Building a Tesla Supercharger !

Very instructive video time lapse on the building of a Tesla SuperCharger station from ground up

Check this out !

"The Project Managers at Electric Conduit Construction were excited to learn that they were the successful bidder on a Tesla Supercharger station. The project was located in Goodland, Kansas and was one of a chain of stations being built across the country to make long distance travel by electric vehicle a reality"

New Solar Homes: Japanese Homebuilders Helping the Fight for Energy Independence

One of the striking differences between the U.S. and Japanese solar PV markets is the number of new solar homes. In Japan, homebuilders promote “smart homes” to differentiate their products and appeal to new homebuyers who are conscious about saving energy amidst rising electricity costs.

In Japan, the new PV home market represented 30 percent of the total residential PV market in 2012 or over 370 MW of PV installation. In California this market accounted for 13 percent of the total residential PV market during the same period.

In California under the New Solar Home Partnership (NSHP), which provides incentives to home builders, there has been a little over 8,000 new solar homes built and rebated between 2007 and June 2013. This program has a goal to place solar energy systems on 50 percent of new homes by the end of 2016. Comparatively, according to the Japan Prefabricated Construction Association, 58.4 percent of detached, prefabricated homes built by 10 leading manufacturers during 2011 were sold with PV. The Association is planning to boost this number to 80 percent by 2020. Key solar homebuilders include Sekisui House, Sekisui Heim, Daiwa House and Misawa Home.




Sekisui Heim, a housing business unit of Sekisui Chemical, holds a Guinness World Record for “the most solar powered houses built.” The company has built and sold over 100,000 PV new homes between 1997 and 2011 while Lennar, which claims to be the America’s No. 1 solar homebuilder, has sold less than 2,000 solar home since 2006.

On an annual basis, Sekisui Heim sold over 9,000 PV new homes in Japan in 2012. Better yet, Sekisui House, Japan's biggest homebuilder, sold over 21,300 new solar homes during FY2012 (February 2012 through January 2013), 12.8 percent more than FY2011.


A Different Buyer Experience

In the U.S., prospective homebuyers often visit a model home at a particular homebuilder’s development site in a particular community. In Japan, homebuyers visit “Jutaku Tenjijo (Housing Exhibition Park)” where a dozen home developers showcase their latest new homes side-by-side. More new homes come with PV system as a standard feature, not an option. Some are equipped with building-inegrated photovoltaics (BIPV) to accommodate tiled roofs and aesthetic preferences, while others feature a flat-roof PV solution. 

A representative from Sekisui Heim said 85 percent of all new homes the company sold last year was equipped with a PV system, closely followed by 84 percent of Sekisui House. Ichijo Co Ltd, one of the Top 10 Homebuilder in Japan, achieved the highest rate of 90 percent in 2012. In 2010 Ichijo Co. developed and started promoting “Yume-Hatsuden System,” which is a large PV system with a special financing mechanism. The financing mechanism features zero upfront costs for the PV system and owners are allowed to repay the system cost by selling their solar-generated electricity with a 1 percent interest rate.

Ichijo’s representative stated the average PV system size for its new homes is 12 kW, while the national average for solar new home is about 4 kW. The company promotes not only installing PV on rooftops, but also on a homeowner’s carport to maximize revenues received by the national FIT policy.

Fighting Rising Electricity Rates with Solar Communities

As the nation’s electricity supply becomes a serious issue, home developers have expanded their product offerings from smart homes to smart communities.

Electricity rates are going up in Japan due to the higher costs of buying imported fossil fuels in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the subsequent shutting down of nuclear reactors for safety concerns. All but two of Japan’s 50 reactors are currently idled for safety assessments.

In May, Kansai Electric Power Co., the second largest electric utility, and Kyushu Electric Power Co. raised residential electricity rates to offset their higher fuel costs of running thermal power plants. Kansai Electric Power’s rates went up by an average of 9.75 percent while Kyushu Electric Power raised its rate by an average of 6.23 percent. Tohoku Electric Power Co. and Shikoku Electric Power Co. will raise their residential rates in August by 11.41 percent and a 10.94 percent, respectively.

To fight against rate hike and to support restoration efforts, Sekisui House has created the first net-zero-smart-house community in northeastern Japan where the devastating earthquakes and tsunami hit. The housing development is called “Smart Common Stage Mitazono,” which includes 40 Zero-Energy Homes, combining energy-efficient construction and appliances with PV, fuel-cell and storage battery systems. The 40 homes together can produce 163 MWh annually, of which 143 MWh will be sold to the utility.

Besides the Mitazono, Sekisui House has developed 12 other smart-house communities nationwide.

Daiwa House, the second largest homebuilder in Japan, has released the nation’s first fully energy-independent town project in Osaka. The “SMA X ECO Town Harumidai” consists of 65 Zero-Energy homes, all equipped with PV, lithium-ion battery and HEMS. Besides on individual housing units, common areas such as a community center or park have PV systems. This allows the entire community to supply all necessary energy.

While the high ROI triggered by the national FIT program has accelerated the growth of the large-scale, non-residential segment, the solar new home market is driven by homeowners’ needs to live peacefully and safely without worrying about energy supply and cost of energy at their own home.



Source: Renewable Energy World

DIY ESS Kit Building Documentation is finished, now working on the User Manual and the Components List

As mentioned two days ago, the DIY ESS Kit Building Documentation has been in the works for more than a week now, reviewed it many times, and, last night, I finally added the last part on the IKEA PS Metal Cabinet to make the ESS safer & nicer looking.

The Documentation is now finished and today I should be working on the User Manual and the Components List with links and addresses to get them.

Once these last, smaller, documents are done, I will start buying Arduino boards to flash them with my program and the first version on my Kit, DIY ESS Kit #1 will be ready to ship :-)

DIY ESS Kit Building Documentation is almost finished

I am writing the LiFePO4 DIY ESS Kit Building Documentation and it is almost ready :-)

I took a lot of time to come up with a very detailed step by step document to allow anybody to build it

Here are some screenshots to show you some of the steps:

Solar Panels Installation - 13 Uni-Solar PVL 124W 68W 31W

Today is the Big Day !

When I woke up, I discovered a very clear blue sky (what a relief !)

I had to take my day off to be there when it happens, but still I could not sleep anymore 

I checked right away and noticed that the forecast had not changed :-) and that it should be a nice day (all day)

My contractor called me to tell me he would come with one or two employees from another project nearby to help him out here and that he should show up right after lunch break so that the roof would be dry

And now they are here, the boss and one employee, on the roof installing the panels :-)

My last recommandations given showing pictures of the roof (from the sky) & Uni-Solar PVL technical documentation, ...

... my wife and I helped them passing the panels to put all of them on the roof

The ladder and opening to access to the roof

They installed some safety ropes between the chimney stacks

and started cleaning and scrubbing the the zinc so that the tar would stick better

It is getting hot on top of this roof in direct sun :-)

More pictures taken by my contractor:

All this was installed in only two hours and the employee told me it was the first time he installed this kind of panels and that it was easy

The PVL 68W and PVL 124W have been placed on either side of the U shaped building roof, avoiding attic air conduits, East and  West, in two strings of 3 68W and 3 124W; The additional small 31W has been added to the East chain

Here is a particular problem I was afraid of: the zinc sheets, overlapping each other, create a bump; I ask my contractor to be extra carefull at these points and not to try to put too much pressure on them because it would damage the solar panels ... He followed my advice and did better: he added a some silicone sealant between the zinc and the panel, blocking water and sticking this part too, which is a good idea :-)

Closer look at the nice result
I know, we have a lot of shade from the chimney stack, because winter is coming ..., but these panels are working do not really need direct sun to work well, they are fine with a white/grey sky
Also, if the shade is really bad, the cells affected are automatically shunted (each cell has a diode for that prupose), allowing better current flow only in sunny cells 

Awesome ! I am very happy with the job they accomplished :-)

Now I will have to be patient because their "Super" inverter is not ready yet, butI think it is worth the wait (I talked about it with the boss for an hour after the employee was gone)

Their website: Ecogelec

Sweaty Sunday ... Taking my 13 Uni-Solar Panels upstairs

This sunday I sweated a lot !! taking my 13 Uni-Solar Panels from the basement all the up to the 5th floor ... no elevator here, so 6 stories up and down
I was preparing for their installation on the building zinc roof the next day
After weeks of cold and bad weather, when I saw the sunny forecast of the next week, I insisted that my contrator comes to install themn, and saturday he talk to him on the phone and he said he could come monday ...