Renewable Energy | Wind | Solar | Micro-Hydro Electricity has become an essential part of our lives. If you live beyond the reach of the national grid then it can be a difficult and expensive exercise to run even basic appliances. The answer to these problems is to become your own power generator. Installing a stand alone power system provides independence from power cuts and regular bills. Power systems incorporating solar photovoltaic panels, wind turbines or micro hydro turbines can provide free energy for anything from a weekender to a whole community. When properly designed, installed and maintained a stand alone power system can be more reliable than grid power, particularly in rural areas, despite the popular perception that "solar doesn't work" A Stand Alone Power System (SPS) must be sized to provide your daily electricity needs. The more electricity you use in a day, the larger your power system will need to be, so it pays to be energy efficient. Being efficient means using less energy for the same service not doing without that service at all. It is almost always cheaper to invest in a more efficient appliance or light than to pay for a larger power system to run inefficient ones. As a rule of thumb, for every dollar spent on energy efficiency, $3 to $5 is saved on the cost of the power system. In designing any kind of home power system the most important step is working out just how much electricity you will need to generate every day. Whilst not glamourous this load analysis is crucial and we would urge you to spend some time and expend some energy in thinking about it. There are some more detailed notes about this here and you can download a pdf which will help with the calculations here. A load analysis or energy audit is a vital step in the design and implemenation of a stand-alone power system. Carrying out an audit requires you to sit down with your house plans or a sketch, and to think hard about how you use the the energy in your home. It requires you to look at the placing of your lights, how long they are on for and the type of globes you use (we recommend you find the most energy efficient you can find). It also requires you to consider your use of household appliances. How many loads of washing do you do per day or week, how much TV do you really watch, how long do you spend on the computer, do you have a microwave, food processor, or Bamix in the kitchen? Is the radio on from when you wake up till when you go to bed? If all of that was not hard enough you should also think about what you might be doing in 5 or 10 years time. There is some more info and help on our downloads page. Another step that can be important is for us to do a site survey. Obviously if you live in an open paddock with no trees within 100metres then you will have no shading issues, but if that is not the case we have a simple tool that tells us the shading effects that you will suffer for all months of the year and all times of the day. Quantifying your other renewable resources is not quite so simple and may involve further work to find out the flow rate and head in your creek or how much wind you may be able to use. It's not much good having a shiny new system installed, if you don't know how to make it work or what all the bits and pieces do. Thats why we make sure that before we leave the job you are confidant to drive and maintain your equipment yourself. Whilst we are happy to draw up a maintenance agreement with you to service and maintain the system at regular intervals, we feel strongly that teaching the you, the system owner, what to do, when to do it and how, are more valuable in the long run. Many people find that the independence and reliability of a well installed and properly sized stand alone power system that they know how to look after to be tremendously empowering. Regular checks of the monitoring and control equipment and battery maintenance are not onerous tasks but contribute greatly to the understanding of the system operation. There are a range of Australian Standards for Renewable Energy systems that we have to conform to as BCSE Accredited Installers and Designers. The Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) is the peak body for the renewable energy industry, who control and maintain the standards to ensure that householders are getting high quality systems from their installers. At The Solar Workshop we use a range of up to date software for system sizing and design that uses the design principles outlined in AS4509. This ensures that, providing the load schedule you provide us is accurate, our power systems will supply the energy to meet your needs. Our installation work is also meets these high standards, meaning long life and problem free running for your system.