Joan & Ray’s “Maison de la Soleil”. Albany, Western Australia.
latitude 35 degrees S

An awesome and beautiful mansion, set in a stunning marine environment above the cliffs. However, the architects failure to address the issue of solar orientation, and his obsession with ostentatious theatrical lighting effects using myriads of halogen downlights, required vast amounts of electricity.
Having come to a realisation that the buildings energy requirements were unsustainable, and in keeping with their Buddhist philosophy of treading lightly on the earth, Ray and Joan requested that I rationalise their energy requirements, with a view towards total disconnection from the utility grid supply. No mean feat for a 2000 sq metre condominium !

Power system

• 88 x UNI-SOLAR US-64 Advanced, thin film, triple junction photo-voltaic panels. (5632 peak watts) Nett daily energy production (after system losses) is 25,000 watt-hours in Summer and 15,000 watt-hours in Winter.
  
  
• 2 x PLASMATRONIC PL-60 Regulator / controllers, with SH-300 current shunts and PLS shunt adaptors. This allows all solar energy generated and consumed to be monitored.
  
  
• 1 x WESTWIND 5 Kilowatt wind plant atop a 24 metre tower. Nett daily energy production (after system losses) @ 6.5 metres per second average wind speed is 26,000 watt-hours
  
  
• 48 x EXIDE 2 Volt 1350 amp-hour deep cycle battery cells. These are connected in series / parallel to yield 129,600 watt-hours of energy storage. Ultimately, this is enough to support the home for 3 days on a full charge, without any solar or wind input; an unlikely scenario.
  
  
• 3 x SELECTRONIC SE-42 True sine wave inverters. 10,800 watts continuous, 16,500 watts for 0.5 hours, 30,000 watts for 10 seconds. One of these units has the energy management option fitted, together with a current shunt in line with the wind generators charge input to the battery. This enables the wind plants daily energy production to be monitored and logged.
  
  
• 3 x SOLAR ENERGY AUSTRALIA SEAP-48-3K8 True sine wave inverters in a 3 phase configuration. 11,400 watts continuous, 13,200 watts for 0.5 hours, 31,500 watts for 10 seconds.
  

Notes:

Extensive modifications were required to the buildings lighting system. This involved replacing hundreds of halogen downlights with the very latest L.E.D (light emitting diode) lamps, and fluorescent PL down lights.
Refrigerators were also upgraded to the latest 6 star energy rating, high efficiency units.
This is a stand alone system. The local power utility (Western Power) having been banished to outer darkness in concordance with the book of Revelations, chapter 11, verse 18 “ I will bring to ruin those who ruin the Earth !