Solar flat

Even on a windy day, we can still generate power.

It was a wild and windy night, as a cold front blew away yesterday’s warm temperatures. Our solar tracker is designed to protect itself by going flat when there are gusty or strong winds, and that’s how I found it this morning.

Solar tracker goes flat in windy conditions.

You can see the anemometer at the far-right corner, which is on a gimble so it can measure horizontal wind speed even as the tracker tilts.

That picture was taken about two hours ago. It’s now quite sunny, and still windy; the tracker is still flat (and thus not pointed at the sun), but still generating enough power to serve the house, charge the battery, and feed the grid:

Solar complete

Solar and battery and generator.

Finally, more than six months after we received the initial proposal from a local solar-power company (Solaflect), we have a complete system installed: last week, they completed the installation of a battery back-up solution from a German company called Sonnen. Our house can now be supplied by solar power, grid power, battery power, or propane-generator power, depending on the situation. Although I won’t dig into all the details, it’s pretty cool, so read on…

diagram of power flowing
A screenshot from the Sonnen battery portal showing power flowing from the solar tracker into the house (supporting its consumption) and into the battery (keeping it charged) and into the grid (selling power back to the electric company). The actual graphic is animated, showing power ‘flowing’ from the top to the other three destinations.
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Solar power

Now I can charge my car with the sun.

One of our other major summer projects was the installation of a solar-panel tracker from Solaflect Energy – a local company from Norwich, VT that designs, builds, and installs its custom solar-tracker system in households and small businesses around the Upper Valley. We’ve been interested in going solar for years, and finally decided to take the plunge. As an added bonus, it (indirectly) serves to fuel my new Tesla. Read on!

The Tesla can now be charged by Solar power.
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