thermal storage tank or directly in the storage tank.

Aluminum Heat Exchanger

Another Type of Aluminum Heat Exchanger

This is the common car, motorcycle or small engine copper aluminum finned radiator. Now what are we going to do with that?

This heat exchanger comes with muffin fans already installed. It has all stainless steel tubing with welded copper fins and two 12V DC fans.

 Pool Heat Exchanger

This pool heat exchanger tube assembly is rated at 150K BTU's and is manufactured by Waterpick Technologies, Inc.

Header for the pool heat exchanger tube assembly pictured above.

Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger

The shell and tube is a very common type of heat exchanger. The tubes and the shell come in all sorts of materials such and stainless steel or copper and are usually rated for pressure and temperature. The one pictured has fins on the tubes which is not a common feature. Typically these have four connections, two for the shell and two for the tubes each pair having their own size (for example 1" NPT and 3/4" NPT respectively).  

Solar Boiler Heat Exchanger

Refrigerant to Water Heat Exchanger

Heat coming back from the an air conditioners evaporator coil  or from a heap pump can be exchanged into water thus lowering the temperature of the refrigerant coming back and  also as another benefit can extend the life of the equipment and make the compressors' work easier and make the system work more efficiently overall. There is a heat sensor used as a controller to optimize the heat exchange. It is wired to the pump to turn the pump on and off when heat is available.

Braze Plate Heat Exchanger 

This type of braze plate heat exchanger comes in a plethora of sizes and number of plates. Generally the longer and the deeper the exchanger the more BTUs it can transfer. This plate heat exchanger is unique in that it has a cover plate that you can use to mount it and also it has rounded corners. Most of these are rectangular in shape.

Solar Thermal Panel

Using a rule of thumb for the longitude of the Kansas City area, one square foot of collector area is enough to heat one and a half gallons of water for domestic hot water usage. Pictured is an 4x8 foot collector (32 square feet of surface area and about 150 lbs including water and hookup), which can therefore collect enough solar thermal energy to heat approximately 48 gallons of water per day. This rule of thumb is of course a general rule that applies to the summer as well as the winter months and doesn't take into accounting the particular number of people in a family and their usage patterns. So when planning and also take this as well as several other factors into account and scale your ideal collector area up or down accordingly. Other common thermal collector sizes are 4x10 (very heavy) and 3x7 feet (a bit lighter). 

Here are a 40 gallon, 35 gallon, and two 55 gallon poly tanks. The first blue tank is a working gas water heater, the white tank can be used to preheat in series and the brown poly tanks can be used to hold water up to about 120 degrees. Some specialized cross fiber poly tanks can hold water up to 140 degrees.

Natural Renewable Energy Fuels

Technically wood is a renewable energy fuel because it can be reproduced in a relatively short period of time unlike coal, natural gas, or oil. Some feel that wood burning shouldn't be considered a renewable energy fuel as it is not as clean as solar electric, solar thermal, wind or hydro power. Solar thermal and solar photovoltaics are cleaner overall and do not produce energy that is released directly into the atmosphere. They borrow the sun and store the energy and eventually release it back into the atmosphere where it came from, thus overall not contributing to CO2 being released into the atmosphere.

Homemade Wood Burning Stove

Solar Parking Lot Lights

It is becoming more common to see solar being used for parking lot lighting. These lights are installed at the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens in Overland Park Kansas

Look what's inside a solar parking light control box! Surprisingly there was only a 76 Amp Hour (12 Volt) battery in there.

Using solar to power grow lights in those times when nature needs a little help

 

Camping on the farm. Come down for the weekend way out of town and hook up to the clean power that awaits.

The greenhouse is a perfect place to use thermal mass to control the temperature of the space. The Greenhouse will be no warmer than it would have been in the days, and the heat provided by the barrels will extend well into the evenings. Since the rate of the release of the heat is proportional to the temperature differential between the barrels and the ambient air, the more the temperature drops in the evening the more the heat will be released.

Black plastic barrels are the way to go for this application!