Cucumber picking
This is how we grow our veg, in a chaotic mixed bed where no soil is exposed to the burning sun, where we allow “weeds” because they further protect the soil and the biome below, where there is no need for fertiliser because we use pond water, where we use no toxic pesticide because we don’t care about the odd bite out of our veg, it’s nature after all and we need the eco system intact, and if it cannot be eaten by humans then our chickens will do the necessary. We just pick what we need that day and pick the rest another day. If we have more than we can eat we give to our friends and family or preserve.
This post is a follow up from the previous folding solar PV panel video showing the mobile 3.5kW power station is a viable idea and very suitable for powering summer houses, electric car charging and anywhere a permanent solar system is not allowed or inappropriate.
Dismantling a 3.5 kW solar system in 1min 20 seconds
Today at Helios we needed more space and had to move our mobile 3.5kWp car charging solar system. Disassembly was more or less the reverse of assembly and went fine. The car was sitting for 8 months and started first time apart from having to charge the car starter battery.
Scrap yards are our favourite shops where we can give used and abused devices a new life. The hub motor in this video we will use in an abandoned scooter and also separately as a wind turbine generator. Cost price 50 euros.
Market traders are very practical peope and therefore a perfect location for more product testing of our PGK 3kWh . ( PGK standing for 'Petrol Generator Killer') It was an easy sell for us because although petrol generators are cheap out of the box from China, they are very expensive to fill with petrol every few hours, expensive and dirty to change the oil every 100 hours and very noisy and smelly. Our PGKs use a solar chargeable lithium battery with an inverter to provide 230V AC. For a market trader who may use their petrol generator most days a week the payback of our system is around a year and of course without the pollution issues of a petrol generator.
Finally winter arrives at Helios Eco Lab. No sun today but plenty of wind to turn our wind turbine. Our machine is rated at 2kW maximum but in reality with turbulent and gusty conditions it only produces 500 watts but still enough to keep our battery topped up. Having wind when there is no sun is a very fortunate feature of the Greek climate and is one of the reasons why renewables are able to fulfil half the energy required by the grid, mostly by those big wind turbines people get so upset about. Expect another post this time tomorrow sweeping snow off my panels🥶
Yesterday the wettest day of the year so far we were In Athens with the Attica Energy Community proposing to a potential client how they could save a seven digit number off their energy bill using solar and a geothermal heat pump. On the way back I walked past the temple of modern Greek football otherwise known as the Panthinaikos stadium (apologies to Olympiakos and AEK fans😊) The roof was spilling rainwater straight on to the pavement and I thought hey guys how about making some rainwater harvesting tanks so you can keep your grass football pitch watered in the dryer months, saving your use of community water and hard earned cash to pay for the next football star? We do it at Helios Eco Lab and it works, in fact it rains more than you think in Greece and fills our underground and above tanks nicely. Great for irrigation, you could drink it too.
Here’s our latest portable ”Petrol Generator Killer” containing a 3 kWh battery, 2 kW continuous and 4 kW max inverter sufficient to power our electric chain saw, no smoke, no noise, no maintenance apart from charging the battery with solar panels via the on board Victron smart Bluetooth MPPT charge controller. AC charger also provided in the 2999 euros price, hundreds under imported brand leader Bluetti. ( Special 10% discount for tomorrow’s event). The brand new battery cells and other main internal components are imported Chinese but assembled and connecred to a smart Battery Management System here at Helios Eco Lab. The new rugged exo skeleton frame designed and built at Helios Eco Lab houses the main computer box which we source from computer shops that would otherwise just throw these perfectly good boxes away and rest in landfill for a thousand years. Come and see this and other PGKs at our battery clinic tomorrow at 15.00 at Helios Eco Lab and learn from the experts about battery chemistries, voltages and sizes sufficient to provide back up in the event of power cuts. Lots of other activities too starting at 11.00 am with a forest hike, tour of house and lots more. See Facebook Helios Eco Lab events.
VERTICAL AXIS WIND TURBINE PROTOTYPE
First day of the second lockdown here in Greece and its windy! so what better than to test our new own design and constructed Vertical Axis Wind Turbine VAWT in a more sheltered location just to check it spins well. Not bad. Will relocate to a more exposed location next and connect the 2kW generator. I've been a wind turbine fan since building my first age 15 but this is our first VAWT, previous was the more tradional Horizontal Axis machines we are beginning to see on exposed hill tops globally and off shore where they are really delivering where there is strong smooth wind. On shore locations are less ideal because the wind is more turbulent and generally less. VAWTs are interesting architecturally but aerodynamically more complicated than traditional horizonta axis. Power output of wind turbines is proportional to the wind speed to the power of 3 which means its super important to locate in a windy location so we will struggle to get a decent output down in the valley here. The cliff top 500m behind us is perfect but just too far to econmically run a cable. Design challenge we will solve somehow. Watch this space.
sheep grazing olive grove
If there can be an upside to this COVID 19 global shock, then it’s surely the recognition and appreciation of those unsung heroes and heroines in the medical profession who have risked their own wellbeing to protect the greater community. In addition, there are those who are even less visible who keep the basic infrastructure of society moving. To that list I would like to add farmers without whom we would all starve, so when I drove past one of my neighbour's olive groves, I took this video image of sheep grazing overseen by the ever watchful shepherd. A quintessentially Greek scene that has always fascinated me and could have been seen since biblical times and beyond. Without fences around olive groves, sheep slowly move across whilst eating the tops of wildflowers and grasses that can ultimately if not overgrazed, help to maintain the biodiversity and fertility of the soil which in turn retains moisture and avoids the potential desertification during drought. I also like the beautifully simple holistic and symbiotic integrated land use strategy. Why is it then that so many orchards and olive groves are ploughed? Something I could never understand since it promotes erosion and releases carbon into the atmosphere. The latest soil science reveals that so called 'Competing' ground plants actually feed the soil through their roots as much as take away nutrient. The modern global food system, from fertilizer manufacture to food storage and packaging, is responsible for between a quarter and one-third of all human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions, as big as the energy generating industry and far bigger than transport for example that we all tend to focus on. The irony is that sustainable and regenerative agriculture should be sequestering carbon into the soil rather than be responsible for emitting carbon. For the energy and mobility sector, solar / electric sustainable solutions are well developed and the forward path more clear. For agriculture, the solution is more
3 weeks old chick
No chance of the lockdown blues if you connect with nature, although its not always quite so idylic. The night after posting the last video of 'Chickie' in the plant pot by the kitchen, a fox came along to ruin the domestic bliss and killed the other roosting hen. I'm not suggesting foxes follow our page but I shall not reveal the new location:).... Blackie the recent abandoned dog recruit is now trained to respect the chickens and will fullfill his job of warding of another other fox attack. Keep well.
