At the end of the previous post some years ago, I indicated that the next post would be about some unfortunate things we've done to lock ourselves into high energy usage and carbon dioxide output.
I'll make good with that promise with a paragraph or so, and then move on to where I am these days with energy.
Some of the unfortunate things I'm referencing may actually not seem so unfortunate to most people. For instance, we've adopted cars as our primary means of transportation. Most people like the convenience of getting into their car, going where they want, when they want. What's not to like?
Additionally, we've followed a path of least resistance that enables us to have whatever we want whenever we want through the miracle of globalized fossil-fueled manufacturing and shipping by land, sea and air. Virtually no one I know is willing to give up these conveniences despite the harm caused to our environment.
Moreover, billions of lives now depend on this system, so it is virtually impossible to give up this system in any sort of expedient fashion. And underlying it all is money -- those who are profiting from the use of fossil fuels have enormous power to stifle any attempts to change.
Thus we are locked into high energy usage and the consequent carbon dioxide output. Perhaps I'll elaborate in more detail with actual numbers to paint a more comprehensive picture of where we are with global energy use. In any case, we continue to race headlong into unprecedented environmental trouble.
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Meanwhile, back to my little life here in Sudbury. Since the last post, we replaced the Leaf with an Hyundai Ioniq 5 (like the Leaf, an EV):
and we installed solar panels:
The system consists of 24 panels with a combined output of about 9.5kw.
Here's what our electricity usage and the solar generation should look like over the course of a year:
The solar system was recently activated, and I have begun to monitor its performance. Here's data from one day, a fully sunny day recently this August:
In short, the meter ran down from about 150kwh to about 110kwh, which means that -- between 9am and 6pm -- the solar system generated about 40kwh more than we used. This is sort of a best case, as that day was sunny from morning to evening. Of course there will be overcast days as well, so we won't get such spectacular results every day. However...
The past few days have been overcast, and yet the solar system keeps pace with our usage during the day. Each day -- despite the cloudiness -- between 9am and 6pm, our meter has run backward by about 5kwh.
At night, we use about 20kwh, so the meter advances by this amount until the sun hits the panels again. Thus on nights following a sunny day, we come out 20kwh ahead. On nights following an overcast day, we use up the 5kwh we banked, and then use an additional 15kwh. Air conditioning accounts for most of the 20kwh, so the meter will advance less at night during fall, winter and spring.
There's an app that the solar installer needs to set up for us that will give us more precise details about how much is generated, and how much we use. There will be an update once we have this data.
Do the Ioniq and solar panels help with the climate situation? In the short term, no. It will take some time for the Ioniq use and solar generation to compensate for the CO2 produced by the manufacturing and shipping of these items. But they are a small step in the right direction. A bigger step is to use far less energy by driving less and using less electricity, topics for other posts.
Questions? Comments? Feel free to post below.
