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Hmm, This has got me wondering if I could use my daily ~4kWh spare solar energy for watering my dozen chilli plants, maybe something like a dehumidifier running
by whitehexagon 2y ago
Hmm, This has got me wondering if I could use my daily ~4kWh spare solar energy for watering my dozen chilli plants, maybe something like a dehumidifier running outdoors. It is hot here, and in recent years has some higher humidity in summers. I'm guessing the extracted water is ok for plants?
- Marsymars 2y agoWell, doing some math, energy efficient dehumidifiers look to be around 2 L/kWh for midrange RH numbers. (Which is much better than the systems in the article.) So you could get maybe 8L per day. Probably doesn't compare very well to rain water storage. A standard blue barrel will store 250L, or about a month's worth of solar dehumidifier production. Can do some more math on roof surface area and rainfall to work out barrel requirements. Is also not economically great - e.g. at $0.20/kWh your electricity is worth about $1.6, but in my municipality 8L of water is worth under $0.03.
- whitehexagon 2y agoValid good points, but it doesnt rain most of the year, and it would cost me to be grid connected. Connection fee, taxes, hidden taxes, and they dont pay for excess above what you use over the year. Hence off grid with some batteries and spare capacity. I saw a unit for 149e that claims to extract 12l/day, only 210W, compressor based, but you are right of course, equivalent water is a couple cents a day! quite some time for ROI. Probably solving drinking water, which is currently a supermarket run for bottles would be a better investment.