Intro
During summertime we face surplus solar energy as solar systems produce most of their annual production. We can often hear that it generates surplus energy in the grid which is hard to deal with based on industry experts. In this entry we would like to demonstrate how we can ‘mitigate’ this with some pre-thinking. We know that it will not change the world, but one example which can be get used to.
Investigation
With all the effort we put into our automated garden know we see the results. It will be shown in a different post but in a nutshell we have plenty of vegetables. We cannot consume all of it and we would like to preserve them in a way which does not use energy at all, or requires much less. Running a freezer all year around is an energy hungry activity if we would like to minimize out footprint. What can be done to fulfill both goals. Follow us to the solution section to see what we can up!
Solution for surplus solar energy
Most of the vegetables cannot be stored for months so we need to preserve them. One option is to store them in the freezer and the other is to create canned food from it. The issue with canning, boiling and baking that they lose lots of their ‘value – content’. Then we realized there is a third option with is drying. With that the vegetables only losses their water content but based on the books the keep their ‘real’ value. So we ordered a tray drier to preserve. Yes this is only for a few months but if you can still taste the tomatoes, cucumber etc in a middle of December that is a huge win. As you can see our drier uses 600w when the heater is on and 10W when its standby. Using the highest value 600Wx24h means we used approximately 14kwh. Is it much? We will make a few more rounds then draw the consequences!
Thank you for your attention staying with for our surplus solar energy entry!
