Introducing…

Click here to read about our most recent addition!

Powered by the Sun 5

And to finish off 2011…

And links to data from earlier in the year for each month:
August to November 2011

May to July 2011

April 2011

March 2011

Powered by the Sun 4

Data from our solar panels for the months August through to November 2011. Click on the pdf link below for graphs.

Generation_Graphs_2011

But just in case you can’t be bothered downloading the file and having a look, here’s the most interesting graph:

You can see that as we head into the summer months we get a dramatic increase in energy generated compared to the winter months.

Garden to Table

The almond is in full bloom now. It reminds me of sakura.

Broad bean flowers.

Brocolli head forming.

Even smaller cauliflower head forming.

Pumpkin cut and ready for soup.

Pumpkin growing in the garden.

Rainbow silverbeet with white, yellow and red stems.

Nothing to do with the garden, but we finally have our door knocker from Tibet on our front door. Scary!

Melbourne Eats

Korean pancake with kimchi from Yong Green.

Korean BBQ plate from Yong Green.

Vietnamese pho from Yong Green.

Green tea raw cheesecake with goji berries from Yong Green.

Lord of the Fries – chippies!

Burger from Lord of the Fries.

Mega sized ‘chicken

There’s not much more to do than eat vegan food in Melbourne.

We visited Lord of the Fries several times to eat fries, burgers, onion rings and check out the vegan french canadian sauce (gravy with cheese). Las Vegan bakery fed us a not at all spicy mexican spicy beans dish while Soul Food Cafe served up rather uninspired breakfast options (compared to the awesome breakfast at Monk Bodhi Dharma last time we visited Melbourne) when all I really felt like was fruit after getting off the overnight bus.

La Panella, the bakery with many vegan options, provided lots of doughnut goodness and Yong Green gave Benno the chance to eat Korean BBQ and kimchi without fish sauce. The East Brunswick Club was meant to be open but wasn’t so Vego2Go gave us some simple food and tasty vegan desserts like tiramisu and trifle.

Our hotel was near the Queen Victoria Markets so one morning we visited Invita but apart from having nice juices, their food options are really lame and the salads were not that enjoyable. However our hotel was close to the chinese restaurant White Lotus Vegetarian which was able to do all the favourites like sweet and sour v. pork and pineapple fritters. They even had a whole v fish on their menu but I have to say, VDs on Port road still does the best sweet and sour pork.

 

Powered by the Sun 3

June and July have blended into one.. but at least the days that haven’t been good for the solar power have been good for the rainwater tank. Apart from 2 weeks when we had more people living in the house and water demand increased significantly, we have have been running entirely off of rainwater this winter for all our water needs.

Solar Electricity for the months June/July 2011

Over the months of June and July we generated 547.8 kwh and exported 404.9 kwh of that.

To compare the past 5 months:

Electricity March to July

Powered by the Sun 2

Here’s the update on our panels after the month of April.

During the past month we exported about 60% of March’s export, or 380 kWh. We generated 455.6 kWh, down from the month of March due to the approaching winter months. We used 75.5kWh of what was generated – less than last month- and imported 98.6 kWh which was also slightly less that our import during March.

On average, our daily generation was 15.19 kWh, our daily export 12.67 kWh, our daily use from the panels 2.52 kWh and daily import 3.29 kWh.

You can compare these daily averages with those from March, here.

Even if we are generating less electricity now, the rains are filling our 18,500L tank and the whole house and garden is running off of rain water now. As long as we get a decent rain every week or so we can continue to exclusively use rain water for the next 8 months or so until summer hits again. Currently, we think the tank is a little over half full. It makes for much nicer drinking water in the house.

Uluru Adventures

Term 1 School holidays: Uluru/Kata Tjuta National Park, Kings Canyon, West MacDonnell ranges, Alice Springs. Almost 5000km covered in a week.

Chillin’ in the back seat

Benno and the Rock

Uluru, heading towards sunset.

The boyz and Uluru at sunset.

Cassia Walk lookout, Simpson’s Gap, West MacDonnell ranges.

Alice Springs Desert Park birds.

Ellery Creek Big Hole where we went swimming, West MacDonnell Ranges.

Red dust by Uluru.

Caterpillar- he/she couldn’t decide which toilets to go to at King’s Canyon.

Girls by Uluru at sunset.

Sunrise over Uluru at the lookout from our accommodation.

Kata Tjuta in the distance.

Gorge at Kata Tjuta Valley of the Winds.

Kata Tjuta from the lookout at the accommodation.

Walking through King’s Canyon.

Dry creek bed at King’s Canyon.

Excellent rock cleavage at King’s Canyon.

King’s Canyon.

King’s Canyon – looking up at the rim.

Lara and Uluru pre-sunset.

It’s a lizard! Base walk around Uluru.

The Moon. It looked quite big over Uluru.

Morning star. Is it Venus? From the lookout.

Fake Uluru, Mt Connor.

Ochre Pits. A 2 day walk from Uluru if you need to top up on paint colours.

Classroom Rock Paintings, pointed out by a Ranger on the free Mala walk around Uluru.

Sedimentary, Metamorphic rocks…on display at the Desert Park.

The rock and sand is red due to iron oxide (rust).

Simpson’s Gap, view from the lookout on the Cassia walk.

Simpson’s Gap was so peaceful and cool.

Simpson’s Gap.

Spinifex Pidgeon.

Uluru.

Sturt Desert Pea at Desert Park.

Sunrise sky colours from the accommodation lookout.

Thorny devils are much smaller than I thought they were. On display eating ants at the Desert Park.

Big Rock.

Driving towards Uluru.

Moon rise above Uluru.

Uluru at sunset. Magic.

Uluru at sunset.

Uluru at sunset.

Uluru at sunset.

Uluru at sunset.

Looking out across the Valley of the Winds at Kata Tjuta.

West Macdonnell ranges

Yellow.

Adelaide: Queen of Cities

What’s better to do on a cold night than drive up to Windy Point and view Adelaide, the Queen of Cities, in all its night-time glory?

And after that, there’s nothing better than hot waffles and soy icecream from Eggless, or tea in a cute sakura pot or hot apple caramel cake with soy icecream.

Adelaide, laid out on a grid.

Hot apple cake with caramel sauce from Eggless.

Eggless tea cup and pot with sakura flowers.

Eggless vegan waffle with chocolate soy icecream.

Light lines.

Light lines.

Light Squiggles

Car at night.

It was quite cold at windy point.

Yep, very cold at Windy Point.

Powered by the Sun

On the first of March we had some solar panels installed on our house.

In total, over the month they have been installed, they have generated 610.2kWh. We have exported 508.2kWh of what was generated (83%), used 120kWh of pure solar energy as it was generated during the day and bought back from the grid 113.3kWh for use overnight when the panels have no sun.

Our average daily solar power generation was 19.7kWh (with a maximum of 28.97kWh and a minimum of about 5kWh on one very wet and cloudy day). Our average daily export was 16.4kWh, we used on average 3.9kWh of solar energy during the day and 3.65kWh imported from the grid overnight (average daily use 7.55kWh). Benno should probably write on his website that Transmog is a solar-run business.