Self-Sufficiency – elkemental Force

First Year of Rooftop Solar Power and Heat Pump: Re-Visiting Economics

After I presented details for selected days, I am going to review overall performance in the first year. From June 2015 to May 2016 … … we needed 6.600 kWh of electrical energy in total. The heat pump consumed about 3.600 kWh of that … … in order to ‘pump it up to’ 16.800 kWh…

Solar Energy, Batteries, and Autonomy

This is the third post in my series on our photovoltaic generator. It had been a part of previous post with the data for the first month, but I cut and saved it as the other post was so long already. I am now also able to present data for two months of operations: Below…

A 1970s Pioneer in Self-Sufficient Living

Living in southern France, Jean Pain developed a self-sustaining ecosystem in the 1970s that supplied his home with 100% of the energy needed. He built a 50 tons compost mound from chipped wood – brushwood that had to be cleaned out to lower the risk of forest fires. Heat exchanger pipes were buried in the heap while it was built….