DIY ESS Update : 500 EUR of SAVINGS logged but 720 EUR since the beginning

Goods News for my DIY ESS - Energy Storage Sytem : Another step reached with 500 EUR of Savings logged by the online portal as of this weekend :)

Since I started logging usage + generation data with the EnergyHive hub in June 2014, it says 502 EUR has been saved on Imported Electricity

But my DIY ESS has been running with Solar Panels since July 9, 2013, and the additional savings figure for the first period should be close to 11 x 20 EUR/month = 220 EUR

So the total amount of Energy Saved on my Utility bill is today around 720 EUR ! after 2 years and 9 mobths of service
And since the price per kWh of Electricity is always going up, the savings will continue to increase faster with time !

Even if I do not care about ROI really, I can now say that 1/4 of the money spent to build my DIY ESS (3,000 EUR) has been payed back in Energy Bill Savings (720 EUR) over the 2 years and 9 months : 720 / 3,000 = 24%


Using cheaper Electricity rates to Charge at night (TOU) during winter, and Solar Surplus during the day, my Energy Storage System automatically tries to match the Power Consumption at home, in conjonction with Solar Generation when available, to have a Net Usage (Home Usage - Generated Power) close to 0W : No Import & No Export = Self Consumption of Solar Production

EnergyHive Free Online Portal enables instructive and user friendly graphs for real time and historical data display

I often checks that my ESS is working fine during the day, using my iPhone, Mac, PC on http://wattson.energyhive.com/dashboard/diyesskit

Power Graph


Energy Graph


Energy Generation Chart : Imported vs Generated Energy


Another real time way of checking what's going on is through a Logitech Broadcaster Webcam displaying Live on Ustream 2 Wattson units : one with Generation (Solar + ESS), the other with Net Usage (Usage - Generation) : http://www.ustream.tv/channel/chris75sf

More info on my DIY Energy Storage System here : http://www.diyesskit.com or http://www.storeyourenergy.com

DIY ESS - Energy Provider statement shows inverted low & high rate usage for October and December between 2012 & 2013

I have been charging (Forced Charge Mode on my ESS) at night for several months now since there is less Solar Production in winter. 

My last energy bill shows that, compared to last year october to december period, I inverted the usage in low rate and high rate

From Oct to Dec 2012 :  (no Solar and no ESS)

  ->   700 kWh used at night rate (half price)

  -> 1002 kWh used during the day 

From Oct to Dec 2013 : (Solar and ESS with Forced Charge Mode at Night 10:30 PM to 6:30 AM))

  -> 1021 kWh used at night rate (half price)

  ->   734 kWh used during the day

The funny thing is that the amount paid is more or less the same because price per kWh is rising, always ...


For more info on my DIY ESS, check out this other dedicated blog : http://www.diyesskit.com

ESS - Kilovac mounted on Control Board & first test

Now the EV200A1ANA is screwed on the Control Board and wired to the charger side command relay

First test on video

The resistor and capacitor are not soldered yet because I am not sure of the best location

I positionned them next to the other Kilovac EV200AAANA, because there is a hole on top of it - toscreww battery cables - and the heat generated by the 10W resistor will be able to get out of the enclosure  through it

The 6 chargers leads will be connected this week end

LiFePO4 ESS - Keeping it Low

Keeping the usage as low as possible yesterday with the DIY ESS Kit

Wattson Anywhere graphs of the day

It's All in the Monitoring !

Realising the potential of solar power in social housing…

Solar power provides an opportunity for social housing associations and landlords to improve the long-term energy prospects of tenants by alleviating fuel poverty and greatly reducing their carbon emissions.

And, despite cuts to feed-in tariffs (FiTs), some of which have already taken effect, the benefits of subsidies for landlords and discounted electricity bills for tenants offered by renewable energy will continue to transpire as inflation continues to rise and utility companies increase their prices. However, there are other measures that photovoltaic (PV) installation owners and their tenants can put in place to achieve the greatest benefits.

In the following, Mark Elliott, Director of energy monitoring specialist Energeno, explains how monitoring technology and smart meters hold the key to unleashing the full potential of PVs, and how Energeno’s range of equipment can help landlords and tenants alike combat fuel poverty.

As industry reports have stated, the full benefits of renewable energy can only be achieved if they are supported by efforts to encourage people to be energy efficient. Installations are often out of sight, out of mind, especially in social housing and commercial environments, so encouraging the behavioural change needed to achieve the true benefits of solar power has been difficult in the past.
Landlords and tenants alike need to gain true insight into energy use in their building, which will give them
control to reduce their own electricity bills – a key goal shared in social housing renewable energy strategies
and something we incorporate into our offering of energy monitoring technology.


The benefits of energy monitoring – introducing Wattson Solar Plus

Energy monitoring improves the financial and environmental performance of domestic and commercial buildings, and this has always been at the heart of what we do. An update to our Wattson Classic monitor – that shows electricity being generated in any building, whether it uses renewable energy or not – is the Wattson Solar Plus, which literally gives PV users the green light to use free electricity. Connected to an installation, it fits onto a shelf or even next to the TV and shows, in real time, how much electricity is being generated by an installation, how much energy is being used around the house and the carbon emissions being produced by energy use.

When an installation has generated surplus power, the monitor glows green, telling people when they can
use free electricity or sell it back to the grid. Giving tenants transparency in this way enables them to shift from using high energy consuming items, such as washing machines, when it is most costly to do so (i.e. when an installation is not generating at full capacity) to a time when it is free.

Not only does this aid with the ever present issue of fuel poverty facing many tenants by helping to reduce
their electricity consumption by up to 60%, but it can also increase the profitability of an installation for the
property owner.

Householder Sefton Owens champions low-carbon living and turned to the Wattson Solar Plus to measure the effects of solar PV. Owens explains: “Combining solar power with the Wattson Solar Plus has enabled me to get maximum efficiency out of my installation, and in the 12 months I’ve combined the two, I’ve managed to reduce my electricity consumption by over 60%. At any time I can see exactly how much energy is being produced and as soon as I’m in negative territory (i.e. generating more than I’m using) it is the time to switch on any electrical items I might need.

“If a few hundred watts are being generated, I’ll make sure that any electrical device that needs charging,
i.e. laptops, phones, batteries etc., are all charged for free. When it’s generating up to 3-4kWh, it’s on with
the washing machine, dishwasher, vacuum cleaner and generally larger energy consuming items.

“The Wattson has also engaged the rest of the family in energy saving. It allows us to control the energy we
use and its visual impact positively encourages people to look at it. I firmly believe that this type of product
will have a significant impact on not only reducing the CO2 we all produce in our households, but, as I’ve proved, can save some serious money. ”

The Solar Plus system also uses multiple transmitters so that one monitoring system can tie together energy consumption generated in different buildings to where the PV system is installed – something that appealed to Professor Ian McLean and his family. Professor McLean explains: “A key reason for investing in a PV system was to benefit from the FiT and make use of the free electricity we were going to generate.
However, when the PV originally went in, the inverter was installed in a different building, so it was impossible to see what was happening and the energy being generated from the house.

“Wattson Solar Plus provided the ideal solution because it gives us all the information we need on a single
monitor. And it copes with the fact that our PV is on a separate building to the one where we use the energy.”

This solution can also be used in schools, libraries and other buildings fitted with solar PV and using their
own energy.


Providing a detailed analysis of energy use

While our monitors provide immediacy for users, i.e. they can make a decision to turn off the lights or turn
on the washing machine, depending on their energy consumption at that moment in time, Wattson Anywhere is our online portal that provides a breakdown of energy use in a building and how much free electricity has escaped. This shows users where and when they have consumed and saved the most electricity, which can
help them make decisions and plan their energy use over a period of time. It can be accessed remotely via
the internet and also encompasses an online community, so tenants can share their experiences and ideas on
energy saving with each other.

We know that using energy monitoring technology is a real game changer and our products provide visibility of energy use and generation, consistently reminding people of the potential their rooftop holds. After all,
seeing is believing for most people.


Building on behavioural change with Energeno’s smart meters

We have demonstrated how our products can change people’s attitudes towards energy use; however, we wanted to bring something else to the market that would assist users in their mission to become completely energy efficient and reduce their outgoings.

Using ‘free electricity’ becomes easy with monitoring technology, and many of our users have become experts. However, this is only the case if you are at home at the same time as the energy is generated. Our
latest innovation is Optiplug, a smart socket that listens to the Wattson system and learns how much power
appliances use around a building.It then automatically diverts enough energy to power an appliance, when free energy is available.

In addition to this, we also supply Optimmersion, which converts surplus free electricity into hot water. This
device works in a similar way to Optiplug, switching surplus energy to immersion heaters. It is installed
between the immersion tank and the consumer unit and supplies variable power for hot water, depending on
the excess energy being generated.
Typical savings for Optimmersion users are around £55 per year for a gas boiler and £80 for electrically
heated water.

The use of surplus energy to heat hot water brings another dimension to energy efficiency and we are confident this type of product will fast become a mainstream add on to any installation.

We’re seeing more and more renewable installations fitted as standard on new housing. However,
we know that the biggest driver for installations is the financial benefits.
When landlords invest in solar PV, they are freeing tenants from utility companies, enabling them to secure their own energy use, and in some cases, lifting them out of fuel poverty.

But when they combine this with the right monitoring technology and smart metering, the results can be far
greater than they had hoped.

To find out more about Energeno’s range of products, please visit our website.


Source: Energeno
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Christmas Vacation - Our LEAF exhanged for a 700 km Freeway Trip

Oh Oh Oh ... This year we had the Christmas lunch at my parents and I asked them if we could switch cars for few days since we were leaving to see my grand parents in brittany (ouest of France) soon after for the end of the year. Last year we rented a car but this year did not want to spend too much because of financial difficulties... My parents have two diesel cars, two Renault, a R21 and a Clio

We have to do this or take the train - TGV -, but here it was too late and very pricy
Some will say that if it is not good to use diesel, me the first, but here we are using it for 350km times two, mostly freeway and highway at steady paces - not city driving - and it is always better to use it for 700km than the 3000km we achieved during the first year of ownership

Maybe one day, when the fast charging stations will have spread into freeway gas stations, maybe then, we will be able to do this journey in our LEAF ... It will come ...

Here is the LEAF going into their garage after a short test drive by my father

Well, he had to be carefull because it is wider than his old R21 ...

Few days after Christmas, here we are at mid trip on a freeway rest area with the Renault Clio


and another family gathering and walks in the country side at my grand parents

On the last day, my cousin and his family joined us for lunch and we headed back towards Paris together, following each other; Here is a picture taken by my son of our previous car, the Prius II - we had it from 2005 to 2011 -, I sold him for 5.000 EUR only (Nissan would only take it back at this ridiculously low price - it was worth 9.500 EUR - and told me this at the very end when the LEAF had arrived ...); I then decided to let a member of my family have it for this price instead of Nissan and they have been using it a lot since then 

Scientists Mimic Fireflies to Make Brighter LEDs

Optics Express papers detail new bio-inspired coating that increases LED efficiency by 55 percent

The nighttime twinkling of fireflies has inspired scientists to modify a light-emitting diode (LED) so it is more than one and a half times as efficient as the original. Researchers from Belgium, France, and Canada studied the internal structure of firefly lanterns, the organs on the bioluminescent insects’ abdomens that flash to attract mates. The scientists identified an unexpected pattern of jagged scales that enhanced the lanterns’ glow, and applied that knowledge to LED design to create an LED overlayer that mimicked the natural structure. The overlayer, which increased LED light extraction by up to 55 percent, could be easily tailored to existing diode designs to help humans light up the night while using less energy. The work is published in a pair of papers today in the Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal Optics Express.

“The most important aspect of this work is that it shows how much we can learn by carefully observing nature,” says Annick Bay, a Ph.D. student at the University of Namur in Belgium who studies natural photonic structures, including beetle scales and butterfly wings. When her advisor, Jean Pol Vigneron, visited Central America to conduct field work on the Panamanian tortoise beetle (Charidotella egregia), he also noticed clouds of twinkling fireflies and brought some specimens back to the lab to examine in more detail.

Fireflies create light through a chemical reaction that takes place in specialized cells called photocytes. The light is emitted through a part of the insect’s exoskeleton called the cuticle. Light travels through the cuticle more slowly than it travels through air, and the mismatch means a proportion of the light is reflected back into the lantern, dimming the glow. The unique surface geometry of some fireflies’ cuticles, however, can help minimize internal reflections, meaning more light escapes to reachthe eyes of potential firefly suitors.

In Optics Express papers, Bay, Vigneron, and colleagues first describe the intricate structures they saw when they examined firefly lanterns and then present how the same features could enhance LED design. Using scanning electron microscopes, the researchers identified structures such as nanoscale ribs and larger, misfit scales, on the fireflies’ cuticles. When the researchers used computer simulations to model how the structures affected light transmission they found that the sharp edges of the jagged, misfit scales let out the most light. The finding was confirmed experimentally when the researchers observed the edges glowing the brightest when the cuticle was illuminated from below.

“We refer to the edge structures as having a factory roof shape,” says Bay. “The tips of the scales protrude and have a tilted slope, like a factory roof.” The protrusions repeat approximately every 10 micrometers, with a height of approximately 3 micrometers. “In the beginning we thought smaller nanoscale structures would be most important, but surprisingly in the end we found the structure that was the most effective in improving light extraction was this big-scale structure,” says Bay.

Human-made light-emitting devices like LEDs face the same internal reflection problems as fireflies’ lanterns and Bay and her colleagues thought a factory roof-shaped coating could make LEDs brighter. In the second Optics Express paper published today, which is included in the Energy Express section of the journal, the researchers describe the method they used to create a jagged overlayer on top of a standard gallium nitride LED. Nicolas André, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada, deposited a layer of light-sensitive material on top of the LEDs and then exposed sections with a laser to create the triangular factory-roof profile. Since the LEDs were made from a material that slowed light even more than the fireflies’ cuticle, the scientists adjusted the dimensions of the protrusions to a height and width of 5 micrometers to maximize the light extraction.

“What’s nice about our technique is that it’s an easy process and we don’t have to create new LEDs,” says Bay. “With a few more steps we can coat and laser pattern an existing LED.”

Other research groups have studied the photonic structures in firefly lanterns as well, and have even mimicked some of the structures to enhance light extraction in LEDs, but their work focused on nanoscale features. The Belgium-led team is the first to identify micrometer-scale photonic features, which are larger than the wavelength of visible light, but which surprisingly improved light extraction better than the smaller nanoscale features. The factory roof coating that the researchers tested increased light extraction by more than 50 percent, a significantly higher percentage than other biomimicry approaches have achieved to date. The researchers speculate that, with achievable modifications to current manufacturing techniques, it should be possible to apply these novel design enhancements to current LED production within the next few years.

The firefly specimens that served as the inspiration for the effective new LED coating came from the genus Photuris, which is commonly found in Latin America and the United States. Bay says she has also examined the lanterns of a particularly hardy species of firefly found on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe that did not have the factory roof structure on the outer layer. She notes that she and her colleagues will continue to explore the great diversity of the natural world, searching for new sources of knowledge and inspiration. “The Photurisfireflies are very effective light emitters, but I am quite sure that there are other species that are even more effective,” says Bay. “This work is not over.”

Source: Business Wire & Green Building Elements

U.S. Energy Department's Apps for Energy is offering $100,000 in prizes to software developers

The U.S. Energy Department's Apps for Energy http://appsforenergy.challenge.gov  competition is offering $100,000 in prizes to software developers for the best new apps that help utility customers make the most out of their Green Button http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/GreenButtonInitia...  electricity usage data.



Green Button is an open standard for sharing electricity data that is available to millions of utility customers, so mash it up with other public data sources to help homeowners and businesses take action, understand their usage, and make better-informed decisions.

All time high record for a liter of gas in Paris today : 2 Euros !!

I just saw this in the news during lunch:

The price for a Liter of gasoline has reached 2.02 EUR this morning in Paris

With this kind of prices, I guess people are going to look at EVs in a different way, considering that the price of electricity is really going to make them save a lot of money ...