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Five Springs Farm [Click here to view full size picture]
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Alternative Energy at Five Springs Farm
Electricity from the Sun and Wind

Member Farms>Five Springs Farm Home>Electricity from the Sun and Wind

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Come to the Michigan Energy Fair, June 27-29, 2008!

 

Five Springs Farm is not hooked up to the "grid" so all of our electical needs are provided by:


Solar Panels (photovoltaics)

About 450 watts of rated solar power is produced in various panels (added as needs arose). Unisolar "amorphous" panels provide most of the power while a couple of more conventional panels provide the remainder. The panels are mounted on our shed, over the greenhouse.

A Wind Generator

The Whisper 100, a 900 watt wind generator provides loads of electricity, as steady winds from Lake Michigan are frequent (you can see the Lake from tower top). We just put it up to 95 feet (from about 45) and the increase in power is significant!
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Click here to view full size picture Click here to view full size picture 110 volt AC power

from a 'utility grade' full sine wave Prosine 2.0 inverter provides 2 kW of AC power to operate power tools, TV/DVD, washing machine, coffee grinder, greenhouse ventilation, some of the lighting in the house and other appliances. It also has a built in battery charger that kicks in automatically if the gasoline generator is fired up. (the old Trace DR 2412 inverter is pictured here until I get it updated)


Batteries
are charged by the energy system for use in the house and farm. 8 golf cart batteries, 6 volts each, are wired in series and parallel to provide a 12 volt DC system
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Water for Irrigation
is pumped by a new but old-fashioned piston pump with a 12 volt DC motor ("Solar Force" from Windy Dankoff). The water source is a spring. A point is driven about 13 feet into the ground and water is pumped up a substantial hill to pressurize our drip irrigation system. We water about 1/2 acre of raised beds, and the system proved itself in the summer of 2001 when it kept the veggies growing through 2 months of unusually dry and hot weather
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Click here to view full size picture An old generator picks up the slack, mostly in the late fall and winter. When the sun is low in the sky and the wind quiet we run the generator to prop up the batteries, and while it is going get in a load of laundry (we use a highly efficient Staber automatic washer) and a bit of vacuuming (even our little "Champ" model from Simplicity takes a boatload of power to run). The Xantrex inverter has a built in battery charger that kicks in automatically when the generator is running. We run the generator less than 10  hours in a typical year. Want to learn more? A good place to start is Home Power Magazine. Click here
This page last updated on 4/27/2008.
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