Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Solar, "The Ultimate Fuel" for the ActiveE

I.. strike that, my wife, is loving the ActiveE.  After 36,500 sunshine miles in the Mini-E, I am going through major withdrawal pains not being able to have the ActiveE as my daily driver.  I need to buy gas now for the old dinosaur fueled engine and it really really sucks big time.

Not having the electric car after you have had one will really show you how much superior the technology is and how much you miss it.  All is not bad however because I do get to drive the ActiveE on occasion.

In many past post you have read about my experience powering the Mini-E - ActiveE with solar energy.

I believe that solar is the "ultimate fuel"

Recently I was asked to give a 5 minute talk on that experience so I summarized the whole experience in 5 easy to read slides.   The two companies most responsible for our energy independence are BMW and Stellar Solar.  A giant thank you to both of those great companies for the products they make.

Here's the presentation:  you can click on the images for a larger size.


A pic of the house, the Mini-E with solar panels and the ActiveE

This was our energy bill in 2007, the blue line is when we installed solar. January 2008 was a partial month for solar

This slide summarizes the basic math.  Around July or August of this year we will be cost neutral, from that point on all the energy is free and courtesy of Mr. Sunshine:)

This slide summarizes the sources of emissions in our city. It also shows the that the cost of a Solar PV fueling station equals three years of buying gasoline. You can imagine how healthy our air would be if we all were solar and drove electric.

This is my favorite slide.  It is our True Up bill from January 17th 2012. For the 12 months prior, we were a net energy producer. 

You can live and drive on Sunshine.

Cheers
Peder
Spouse of an Active E driver.





1 comment:

  1. I also have a 100% solar house in Dana Point and my car is a nissan Leaf. My Wife and I fight every day who gets the electric and who has to drive the old fossel fuel car.

    John R Taylor

    ReplyDelete