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Forums > Living in Kunming > Solar/Windmill/Deep Cycle Batteries/Building Supplies in Jinghon/Menla

OK I was taking the piss out of this post but now serious.

The question started with how to source cheap solar power systems in China.
I think you have to do a step back because the idea of powering a washing machine with solar power indicates that there is not a good understanding of what solar power is all about. Mind you one can power a washing machine with solar power but that will not be cheap.
This means that one of the requirements of the system is not met because washing and cheap don't go together.

Solar power is used at places were other sources of power are not available. This mainly because other alternatives like generators will be too intrusive with their noise and require an operator.

There is a wide misunderstanding that solar systems are good for the environment. They are not. At least not when you require batteries to store power in the system. All batteries are bad for the environment. I will come back to batteries later.

The other misunderstanding is that solar systems don't need maintenance. They do and maintenance ranges from sometimes daily cleaning of the panels to expert periodic maintenance of the whole system. I will come back to solar panels later.

Than part of the question was "cheap".
Solar systems are not cheap. To have a better chance of having a properly performing system one will have to invest quite some money in both the components and the installation. Further more one needs regular specialist maintenance best done by a company who offers maintenance programs and these are not cheap.

Solar panels.
China is a major producer of solar panels. Most solar power systems in Europe are executed with Chinese solar panels. That does not mean that in China procured panels are good. There is quite a difference between export quality panels and locally used panels. One way to keep production cost low is to do not a quality control with two options: good and no good, but a three option quality control: good, not optimal, no good. This results in the production of "B" brand panels with an unknown quality. The problem with a solar panel is that it is made out of several cells in a chain. And the chain is as strong as the weakest link. This means that even one faulty cell can screw up the total performance of your system. The performance of the system has to be tested over time because panels can degrade over time and this is a specialist job.
I found as well that the panels available here in China are physically of a poor quality. This means that they are susceptible to water intrusion which will ruin your system and that the frames are weak as well thus easily leading to damage. Furthermore there are no indications of the quality of the glass. Thermo shock resistance is very important; the panels get very hot and cold rain can break you panels.
Solar panels need daily maintenance or at least inspection. If only a small part of the panel is obstructed this leads to a drop in performance which leads to more deep cycling of batteries and thus of a destruction of your system. Obstruction can be caused by dirt, fallen leaves, or bird shit. It is thus not a good idea to place them on the roof but they should be at a place with easy access. (In Europe the panels are placed at a bigger angel due to the position of the sun there. This leads to a better natural cleansing by the rain and fallen leaves simply fall off. Something that does not happen here).

Regulator.
One of the most important parts of a solar system is the regulator. This devise adjust the voltage coming out of the panels into the right charging voltage for the batteries. These devises are expensive and in China they are often of a low quality to safe costs. This leads to overcharging the batteries and thus to destruction of the system.

Batteries.
The original question talks about "Deep cycle batteries". Another indication that the topic is misunderstood. Deep cycle batteries don't exist. There are batteries that can handle deep cycling (discharging batteries completely) better than others. Mind you even the best batteries available will only handle something like 250 deep cycles. That means they will last less than a year if one does this on a daily base. Best is thus to avoid deep cycling. This can be achieved by simply placing more batteries. This is still cheaper because one can use cheaper batteries. The other way to prevent deep cycling is to have an electronic control unit that does not allow deep cycling.
On the other hand batteries are multi cell devises and one broken cell will again screw up your system. (A 12V battery already require 6 cells) so quality batteries are still needed. Again a chain of which strength is determent by the weakest link.
Batteries need maintenance if they are not handled properly. This is often the case in cheap solar systems because the regulator is not advanced enough. This leads to overcharging which leads to boiling batteries which leads to water loss which leads to fucked up batteries. The problem is that if one does not recognise this in time this will lead to more deep cycling thus destroying your system very quickly. What the question probably implied was the use of "maintenance free" batteries. These are usually "gel" batteries. They are relatively expensive but have as a big disadvantage that they are very hard to recycle and end thus up as big lumps of chemical waste.
The main reason why solar systems are not good for the environment is the use of batteries. Batteries exist out of two nasty components being lead and sulphuric acid. The lead dissolves in the acid and often comes so in the environment. This might be remedied by proper recycling but this is hardly ever the case. I have seen that discarded batteries are simply flushed empty and then hacked to pieces to get the lead plates out for recycling. All waste including the dissolved lead is simply dumped. To make a solar system environment friendly one has thus to get rid of the batteries. In the west this done by hooking the solar system up to the power grid which is not possible here.

A proper working solar system is a chain of solar panels, a regulator, storage batteries and preferable of proper electronic control unit. As a chain is as strong as the weakest link this means that all components have to be good and thus require a certain quality that means thus spending money and having it installed by a proper solar power company with a maintenance contract or preferable a guaranteed performance contract. Well the last is impossible in China or Laos.

Don't believe what you see.
A lot of solar systems are there just to show off how environmentally good the owners are. That they don't work does not matter. If one goes around Dianshi lake one will see thousands of solar panels (And windmills). None of them work because they have never been maintained or even inspected. This because they are placed high on top of the lamppost which makes inspection and cleaning nearly impossible. They probably never worked to start with because they were "C" quality and flocked off at cheap prices to those who for political reasons want to look environmentally correct.
Often solar systems are demonstrated by having a ventilator spinning. And indeed that is what they do; they spin. Spinning is something else than actually pumping air which requires much more energy.

Do you need solar energy.
As already stated washing is out of the question.
Ventilation can be done without energy. Traditional houses in Laos are rather cool compared with the, what they there call "Thai style" houses. The use of metal roof sheets is another cause of overheating of rooms. Looking into a more proper construction can have better effect than having fans.
Leaves the fridge for the herbs. For that there might be alternatives as well but I will not go into that. There is however a solar powered solution that does not require batteries and all the problems related to those. The "cold" is stored in the form of ice. I tested the devise myself and they do work. They have a very limited capacity (Designed for vaccines) and are far from cheap. They still will require solar panels and thus have all the problems related to those.
See: www.solarchill.org/docs/SolarChill%20Technology%20Brief.pdf

Hope this will have answered your question.

PS: I don't have shares in SolarChill

PPSS: Personally I think that hand washing is a process near to meditation.

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Forums > Study > methods employed by foreign english teachers

I believe that our task here is to entertain the locals. With that principle one gets less irritated to be bothered by others.
The trick I use in situations like this is to speaking in any other language then English. See how long it takes them to figure out that you don't speak English.
If they are really bothering you just start discussing the fee they will have to pay to you if they want a conversation.

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This is the parking place of the Tiger Leaping Gorge. Looks like it happened at night because during the day this parking is full of cars and busses. The road is on the left of the picture and must be closed off as well. Clearing this will take some time because one cannot push the debris just over the edge because there is the Tiger Leaping Gorge itself. Might be nice to have a second big stone laying in the middle of the stream but that rock is bit too large to move in one piece.

As usual in reports in the local press the numbers are wrong. The big rock in the middle alone is 30 cubic meters (compared to the buildings in the back). The debris must be chopped up and even blasted to smaller pieces and then carted off. Pity that these horrible plaster murals on the hillside have not been destroyed.

I don't know when you went to Luguhu but the road between Lijiang and Lugu has improved enormously over the last few years and the new road between Lugu lake and Ninglang has been completed and is now one of the best roads in Yunnan. From there the road is the old road to Lijiang and a bit congested at certain spots. Indeed just outside Lijiang the road is a total mess because of road-works. The old road is completely destroyed by heavy trucks here going between the cement works and Lijiang (A common problem in China; modern trucks can carry more load then the road have been designed and build for and therefore destroy the roads).
I travelled this road earlier this month and it took me 5 hours to cover the Lugu Lake / Lijiang distance. Once the road works have been completed it might take 4 hours. That is half the time it took me in 2009.
Travelling from Xichang in Sichuan still takes a full day and from Chengdu I would do it in two days. (Many road improvement works here as well.).
Your statement that "the Sichuan side was much less developed than the opposite shore" I cannot agree with. On the contrary: Apart from Luoshui (The only village at the lake) the Yunnan side has hardly been touched by tourism while the Sichuan side has seen rapid touristic development.
One of the nice things of Lugu lake is/was that it is less over-run by tourists. Something that spoiled it for me in Lijiang and Shangri-La. A new airport will hasten the process of it becoming one more of the "shopping mall" tourist towns like Lijiang. Already now I noticed that more and more local business women (The local Mosuo culture is matrilineal and this mend that most shops, restaurants and hotels were owned and run by women) have been replaced by outsiders (Mostly Sichuan businessmen) and that part of the atmosphere has gone.
Note as well that the area has an access fee of 80 RMB per person.

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