France in Focus

niemeyjt wrote: ↑Sat Nov 27, 2021 4:50 pm So that hot plastic box in the hallway looks bad?

We're trying not to use too much leccie so it's not hat at the moment.
It started snowing yesterday, so I was sorting out the candles to make sure we had enough and knew where they were, can never find them once the power has gone out which it tend to do here when we get a lot of snow.
Whilst doing so we were talking about what a pain it is trying to do anything by candle light and about the chap who ran all his lights off of car batteries and car lights. I thought that sounds simple and too good to be true I'll ask on the forum to see if it's possible or not.
I was going to buy a solar pump for the polytunnel to set up a sprinkler system, and noticed that the solar part can also be used to charge batteries with, so it would also make buying the pump and solar panel more cost effective.

Many thanks everyone, I've got lots of links to look at on this thread now, no doubt I'll be back with more questions in due course.
I hope you're all warm and toasty where you are, have a lovely Sunday.

Not warm and toasty here, freezing our butts off but had to say, the idea of a little solar powered pump to run a watering system in a polytunnel is superbly brilliant. And the secondary function of topping up a battery makes it what they call a "no brainer".

Finding something to do with the extra power in summer when you need less heating and lighting is great - so watering polytunnel is good idea.

Very windy, cold & wet here but on another note cos you mentioned a solar powered pump for a watering system I thought I'd just mention that although we have one of those massive metal caged water butts by the garage and a couple of normal butts in the garden that collect the rain water it's not enough in the hot weather. So a couple of years ago we bought six black dustbins from the supermarket for around 9 euros each attached a tap so that they became water butts and placed them around the garden siting them under shrubs - cheaper than buying water butts and not so cumbersome and easier to clean out (plus you can hang a bottle of wine in there to cool ). Reason being that although we have a well in spring/summer quite frequently we can't get to draw any water when the level is towards the bottom (37ft deep) so when the level has risen OH uses his electric pump with hose attached to fill all of the butts so that we have plenty for watering the garden during the hot weather but of course this means going back & forth filling watering cans from the butts so last year he bought a Bosch cordless submersible water pump (inc. 1 battery) which he puts in said butts and waters the garden and also washes the cars - he's over the moon bless him and cos he has a lot of Bosch cordless tools another battery is very handy

I've got a polytunnel watering system with no leccy pumps needed.
I've fitted two linked 300l barrels on a stand collecting rainwater from a stable roof. These feed down a slight slope into a smaller ground level barrel next to the tunnel via a floatvalve giving a constant head (pressure) to the small bore tubing & drip feed watering system tapped into the barrel.
The barrels can be topped up from the well in drought conditions but this is rarely needed.

You will probably need your lighting more in winter than in summer! That is also the time when the days are shorter, the amount of electricity generated by solar panels is low and can vary a lot more from day to day. So you need a battery store with a good capacity to cover the variations. I have LED lighting with dimmers. So it is hard to estimate, but possibly 25W of lighting 8 hours a day per month during the winter, so a maximum of 6kWh per month?

There is a good database of solar panel power generation data so you can get some idea of data for your area. https://www.bdpv.fr/en/carteInstallation.php
Click on a site near you, then select Accéder à la fiche utilisateur then select Production tab. Unfortunately a lot of installations are not updated but the historical data is still helpful in giving a picture if monthly output variation.

As an example, here in NE France I have two set of panels totalling 6kW (approx 45sqm) in near ideal alignment. These are some of the recent winter monthly total outputs normalised to a 1kW panel (approx 7.5sqm). So it is possible to estimate the output for a smaller panel assuming a similar efficiency (but there would be lot of other losses to consider in the total system from solar panel to battery to lights)
2020 Jan 53.3 kWh/kWp
2020 Feb 63.8 kWh/kWp
2020 Nov 65.5 kWh/kWp
2020 Dec 22.6 kWh/kWp
2021 Jan 22.4 kWh/kWp (a lot less than Jan 2020)
2021 Feb 61.4 kWh/kWp
2021 Mar 108.0 kWh/kWp
2021 Nov 34.1 kWh/kWp (a lot less than Nov 2020)
This is the daily output for the current month, Nov 2021, showing daily variations (orange is the expected, blue the average, red the moving average) (and snow for the last four days) The total yield for my panels for the month is about 200kWh

A Tiny House solution in the USA, not a tiny price......

A friend in the UK just bought a 5m strip of these and tried it in his garage https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/324372716530 ... 3439091622
He says it gives more light than the 5 ft fluorescent tube in there.

L Austin France wrote: ↑Sun Nov 28, 2021 3:03 pm I've got a polytunnel watering system with no leccy pumps needed.
I've fitted two linked 300l barrels on a stand collecting rainwater from a stable roof. These feed down a slight slope into a smaller ground level barrel next to the tunnel via a floatvalve giving a constant head (pressure) to the small bore tubing & drip feed watering system tapped into the barrel.
The barrels can be topped up from the well in drought conditions but this is rarely needed.

That's a good idea. Our garden slopes down to where the tunnel is so I just stick a hose onto the water butt by the house and the water finds it's way there. I want sprinklers though and the water pressure isn't strong enough for that.

Nomoss wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 6:48 pm A friend in the UK just bought a 5m strip of these and tried it in his garage https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/324372716530 ... 3439091622
He says it gives more light than the 5 ft fluorescent tube in there.

They look interesting Nomoss - thank you.


Thanks to everyone for the useful info and links, lot's of thinking and planning to do now.