My 2 Eco Cents + Your advice & ideas needed

I am so very pleased to share with you that one of my dreams came true recently.

Finally, after struggling with the bureaucracy in my country, we have installed a small photovoltaic farm on the roof of our country house!

For the moment, we use the harvested energy for self-consumption only and I am quite satisfied from what I see so far. But truth is, we are not utilizing all the energy it could produce.

So here is where I need your advice. What would be the best way to use that extra energy, without connecting to the power grid? Probably crypto-mining? But is it cost-efficient enough if such operation runs only for few hours a day? Other ideas? I'd be grateful for your input on that matter. :)

---

Let me here share with you some moments from the two days it took the company to install and set it all.

I will not burden and bother you with all the documental procedures and requirements we had to pass, that all costed as more than 6 months and a few hundred EUR.

We decided to go with about 5kW and as each of the panels is 450W, that's 11 panels with a max power of 4950 W.

First we've put some extra hydro-isolation:

Once it was dry, the actual installation took place:

The day wasn't with perfect weather, there were some rains and wind so mounting and connecting the panels, lines and insulation took the whole day.

On the next day the guys from the solar company installed the inverter and the electrical box necessary to connect to the house system and to meet the country regulations.

The small white box in the bigger box on the left-hand side you probably see here, is a "funny" requirement. This is an electric meter that registers the amount of produced energy so a revenue tax is paid to the Customs!

Currently in Bulgaria, that revenue fee is about 1 EUR for 1MWh, so with our humble 5kWh, this will be cents and the bank transfer fees to regularly pay this will be times bigger than the revenue tax. Stupid, isn't it? Or at least, very, very inefficient!!! Especially when this PV plant is licensed for self-consumption only. Welcome to Bulgaria!

Moreover, this electric meter costs 150 EUR!!!

What I hate about this situation is, that it has been going on for more than a decade already and all the politicians speaking about country energy independence and green energy is just rubbish, as English people say. Or bullshit, as Americans say! :) The deeds speak louder than the words, don't they?

Not only that the authorities don't help with a cent or logistics, they've created a ton of complicated steps and requirements. I hear the other EU countries take between 70% and 100% of the investment. Here... nil :|

So that's a huge investment for us. Home consumers in Bulgaria are still on the regulated electrical energy market but that must change this year as it is an EU requirement. So, the current price of EUR 0.11/kWh, the lowest in EU at the moment, will probably double up. Maybe it will triple up, who knows. My rough calculations tell that it's gonna take more than 5 years to pay off that investment of few thousand EUR.

So trust me when I say this, based on my experience from the last year - in the European Union, Bulgaria will be the last to turn entirely to "green", renewable energy. In case that happens at all, ever...

---

Anyway, long story short, all is set up now and running! :)

---

The invertor is connected to our WiFi network and there is a nifty and nice looking mobile app to monitor it real-time (with a refresh interval of 1 minute)

It's called "FusionSolar".

Here are few screenshots from its home page.

It has an embedded thermometer and gets weather updates from Internet.

It gives some useful stats and as we're not selling energy out, the revenue is 0.

Here is a screen from the dark part of the day. All energy coming from the grid:

I was surprised to see the consumption of the house with all the major equipment turned off. So these almost 200 W come from PC and mobile chargers, TV in "off" mode and one WiFi router.

I programmed our electric water heater to turn on at noon. So far, that's the largest consumer in the house. So on sunny days, all the energy comes from the sun but this day in particular below, wasn't fully sunny. Hey, it's still the spring :)

---

Few more screengrabs from the app.

A day with heavy rain and thick clouds:

A sunny day, almost 69% of the consumptions comes from the sun. We should probably start cooking at noon, when it's possible, because those two red spikes on the right side are from our oven:

Stats for April:

Stats for 2022 so far. Awesome to see that more than a half of it all comes from the sun. It will be better in the next months, as there are many rains and cloudy days during the spring here but it rarely rains between June and September.

---

Seeing and checking all that info on a daily basis makes us much more environmentally aware and friendly, I believe.

For instance, we already replaced our old motor mower with a new electric one. Mowing the whole yard costed about 2 litters of gasoline; now, if I do it in the sunny part of the day, it's free! Also, the electric mower is less noisy and it doesn't pollute with CO2 too!

Finally, check this out:

That feels awesome, doesn't it? :) Imagine if every home-owner does that!

Now please drop your ideas and suggestions on better utilizing that spare energy :)

I'll keep you posted on new developments :)

---

Thank you for your time and support, please check out below few other ways to encourage me in my difficult visual art endeavor and stay in touch!

---

You could get a license here for some of my visual works approved by the quality review team of Adobe, Inc.: https://stock.adobe.com/contributor/206416265/lightcaptured

---

I use and recommend those services below, following my referral links is a win-win for both you and me:

• Trade on one of the biggest exchanges: https://www.binance.com/en/register?ref=L9YP0QXH
• Great exchange with staking rewards if you are in EU: https://bitvavo.com/?a=8BD90E2321
• Probably the oldest and most fun Bitcoin faucet with extras: https://freebitco.in/?r=41678934
• Enjoy flawless trading at Bittrex: https://bittrex.com/Account/Register?referralCode=EER-S3B-0BH

---

Copyright: Light Captured
For licensing my photos, please drop me a message on Discord: lightcaptured#2698

Have a great day, stay safe, stay strong and let your muse be always on your shoulder!