zero sun hours today

[paul123456]

Hello there ,

for the first time since April , today was really the first day that we had absolutely zero sunhours.

I can see howmany sunhours we've had on a digital display which registers the amount of kwh radiated by the sun, the energy
if collected is then fed into the solar boiler .
Seems that autumn is started then ,

So on a day like this , I light the fires which feed the heating and today they made 23 kwh , which is equivelant to
2,3 m3 of gas , at a cost of only picking the firewood up out of the forest .

thats it ,

regards ,

Paul

[dave45]

zero sun hours is quite normal here in Lancashire. At any time of year.

[Turtuga Blanku]

zero sun hours is quite normal here in Lancashire. At any time of year.

zero sun hours would be scary here, in the Caribbean.

[solarwind]

The recent weather in December and early January conspired to couple almost complete lack of wind with no sunshine, high pressure gloom I think they call it. Despite cutting load to the bare minimum I was forced to use a grid connection for a while. It was disappointing to have to do so. and I must find a way of avoiding further disappointment, a woodburning steam driven alternator perhaps?

[TheGoodEarth]

or a diesel generator run on used vegetable oil?

[solarwind]

TheGoodEarth, I take your point, I've even got a suitable Lister generator, it would be so much easier, the trouble is,I've no used vegetable oil, but plenty of wood.

[paul123456]

Hello there ,

In holland there are collection points in supermarkets for used vegetable oil , this is then converted into a high profit
material for some outfit .Is it not possible to collect your own vegetable oil ?
What if you could collect the oil which is contaminated with dioxin , in Holland and Germany which is now been introduced
to the food chain and burn that ?
Do you say it would kill 2 birds with 0ne stone ?

regards ,

Paul

[solarwind]

Hello Paul,

Snowdonia has such a low population density and as I live up in the hills miles from anywhere I could well use more fuel collecting used vegetable oil than I collected. I used to use fresh vegetable oil in a diesel 4x4 until the price became comparable with diesel, and all perfectly legal too. I'm not sure that putting dioxins into the atmosphere would be a good idea although as you say it would kill 2 birds with one stone ( and maybe a few people too).

[battybird]

We had a similar problem with our solar power in November/december. So little sun that we had to ration the lights and used our old oil lamp and candles instead. And the DVD player was a no hoper. We are seriously thinking about trying a water turbine in the small stream in our land. Have to be free / cheap though. Anyone got any really easy plans??

[TheGoodEarth]

We had a similar problem with our solar power in November/december. So little sun that we had to ration the lights and used our old oil lamp and candles instead. And the DVD player was a no hoper. We are seriously thinking about trying a water turbine in the small stream in our land. Have to be free / cheap though. Anyone got any really easy plans??

This should help you get started.

http://www.british-hydro.org/mini-hydro/index.html

[MandyWB]

zero sun hours is quite normal here in Lancashire. At any time of year.

As we are on day two of our 3 day PV array installation and we live in Lancs I find this a little worrying