energy
How does the Dacha get energy?
Currently, we are off-grid, using solar and veggie power to make our electricity.
Although we hope to have more solar panels in the future, right now we have one 200 watt panel that gives us some juice. We store energy in a set of recycled Rolls batteries that we got from our neighbors. We convert the DC into AC with a pure sine wave inverter.
200 Watt Solar Panel
Since we don’t have all our solar power yet, we are mainly relying on our diesel generator. It’s a Lister engine that we converted to work on veggie oil. Running the genny for an hour or so a day charges the batteries, pumps our well water and pre-heats our domestic water.
Lister Engine
With these systems we are able to have lap top fun, charge all our various phones and cameras and doohickeys. We can cook on an induction stove top when the genny is running, we can run fans, lights, a washing machine and play electric guitar. We don’t have a refrigerator but we have a chest freezer which we turn on for a few hours to keep things fridge temperature.
Our future goals include getting a bigger solar power system and using the genny as backup. But so far so good.
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