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Can I turn my theory into reality? Fossil fuel free, 100% off grid, but modcons


TitaniumSquirrel

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Looking at this dispassionately I do feel that Brian has the sanest / most practical way to reduce emissions to almost zero  on a boat.

Diesel cooker, Diesel engine/generator, diesel heating all run on HVO with some solar to provide electricity if needed 

No pissing about trying to reinvent the wheel, all proven and workable systems that will deal with the fact that boats are badly Insulated steel boxes which a heat pump will not.

 

 

Edited by Loddon
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1 hour ago, TitaniumSquirrel said:

Hi Tony,

 

Thanks for your continued input, but it's a bit archaic and not very useful. Please see the video I just posted, no diesel in sight, not a wind turbine. Just solar, wood and a bit of gas in winter.

 

Unless you have something constructive to say, please don't bother! I am very happy to take on board reasoned, constructive criticism, but you're not really doing that, not offering any sort of evidence or thinking to support your claims. If you think what I'm talking about is utterly impossible, then you are not up to date with current technology nor my situation.


Cheers,

 

Tom

Well that certainly one of most respected and technical competent members well and truly told.

 

I think I will just get myself some popcorn and sit this one out.

 

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Edited by reg
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1 hour ago, TitaniumSquirrel said:

Unless you have something constructive to say, please don't bother! I am very happy to take on board reasoned, constructive criticism, but you're not really doing that, not offering any sort of evidence or thinking to support your claims. If you think what I'm talking about is utterly impossible, then you are not up to date with current technology nor my situation.

Well none of us are up to date with your situation, but there are several on here who are up to date with current technology. It appears that you are saying definitively that it is possible, and that you just want to discuss the details. If that is the case then the onus is on you, as the originator of this thread, to demonstrate that. And that you haven't done.

Forget the details for a moment. Just do the broad analysis of total energy in and total energy out. With realistic numbers. If the first is greater than the second, fine. You can then go on to refine the details. If the second is greater than the first, no amount of arguing will change the fact that it can't be done.

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2 hours ago, TitaniumSquirrel said:

Thanks Tony! I can't find the edit button on my OP haha....... oh dear. I meant more that I don't find comments of "you cannot do it" very useful, I was hoping to engage a more constructive dialogue, even if that dialogue is mostly negative, I'd like to why rather than just be told I'm a dreamer and stupid. I know fairly clearly that I am not, and have case studies and the theory to back most of it up (bar the heat pump idea!)

 

I can get 3-4kW on my narrowboat no probs, the panels are about 1100 wide and I can tilt them to 35 deg facing south and mounted in portrait, they're >400W so to get to 4kW would require around 10m of length, or around 30ft. I'm permanently moored, and will only be cruising occasionally. Typically, the ratio of solar generated in the UK in summer (and this is a huge rule of thumb) is 1kWp:5kWh in Summer and 1kWp:1kWh in Winter.

 

Thanks for the advice on general posting too, new to this forum so that's handy to know. I hadn't meant to insult anyone, but perhaps could have phrased it better.....

 

Your "rules of thumb" look optimistic, going by sites which give realistic estimates of solar yield in the UK (instead of promoting solar panels), for example the Victron MPPT calculator gives an average of 3.6kWh/kWp in summer and 0.8kWh/kWp in the depths of winter. This of course assumes you can tilt them in the right direction and there's nothing causing any shade, which might both be true in a fixed mooring in a marina but aren't if you're cruising the system.

 

Mounting 1.8m long panels crosswise on a narrowboat roof isn't practical, the usable roof is typically about 1.5m wide, and overhanging panels significantly is dangerous both from people and wind points of view. The most you'll get is about 300W per 1m of roof length, for example using these:

 

https://www.bimblesolar.com/solar/large-panels/295w-perlite-54cell-small

 

Depending on boat/roof length and what else you have on the roof, you'll do very well to get 3kWp in, which means an average of 11kWh/day in summer and 2.5kWh/day in midwinter. If you want some space for walking along the roof and other stuff, 2kWp is about the limit, so about 7kWh/day in summer and 1.5kWh/day in winter.

Edited by IanD
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2 hours ago, TitaniumSquirrel said:

Awesome! This sounds like you've headed down the same path I'm looking to. Very glad to hear the immersion and induction can be fed off that solar in the summer - may I ask how many people are on your boat? I will just be on my own so might mean less demand than you? I'm on a narrowboat but will be using 410W panels at around 1100x1700, and should be able to fit 8-10 on no probs, in portrait in a row, tilted at around 30 degrees, and I'll be facing South.

 

I'm contemplating putting solar thermal panels on the side of the boat that faces south also, as it's a more efficient way of generating hot water, and would be ideal for the Winter when the sun is low in the sky.

 

The heat pump is certainly a more "out there" idea, but in theory it should be possible - I work with a chap who's been in heat pumps for around 25 years and we've gone through the theory a few times, obviously the proof is in the pudding but part of this journey is seeing whether it can work!

More power to you!  I'd love for heat pumps to become common on the canals.  Either water source or air source.  Canals almost never freeze more than 5-6 inches deep with ice, so a water source pump just above baseplate level should work.

 

Beware of how many panels you can fit on a narrowboat roof.  You need to allow room for mushroom vents, chimney, tv aerial, hook, bargepole etc.  Also, roofs are very useful spaces for storing a range of things.  Liveaboards are usually easily recognised because they have stuff on the roof.  If you're single handing, you'll probably also need to leave space for walking along the roof.  My panels are 100cm wide and I really wouldn't want them any wider.

 

I've seen a boat with solar thermal tubes on the side, so I know it's been done.

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Are you assuming that the 1800mm wide panels will fit on a narrowboat roof?   How much of that 410w per panel do you expect to get into your batteries?

Could you not have a conventional mobile usable narrowboat on your cam mooring and build a shed on the land as a power station? Better to house a heat pump rather than have the noise and vibration on the boat? You could even go ground source then.

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1 hour ago, TitaniumSquirrel said:

I guess you're right to some degree, it is more like a static home - most of the community on the Cam are like this, and yes, 4kW on a narrowboat. I don't envisage huge amounts of solo travel, if any. It would likely be weekend jaunts or perhaps the odd week with friends/partner.

 

Yup, permanently south facing, permanently 30 degrees.

 

I'm not going to be a cruiser, it's a liveaboard with permanent mooring essentially!

A point of practical boating that doesn't appear to have been addressed.

Your permanent mooring, you say doesn't have electricity, does it have water, and some sort of toilet disposal arrangements?

If not, then you will be moving fairly regularly, to refill/empty tanks, are there turning places (winding holes) close to the mooring and services?

It might be that you have your panels facing south now, but after a trip to fill with water, the panels will now be facing north.  Or facing a long reverse....(narrowboats don't do reverse well).

 

Bod.

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20 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

More power to you!  I'd love for heat pumps to become common on the canals.  Either water source or air source.  Canals almost never freeze more than 5-6 inches deep with ice, so a water source pump just above baseplate level should work.

 

Beware of how many panels you can fit on a narrowboat roof.  You need to allow room for mushroom vents, chimney, tv aerial, hook, bargepole etc.  Also, roofs are very useful spaces for storing a range of things.  Liveaboards are usually easily recognised because they have stuff on the roof.  If you're single handing, you'll probably also need to leave space for walking along the roof.  My panels are 100cm wide and I really wouldn't want them any wider.

 

I've seen a boat with solar thermal tubes on the side, so I know it's been done.

Water source won't work all year round (5C minimum inlet water temperature), see my earlier post...

3 minutes ago, Bod said:

A point of practical boating that doesn't appear to have been addressed.

Your permanent mooring, you say doesn't have electricity, does it have water, and some sort of toilet disposal arrangements?

If not, then you will be moving fairly regularly, to refill/empty tanks, are there turning places (winding holes) close to the mooring and services?

It might be that you have your panels facing south now, but after a trip to fill with water, the panels will now be facing north.  Or facing a long reverse....(narrowboats don't do reverse well).

 

Bod.

Many mounts allow panels to be tilted at least two ways (left and right). Doesn't help if the boat is moored N/S though because the tilt becomes E/W and you need them to face S...

 

If you can't tilt them the right way and flat mount them instead, you lose about 15% of power, but at least it doesn't matter which way the boat/panels face.

Edited by IanD
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1 hour ago, Loddon said:

Looking at this dispassionately I do feel that Brian has the sanest / most practical way to reduce emissions to almost zero  on a boat.

Diesel cooker, Diesel engine/generator, diesel heating all run on HVO with some solar to provide electricity if needed 

No pissing about trying to reinvent the wheel, all proven and workable systems that will deal with the fact that boats are badly Insulated steel boxes which a heat pump will not.

 

 

 

A heat pump is perfectly capable of heating a badly insulated boat, just like any other heating system.

 

The problem is where to get the power to run it, and fitting it in (especially air source) or using it for heating if the water temperature falls below +5C (water source), which it certainly can do in winter when you most need heating.

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6 hours ago, Tony1 said:

 

. My panels were at times giving me 60 amps in the summer, but in early November, and on my current mooring, they sometimes struggle to deliver 6 amps. 

 

 

I reckon 6 amps sounds quite good. I am not good at amps watts volts etc. but a cheap 6 amp charger running off a landline seems to keep two supposedly 110amp batts charged and keep a few led's, a small fridge and a bit of telly going with no probs. We are a small, simple boat with an unsophisticated (primitive!) system that I can a) nearly understand and b) fix.

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16 minutes ago, Bee said:

I reckon 6 amps sounds quite good. I am not good at amps watts volts etc. but a cheap 6 amp charger running off a landline seems to keep two supposedly 110amp batts charged and keep a few led's, a small fridge and a bit of telly going with no probs. We are a small, simple boat with an unsophisticated (primitive!) system that I can a) nearly understand and b) fix.

All true, but the OP is looking for a completely different level of power:

 

"The idea being I can fully power, heat and provide hot water for a pretty damn comfortable lifestyle. This is a bit of a journey for me, and I want to see how practical it is to keep a decent number of modcons whilst being utterly off grid, all year round. "

 

Nothing wrong with wanting a lot more power-consuming stuff on board than Bee has if that's your lifestyle, but on a narrowboat this is not compatible with being offgrid all year round unless you add a (diesel/HVO) generator.

Edited by IanD
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12 minutes ago, Bee said:

I reckon 6 amps sounds quite good. I am not good at amps watts volts etc. but a cheap 6 amp charger running off a landline seems to keep two supposedly 110amp batts charged and keep a few led's, a small fridge and a bit of telly going with no probs. We are a small, simple boat with an unsophisticated (primitive!) system that I can a) nearly understand and b) fix.

 

If he is only getting 6amps during the small number of hours of sunshine (say) 10 hours, that gives 60Ah per day.

Most boaters with simple electrical systems will be up around somewhere 80-100Ah per day (A typical fridge will be 40-50Ah and a modern 'economical one will be 30-35Ah.

 

Running a 6amp charger off a landline will give 6 x 24 hours so 144Ah which will certainly power a small to medium boat usage.

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59 minutes ago, Bee said:

I reckon 6 amps sounds quite good. I am not good at amps watts volts etc. but a cheap 6 amp charger running off a landline seems to keep two supposedly 110amp batts charged and keep a few led's, a small fridge and a bit of telly going with no probs. We are a small, simple boat with an unsophisticated (primitive!) system that I can a) nearly understand and b) fix.

 

I do think its a very good point about being able to fix your own electrics if at all possible. I've installed 80% of the stuff I've now got, but the really key parts were done by electricians, and if those bits fail, I might be struggling, I must admit. 

 

On the thing about 6 amps being ok, yes it would be if I was getting that for 24 hours, but unfortunately I have a high hedge to my south at the moment, and its spoiling the solar, so I'm only getting the 6 amps between about 10am and 3pm, if that- so maybe 30 Ah total.

But I have no land line, as I'm CCing. Once I move to a more open mooring I'll probably double the solar yield to 60Ah, and especially if my side faces south (and its then worth tilting the panels). 

But there's no getting away from the fact that the hours of sunlight are becoming fewer, and at this time of year my 1.4kw of panels will deliver less charge in a day than your 6 amps landline will. 

 

That's exactly why I also upgraded the engine charging system, so I can charge my batteries at up to 100 amps if I want to, and thus get all the charge I need in about an hour per day. 

I created an absolute Frankenstein's monster of a charging system, with six different charging units potentially available. It lives, and it works, but if it goes rogue I may need a crowd of villagers with pitchforks to get my monster back under control....

 

 

Edited by Tony1
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7 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

 

I do think its a very good point about being able to fix your own electrics if at all possible. I've installed 80% of the stuff I've now got, but the really key parts were done by electricians, and if those bits fail, I might be struggling, I must admit. 

 

On the thing about 6 amps being ok, yes it would be if I was getting that for 24 hours, but unfortunately I have a high hedge to my south at the moment, and its spoiling the solar, so I'm only getting the 6 amps between about 10am and 3pm, if that- so maybe 30 Ah total.

But I have no land line, as I'm CCing. Once I move to a more open mooring I'll probably double the solar yield to 60Ah, and especially if my side faces south (and its then worth tilting the panels). 

But there's no getting away from the fact that the hours of sunlight are becoming fewer, and at this time of year my 1.4kw of panels will deliver less charge in a day than your 6 amps landline will. 

 

That's exactly why I also upgraded the engine charging system, so I can charge my batteries at up to 100 amps if I want to, and thus get all the charge I need in about an hour per day. 

I created an absolute Frankenstein's monster of a charging system, with six different charging units potentially available. It lives, and it works, but if it goes rogue I may need a crowd of villagers with pitchforks to get my monster back under control....

 

 

 

Or a fire engine... 😉

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2 hours ago, IanD said:

A heat pump is perfectly capable of heating a badly insulated boat, just like any other heating system.

Of course it is 😯 however it may well not make up for what goes out through the insulation.

I have been researching heat pumps for the house and have come to the conclusion unless you are prepared to add extra insulation inside the house and fit underfloor heating or double the radiator efficiency it's never  going to be as warm as we want it to be.

Even some companies that fit them advise against it at present.

Unless green hydrogen boilers are available before we need to change, it looks like it will be extra solar and an electric wet boiler for the radiators here.

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19 minutes ago, Loddon said:

Of course it is 😯 however it may well not make up for what goes out through the insulation.

I have been researching heat pumps for the house and have come to the conclusion unless you are prepared to add extra insulation inside the house and fit underfloor heating or double the radiator efficiency it's never  going to be as warm as we want it to be.

Even some companies that fit them advise against it at present.

Unless green hydrogen boilers are available before we need to change, it looks like it will be extra solar and an electric wet boiler for the radiators here.

 

Don't get it. If the heat pump has the same thermal output as your existing boiler, it'll heat the house up exactly the same -- but you might need bigger radiators to deal with the lower water temperature.

 

If you put in a heat pump that's too small (which some people do, and then complain it's not warm enough) or keep existing radiators that were designed for 85C water and are now getting 55C water (ditto), that's the fault of whoever specified the system and tried to penny-pinch, it's not the fault of the heat pump as such. The problem is often that gas boilers are dirt cheap even for high power outputs but heat-pumps aren't, so people (and installers) try to save money and avoid enormous installation bills by fitting one that's too small.

 

If you have a big old draughty house with a 30kW boiler (cheap, under £1k) and replace it with a 15kW heat pump (expensive, about £5k) and don't improve your insulation drastically, you'll be cold. Keep the house as it is and spend £10k on two 15kW heat pumps and you'll be just as warm, but much poorer -- but many customers (and installers) won't go down this route because of cost, they'll save money and then complain that they're cold and that heat pumps are rubbish.

 

The laws of thermodynamics apply just the same to heat pumps and any other heating system -- put in a system that's too small (to save money) or badly designed, and the house won't be warm enough... 😉

Edited by IanD
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When doing a self build course at the National Self Build and Renovation Centre in Swindon, it was pointed out that there was no point in putting energy into a leaky bucket, first plug the holes.  No amount of money spent on tech will make up for that loss, just money wasted.  When you strive for efficiency, insulation and draft proofing are your priority.

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8 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

Don't get it. If the heat pump has the same thermal output as your existing boiler, it'll heat the house up exactly the same -- but you might need bigger radiators to deal with the lower water temperature.

 

If you put in a heat pump that's too small (which some people do, and then complain it's not warm enough) or keep existing radiators that were designed for 85C water and are now getting 55C water (ditto), that's the fault of whoever specified the system and tried to penny-pinch, it's not the fault of the heat pump as such. The problem is often that gas boilers are dirt cheap even for high power outputs but heat-pumps aren't, so people (and installers) try to save money and avoid enormous installation bills by fitting one that's too small.

 

If you have a big old draughty house with a 30kW boiler (cheap, under £1k) and replace it with a 15kW heat pump (expensive, about £5k) and don't improve your insulation drastically, you'll be cold. Keep the house as it is and spend £10k on two 15kW heat pumps and you'll be just as warm, but much poorer -- but many customers (and installers) won't go down this route because of cost, they'll save money and then complain that they're cold and that heat pumps are rubbish.

 

The laws of thermodynamics apply just the same to heat pumps and any other heating system -- put in a system that's too small (to save money) or badly designed, and the house won't be warm enough... 😉

Rads here are designed for 70 and run comfortably at 63-65 to keep the return temp well below 55 to increase condensing and heat pumps run at 45 not 55😎

There is another reason why without major surgery a Heat pump won't work here and that all the Pipe work from the manifolds onwards is  microbore so it just won't work with the lower flow temperatures.

House is a 1985 detached and has cavity wall insulation and 200mm+ insulation in the loft but that just isn't good enough apparently. It's all down to the lower flow temperatures.

Trust me I would love to take money from the government to make it work but without major reconstruction it isn't going to.

 

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Your panels will take 55 feet so totally fill the useable roof of a 70 foot boat, you lose about 6 to 7 feet at the front due to the pointy bow,and about the same at the stern due to having to have a hatch and a means of steering so a 70 foot boat only has about 55 feet of roof space. The tilting will help in winter (probably double your harvest) but even so you will be lucky to get 20% of rated power for about 4 hours in winter on a dull wet day you will get much less than that. You may also find it difficult to ensure that no part of that solar array is shaded, even by a rope. I wish you well but the laws of physics are not to be ignored.

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My recollection from thermodynamics lectures at university half a century ago, is that heat transfer is proportional the square of  temperature difference, which why a lower circulating  water  temperature requires a disproportionately larger radiator surface area for the same heat transfer. In fact the heat transfer mechanism  of many so-called radiators, especially the multi-panel types, is actually convection, as you need to be able to "see" a surface to receive radiated heat from it. Your feeling of comfort will depend on the balance between the heat radiated from your body, and the heat received by your body from the surroudings, so if you do rely on receiving heat radiated from a radiator panel itself, then you will be unlikely to feel comfortable with the cooler radiator surface temperature of a heat pump system. Underfloor heating relies on convection rather than radiation, so can give satisfactory service with heat pumps as long as it is designed for the lower circulating  water temperature. Not that I would have such a system myself. My parents lived in a flat with underfoor electric heating for a year: we found it uncomfortable and couldn't wait to move. 

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