Anton Janovsky
Monday, October 16, 2017
How to create and configure Chatterbot on linux
install Python3
Download chatterbot from github
sudo pip3 install git+git://github.com/gunthercox/ChatterBot.git@master
install
How to create and configure chatterbot on linux
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Alternative power for average household.
Alternative power options for an average household. (2010)
are considering alternative energy solutions to reduce power consumption on to city power or Eskom.
Why should I look at alternative power?
ESKOM
The woes at Eskom are well known and are having a profound impact on both the national psyche and the national economy. The mood in the country will not get better, and the growth rates will not improve much, before power supply improves.
It seems as if that improvement will not occur before the middle of 2016 – about 18 months’ time. It is all about capacity and the dates that capacity will become available.
The numbers tell the story: the current short fall of power is about 2 000 MW. To manage that deficit the entire system must be run flat out leaving little room for maintenance and forcing the use of expensive diesel-run generators. It also means that if the slightest thing goes wrong (which it of course always does) power supply is interrupted. That is what the 2000 MW shortfall means. The only way to cope with that is to install new capacity.
When will the new capacity be available?
The first new unit (794 MW at Medupi) is scheduled to start producing by middle 2015, followed by two more units a year of about 800 MW each. Eliminating the current 2000 MW short fall will require 3 x 800 MW units. That can be installed by the middle of 2016, if all goes according to schedule.
But it is not enough to cover the 2 000 MW short fall. One also needs more capacity to be able to shut down parts of the system to do maintenance. The decision since the 2010 World Cup to “keep the lights on at all costs” has extracted a price in poor maintenance. At the weekend of writing this, for example, Eskom reduced output by 4 000 MW thus causing power interruptions across the country. So we will need another 2 x 800 MW units to help cover maintenance interruptions. Those two units can be commissioned by 2017.
Eskom is also desperate to stop using the open-cycle gas turbines during peak periods. They are REALLY expensive to run (last financial year R10.5 billion). In addition there is old equipment that has to be replaced. Both these require further new capacity, taking us to 2018 before we are out of the woods.
This schedule, which Eskom again confirmed at the Investment Analysts Society last week, suggest that the tipping point for the better will only be reached by 2016; by 2018 it is only possible to be out of the woods; and by 2020, when all 12 units from Medupi and Kusile are up and running, there can be decisive improvement. All of this is on the assumption that 2 x 800MW units come into production every year from 2016 onwards.
Private sector
In the meantime a lot of private sector investment in capacity is also taking place. 1 000 MW of renewable energy has already been connected to the grid. In total 4 280 MW (that is 89% of the size of a Medupi or a Kusile) have been contracted between Eskom and various private sector players. Currently Eskom is spending about R1.6 billion a month buying power from these various private producers. A multi-billion rand industry has developed and it is set to get much bigger.
A further round of bids by private producers will be released soon, including for a 2 500 MW coal-fired power station. If these investments indeed take place, it could take private sector MW capacity close to the combined capacity of both Medupi and Kusile. The private sector is entering electricity generation in a substantial way. This will help to improve power delivery by 2018.
Very much as an aside, a long term goal of the Mbeki government back in the 2000s was that 30% of SA’s power must eventually be generated by private players. By estimation indicate that by 2018 12% to 15% could achieve.
1.1 Light
1.2 Stove
1.3 Fridge / Freezer and ice Makers
1.4 Swimming pool pump.
2. Energy Alternative's
2.1.2 Methane gas
2.2 Wind
2.2.3 Inverters
Stand Alone / Off -Grid (High maintenance cost due to the battery live time replacement cost)
Most stand alone / Off Grid inverters will produce the 220V AC power from battery that was charged by Solar, wind or Generator.
Power inverters selection is very important as there are a lot of inferior inverters around.
Pure Sine wave inverter with automatic standby mode (no fan) as well as an over and under voltage protection. The Standby systems are very important and make sure your inverters
have this functionality. The cheaper inverters don't shut down their cooling fans and normally don't have low power standby modes when no power is consumed from the inverter.
Mostly popular in Europe. This system does not have a battery or related battery equipment.
It has one function only. It feeds all electric power generated by the solar panels or wind turbine through a mains synchronized high quality inverter and offsets the power you would normally consume from the City Power. It slows, stops or reverses your electricity meter depending on the time of day, the loads present and the size of the solar or wind system system installed. This is an extremely popular system because there are no batteries to replace. For areas where there are few electricity power failures this is an ideal system. These systems are expandable. They are simple in nature, comprised primarily of the solar panels or wind turbine and mains synchronized high quality inverters.
At the moment,
Don't let your electricity bill go negative it seems that most of the municipality account system cant mange negative numbers yet. The Grid-Tai inverters is alo very expensive as they need special monitoring capabilities to disable the inverter when your city power is shut down. (This means if you have load shedding you will not have power from Grid-Tai inverters). This shutdown feature is very important as it will protect the workers from being electrocuted while working on the /City Power grid to resolve the technical problem.
2.2.5. Hydro power generation.
3.1 Water turbine
4.1 Petrol Generator
(Low energy efficiency 18-20% but low set-up cost)
6. Solar Geysers
The things you should consider is not so much the direct / indirect witch mostley influence only the water pressure and efishinsy. (If you have pitched roof a direct system will give you anove water pressure. If you have a flat roof and you don't have the height for your solar geysers you mite have to consider the high pressure / indirect system.
If yo have a family of fore (4) I would recommend two 200L geysers or at minimum of one of 250L. The reason is that if you bath or shower at night and in the morning the water will not be that worm in the morning as there is no sun during the night to warm the water, Why? well you have mixed the could water that refilled the geyser at night with some of the warm water that was left in the geyser and there for you water would not be that hot in the morning.
If you have two geysers you could change your usage pattern by bath or showering at night use the one bathroom with the one geysers and then use the other bathroom with the other geysers still have all its warm water for the morning. (or you could get a bigger geysers (bigger storage tank) to compensate for the could water that is added at night)
Where is my external DB board the one with the Electricity meater? (This is where you will install your generator input and generator isolation switch.
Where in your house is your DB board with all the lights,plugs and geyser trip switches. (switch them off, (Then identify the different applyens that use that specific trip switch one by one and add labels on the DB board so that you can disable some of them when running from generator.) you might also load shed certain things in your house)(Geasers and swiming pool pups would be the first thing to disable)
(E.g. Don't run washing machine and fridge at the same time)
This is where you only run the critical systems in your house from your own alternative power source but still use City power for the rest. (lites and fridge freezers)
This in normally only in rural arias where there is now alternative power source and you generate all your own power.
Look at your utility bill and look at kw usage per moth.Then try to calulate your usage on the spread sheet above so you can get to about the same usage. ( not a perfect signs but will give you some indication.)
Reduce your electricity consumption.
Look at alternative energy sources. (Gas Solar,Water ...)
Solar geyser is possibly your first action. (could save from 5 -20%)
Convert your stove and fireplace to gas this will also give you cooking capabilities during load shedding..
Lower power consumption Swimming pool pump.
10 Identifying electrical appliance that you can easily put on a solar or wind power system.
This is properly the most economical way to get you over the (Escom load shed periote)
Here is link to a power monitoring products available local http://www.giga.co.za/ocart/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=262&search=pow
There is a couple of opensource projects that allows you to control and monitor your energy system.
http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/
Here is a diagram of a typical configuration for your house. (Please note I would use string inverters for a new design. 150 to 400V solar panel voltage)
I hope it helps ;-)
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Hydrogen as a alternative energy source.
Hydrogen as a alternative energy source
The equipment is very expensive and need to calculate the efficiency and return on investment and will publish my results.
- Selecting your hydrogen electrolyzer.
- Selecting your hydrogen storage Cartridges.
Liquid hydrogen has less energy density by volume than hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline by approximately a factor of four. This highlights the density problem for pure hydrogen: there is actually about 64% more hydrogen in a liter of gasoline (116 grams hydrogen) than there is in a liter of pure liquid hydrogen (71 grams hydrogen). This means you need big tanks but it is not very heavy.
3. Selecting your hydrogen fuel cell.
- Clean energy storing not battery (battery acid, Lead)
- Energy can be stored for as long as the container can retain the Hydrogen gas.
- Battries cant store the energy for ever (Batteries do loose there charge over time so you can’t store the battery charge for a long time)
- Batteries has a limited amount of charge and discharge cycle and therefore needs to be replaced after reaching cycle limit.
- Hydrogen gas is very explosive and should be handled with care.
- The conversion from electricity to Hydrogen and back to Electricity is not very efficient yet.
- The Hydrogen electrolyzers and fuel cells is very expensive.
Disadvantages of fuel cells
- High cost of ownership (~R150,000,00 for 5kW)
- High running cost (~R21 per kWh)
- Monthly rental of H2 Cylinders (~R77 per cylinder x 6)
- Not maintenance free, requires yearly maintenance
- Low energy density of Hydrogen (~10kWh per cylinder)
- Refueling of Hydrogen remains a challenge, have to
- swap/replace heavy cylinders. (~70kg each)
Metal hydride tanks are perhaps the future for hydrogen storage for H2 cars. Metal hydrides are specific metallic compounds and alloys that act like a sponge to both absorb and release hydrogen at consistent pressures. The life of a metal hydride storage tank is directly related to the purity of the hydrogen that is absorbed. As the metallic alloys sponge up hydrogen they also sponge up impurities as well, that will eventually clog up the tank.
- Compressed gases: These are stored in a gaseous form at high pressures of up to 20 400 kPa in strong cylinders that contain no liquid phase.
- Liquefied gases: These have properties enabling them to be relatively easily liquefied and stored under not excessively high pressures at ambient temperatures in cylinders containing both liquid and gas in equilibrium.
The greatest danger presented by bottled gases, which may become exposed to fire or be subjected to radiated heat, is that of explosion and possible fragmentation.
Cost of Hydrogen Cylanders from Afrox (2008)
Hydrogen PricingCylinder rental / month R66.50 (6 cylinders = R399.00)
Refueling cost / cylinder R106.70 (3 cylinders = R320.10 per refueling)
Delivery charge R 3.50 / km (from closest Depot)
@ 5kw – 1 cylinder will provide ~2 hours of back-up power
or @1kw for 10 hours back-up power from one cylinder.
Thursday, September 01, 2011
Controlling the Cotek inverter in my power management system.
I am building Power management system with a GSMCommander controller for my house.
1) I need to Control my Cotek SK1500 inverter remotely so that I could disable the unit when the batteries go below a 11V level.
Although the internal configuration of the inverter will disable the the output of the Inverter it is at a to low level plus minus 10V.
If I disable it at 11V I could get about double the life cycle out of the Batteries. The remote interface on to the Cotek inverter also allow me to monitor how much power I do have left for the Day and I can then switch things off in the house as required.
2) Communication with Cotek is via RS232 interface 4800 Board.
3) Need to install Isolation relay to switch to City power automatically when Inverter is switched off with remote control.
I Will show you a picture of the Isolator rely next time I open the enclosure.
4) Cotek 6 Pin Phone Jack
4.1) Pin 1 N/C
4.2) Pin 2 GND
4.3) Pin 3 RXD
4.4) Pin 4 TXD
4.5) Pin 5 Vcc
4.6) Pin 6 N/C
5) Protocol.
5.1) 12 Bytes long
5.2) String Termination (CR )(HEX 0DH) and (LF) (HEX 0AH)
5.3.1) Respons String =>CRLF (OK)
5.3.2) Respons String ?>CRLF (Error)
5.3.3) Respons String !>CRLF (Comand OK Value out of Range)
6) Commands.
6.1) Power saving Commands.
6.1.1) PWRS[]<0,1,2>CRLF <> = value of 0 ,1 or 2
[] = space (HEX 20h) <"0" or "1" or "2"> 0=Disable 1=Enable 2=Inquire
6.2) Power ON / OFF Commands.
6.2.1) POWER[]<0,1,2 or 3>CRLF
[] = space (HEX 20h) <"0" or "1" or "2"> 0=OFF 1=ON no wake up 2=ON 3= Inquire
6.3) Status Commands.
6.3.1)STUS? ?= ASCII code between 00 to FF
"B0" UVP
"B1" OVP
"B2" OLP > 110%
"B3" FLP > 100%
"B4" OTP
"B5" Batt Low
"B6" Batt High
"B7" Load High
6.4) Battery Voltage Commands
6.4.1)BATT?CRLF
Read Battery Voltage
Hex DEC 12V 24V 48V
"00" 0 <10.6 V <21.2V <42.4 V
"01" 1 >10.6 V >21.2V >42.4 V
"02" 2 >11.0 V >22.0 V > 44.0 V
"03" 3 >11.4 V >22.8 V > 45.6 V
"04" 4 >12.0 V >24.0 V > 48.0 V
"05" 5 >12.4 V >24.8 V > 49.6 V
"06" 6 >12.8 V >25.6 V > 51.2 V
"07" 7 >13.2 V >26.4 V > 52.8 V
"08" 8 >13.9 V >27.8 V > 55.6 V
"09" 9 >14.3 V >28.6 V > 57.2 V
"0A" 10 >14.6 V >29.2 V > 58.4 V
"0B" 11 >14.9 V >29.8 V > 59.6 V
6.5) Power Load Commands.
6.5.1) LOADCRLF
Read Load Level
HEX DEC Load status
"00" 0 < 5%
"01" 1 < 15%
"02" 2 < 25%
"03" 3 < 35%
"04" 4 < 45%
"05" 5 < 55%
"06" 6 < 65%
"07" 7 < 75%
"08" 8 < 85%
"09" 9 < 95%
"0A" 10 < 105%
"0B" 11 > 105%
I planning to use the GsmCommander to control the Cotek inverter.
Here is my details and will list program when complete.
Note: I found it difficult to get Communication details for the Cotek on the web but eventually got the details from Cotek support.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
While I am trying to reduce my power consumption it is a good time to look at the criteria that make up a power economical fridge.
Here is the details I found
Buying Smart
Refrigerators
Refrigerators come with an EnergyGuide label that tells you in kilowatt-hours (kWh) how much electricity a particular model uses in a year. The smaller the number, the less energy the refrigerator uses and the less it will cost you to operate.
Before you go shopping, explore the Energy Star� product database. It lists high efficiency refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers, and freezers that exceed appliance efficiency standards - making it easier for you to decide which models to look for when you go shopping.
Also check with your local utility company to see if they are offering rebates on energy efficient models.
Refrigerators with the freezer on either the bottom or top are the most efficient. Bottom freezer models use approximately 16 percent less energy than side-by-side models and top freezer models use about 13 percent less than side-by-side.
Through-the-door icemakers and water dispensers are convenient and reduce the need to open the door, which helps maintain a more constant temperature; however, these convenient items will increase your refrigerator's energy use by 14 to 20 percent.
Mini-doors give you easy access to items most often used. The main door is opened less often, which saves energy.
Too large a refrigerator may waste space and energy. One that's too small can mean extra trips to the grocery store. Your best bet is to decide which size fits your needs, then compare the EnergyGuide label on each so you can purchase the most energy efficient make and model.
A manual defrost refrigerator uses half the energy of an automatic defrost model but must be defrosted regularly to stay energy efficient.
Refrigerators with anti-sweat heaters consume five percent to 10 percent more energy. Look for models with an "energy saver" switch that lets you turn down - or off - the heating coils (which prevent condensation).
Freezers
Chest freezers are usually more efficient than upright freezers. Chest freezers are better insulated and cold air doesn't spill out when the door is opened.
Automatic defrost freezers can consume 40 percent more electricity than similar manual defrost models.
Monday, May 03, 2010
Installing my first solar power system.
1) I installed 4 x 70Watt 12V pannels in series to giving me 48V charging.
2) 4 x 100Amp deep cycle battery's with a MPPT charging regulator.
3) In the beginning I did not have MPPT regulator but only normal PWM regulator.
4) I had problems on cloudy daye's and therefore changed my charger regulator to the Morningstar MPPT regulator.
5) I don't have any charging infromation yet, busy with soon be able extract the charging details from the morningstart regulator / charger system controller.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
1KW Wind turbine in Bassonia Johannesburg
1KW Wind turbine in Bassonia Johannesburg
My 1KW 2.7m blade diameter Wind turbine is installed and my lights is now running of 4 Batteries with inverter 1.5kW inverter.I had to change all my globes to 11 watt tubes and 3w led's.
It seem to be working OK keeping my batteries almost full every day.
I had to split my DB board into two sections to allow the inverter to drive the lights separately with a manual switch over switch.
I have increased the high of the tower to 9 Meters and it has made mayor improvement.
Manual switch over of power
Here is wire diagram for the configuration.
Wind turbine regulator and dump heater.