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| Year Round Creeks and Meadows are one of the treasures of the Ranch Headquarters |
When the ranch was built many decades ago there were clearly two major considerations. The first was placing the ranch headquarters and buildings near water and to that end we are on a beautiful year round stream (unusual in California). The second consideration was it had to be situated to get light in the winter, but to be shaded from the intense late afternoon summer heat. The buildings themselves are cleverly built into a south facing bowl with a high ridge to the west. The buildings grab morning light and slip into shade from the ridge right as the late afternoon sun and heat are their most intense in the Summer . We fretted that while this set up is perfect for a 60 year old house without air conditioning... it might not be the best set up for solar.
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| There are many old stone buildings scattered around the ranch 'castle' headquarters |
We talked to a lot of solar 'experts' who quoted us many kinds of set ups and all said...'but that afternoon shade in this valley is a problem'. The other thing we noticed was all the experts felt we needed thousands of watts of power to 'run properly'. The highest quote we got was for a 10,000 watt system in the 4.00 a watt range.
We were more broke than skeptical and we knew that for the last three years we have been slowly changing the ranch lifestyle to be a 'low watt' life. The ranch currently runs on a 2500 watt Yamaha generator for 15 hours a day. This costs about 8 bucks/day at 2.75 gas. The generator can run the microwave, TV, dishwasher computers, dish network and air conditioner... just not all at the same time. The generator is wired into the main electrical panel. We believed the ranch base use is under 400 watts which doesn't include the microwave or air conditioner but DOES include all our lights, computers, Very large Dish TV and satellite VOIP phones and internet.
What We Did
We finally decided to just experiment. We knew we needed a controller inverter so we bought a 2500 Watt unit for about 800 that can run solar stand alone or can work integrated with our generator.
We bought (4) 100 watt panels (for 110 each) and wired them up. Guess what... the base usage, all the lights, TV, Dish, internet, phones and Computers take about 16% of our solar generated in full sun. We can even run our RV washing machine which is very low amps. That saves about 5 bucks a day and a lot of wear and tear on our generators.
When we want to vacuum, make fancy coffee or run the air conditioner we turn on the generator for now. In our case since the house stays pretty cool till about 4:00 in the afternoon it all works out.. the solar stops and the generator comes on...and we turn on the air conditioner or whole house fans.
What is up Next
We will hook up another 4 panels and see what else we can run. We are hoping to be able to run the fancy coffeemaker, vacuum, and the base use in the next house. One other thing we are doing is distributing the panels in various locations to catch the last of the late afternoon light.. Since we are a ranch we are not limited to 'just'our roof... I mean... we have castle towers... so a few panels will go up in the tops of these out of site... why not...
The Running Total
So at the end of phase 1 we are at 1200 for the system and another 100 for cables. We estimate we are saving 150 a month in fuel costs for the generator. so our payback is 10 months. We will let you know as we progress... We currently spend 340 a month in fuel (now reduced in the summer at least to 200) plus 30 for the propane for the refrigerator and water heater. We have to eventually get all the ranch headquarters structures habitable and renovated as our castle B&B ... and under solar power of course.
Read our PART TWO of solar here
Stay tuned for Part 2 where we discuss our solar well effort...
