Temperature in the verandah, 36°C – temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load for the excess solar energy – 43°C. This can only mean one thing – a nice shower in the corner of the verandah specially set aside for the purpose.
The shower might only be a bucket and a jug to pour the water over me, but it’s a shower all the same and with the rainwater that I use (remember that there is no running water here) and the electricity that the sun generates for me, it’s all my own work.
There is as you know, a shower cubicle outside but it’ll be a couple of weeks before the water in the black plastic container on its roof has water hot enough to shower properly in that.
I knew that it would be like that today though. Last night it was cold, but one of these “warm colds”, with a steady breeze and totally clear sky. Not a cloud in the sky, millions of stars and a huge moon. And today, not a cloud in the sky either. I certainly made up today for the 9 consecutive days of miserable weather that we have just had.
As for the wind, we’ve had a steady wind all day. And to prove a point that I make regularly and which no-one else believes, this is another day in which the small 90-watt wind turbine outperformed the 400-watt wind turbine. In fact, the small wind turbine today produced more that twice as much energy as the larger one has produced since I reset the counter back in December last year – 4 months ago.
The reason for this is simple. They both have electrical generators in them, as you might expect. And in common with all electrical generators, they have magnets in them. And the bigger the generator, the bigger the magnet, so a more powerful wind speed is needed to overcome the resistance and start up the machine. That’s why the smaller wind turbine will start up and generate electricity in a much lower wind speed.
Apart from that, I’ve done nothing else except enjoy the last day of my Easter break. I’m back at work tomorrow.
