Let There Be Lights… And Make Them Extremely Efficient!

This cottage is going to be used in the winter so lighting is a major electrical load to consider. The winter months have the worst insolation (amount of solar energy) which means that your lighting must be very well designed. Having highly efficient lighting operating directly off the batteries (bypassing the inverter) is a very good start, because when you’re sitting around with just a half a dozen energy efficient lights on, the inverter efficiency would likely be around 50% if the power had gone through it. Most people do not realize the advertised efficiency of their inverter is usually only when it is producing around 2/3 to 3/4 full power. The low power efficiency of almost all inverters is poor. I was extremely happy yesterday with how the communication and the timing of the electrical / lighting considerations worked out. This project has gone well but this timing was unbelievable, the best yet, and it’s encouraging when events like yesterday work out.

My electrician was supposed to start work on this coming Monday. Saturday he phoned at 9:30 AM to ask a couple of questions and make a few suggestions which let me know he was on the job site a day sooner than expected. That prompted me to go to Alex Nichol’s website (led-cfl-lighthouse.com) to explore lighting solutions. His website store was helpful, but since it raised some new questions for me. I phoned him at 10 AM. Based on his help, I phoned my electrician (Mark Rempel) back around 11 AM and found out that he was just about to start pulling wire. Together we made the decision to install the lighting wiring directly to the batteries in 24 Volt.

Then at 11:30 AM my neighbour at Lillooet Lake, Ralph Steinhauser, who is supplying my solar PV, inverter equipment etc., happened to go up there early for the weekend and came by the site and luckily met with my electrician. They were able to go over the mechanical room layout for the inverter and the batteries. Ralph was happy with the decisions we made, and my electrician was even more pleased to be involved in this project and thrilled that we were making some great decisions.

I am confident that I have made a good choice that will result in significant efficiency gains and even though I will spend considerably more on light bulbs I will spend appreciably less for PV solar panels.

In the same vein, I am planning to use the Eneready 24 volt Heat Recovery Ventilation unit that Dave Hill is currently building for me. We have been using an Eneready HRV unit from Dave in our current house for the past 27 years and so I approached him regarding constructing possibly the first HRV to incorporate 24 volt current. Also on Alex’s advice I am ordering a Sun Frost 24 volt DC fridge. They are the most efficient fridges because they use 24 VDC brushless motors so there is no inverter, no brushes or commutator to wear out. My cousins (The Bradley Brothers) are a dealer for Sun Frost. I am planning to order (from them) the R 10 model for the basement suite, which is our priority to finish this year. My electrician has already run the dedicated circuit / wire for both the HRV and the fridge to the 24 Volt panel. Since these are the only electrical loads that will run off and on, but continuously when we are there or not and because both these loads are so small (HRV 25 watts and will only operate when the humidity is above 40 percent and the R 10 Sun Frost fridge only consumes .17 KW hrs per 24 hours) it was equally important to take the electrical power directly off the batteries.

When we are further down the road (probably in about 1 – 2 months), I will have a chance to explore lighting fixtures and then I will discuss the specific light bulb needs and the choices we make. I am going to try to incorporate the bulbs that Alex already sells, however he informs me that he has access to others and there are more coming available all the time. I know a very knowledgeable lighting person (Allison at Norburn Lighting in Burnaby) that I have worked with, in the past couple of years as we renovated some sites including our 27 year old R2000 home in Burnaby. She is skilled at providing lighting and fixtures that are both aesthetically appealing as well as highly efficient at delivering the light required for the space or task. We are very pleased with the results to date.

Another important issue I will briefly mention here are phantom loads. Phantom electrical loads are in many / most TV’s, computers, printers, monitors, microwaves, cook stove clocks, instantaneous DHW heaters, infrared for security systems, etc. Some of them are on a standby mode so they will start up quickly. Always ON WARM cycle coffee pots are another always ON LOAD too. When you are on PV solar it is very significant how much power these phantom loads are draining power 24/7, and these very small loads means that the inverter will never go to the power saving sleep mode. We are going to try to avoid phantom loads. In future notes I will let you know how we make out. This is enough for now….