A New Radio Tower Near Dale

My hog trapper just reported a crane working within sight of my place.  I went over to snoop.  It is about 1/2 mile north of Dale on Dale Lane.  It seems to be less substantial than a cell tower.  A guy parked on the road reported "Practical Telecommunication".  Likely these people:

https://www.tta.org/team/practical-communications-inc/

BTW, my trapper reports a total of 29.

A dent.  But not a large dent.

A recent catch was a large boar with notched ear and was castrated.  So, either he wasn't born in the wild or the wild hogs are developing a society which includes selective breeding.

Pear Season!

I've been shredding along the edge of the pear tree rows and find them surprisingly close to being ready to pick.  The Orients have a fair crop and LeContes have a heavy set.  Since there are more Orient trees, I will have far more Orient than LeConte.  The LeConte are  naturally smaller are  made smaller this year by the heavy set.  Even with a light set, the Orients are smaller than their normal large size.

The LeContes are edible now and can be picked now for off tree ripening.  Contrary to most tree fruit, pear quality is higher if picked very firm and allowed to ripen in storage.

In the past, Orients have dried very nicely after softening in storage.

Pear pickers welcome.  Offer to give me a small fraction of your pick.

                                                     Orient

                                                        LeConte

I don't think the inline images allow zooming.  I'll post a link to an album that will allow  zooming.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/7JuDECdWmBtXZYra7

7/9/2020

For my wuse pickers (and myself), I shredded the areas adjacent to the trees.  I picked perhaps 1/2 bu.  Eating LeContes as I went.  I'll devote myself to putting away several bushels of the LeContes and then start on Orients in a week or so.

8/1/2020

I've been the only picker.  Softening LeContes snuck up on me more than a week ago and I've been devoting myself to cutting and drying.  It looks like about five gallon pickle jars of dried.  I've stopped cutting LeContes and am metering the remainder out to very happy and enthusiastic burros.

I'm getting a little head start on the Orients.  I hope to dry about 50% more Orients than LeContes.

8/15/2020

Pears are about done.  I quit picking Orients, got most of the LeContes dried and am near the end of drying the Orients.  Got the cooler working nicely.  It stays 45-48 deg.  I think I will have about 15 about 1 gallon jars of dried pears; starting from about 10 bushels of fresh pears; that was about 500 pounds.  They dry to about 1/10th of fresh weight. What will I do with them?  No idea.  Eat as many as I can tolerate.

Hog trapper continues to make good progress; about 40, now.  Still plenty more out there, though.

MORE PV scheming and planning

It seems this PV stuff has taken over my life.  An obsession.  Not all that bad since it is economically positive.

As my three meters/transformers approach capacity, I am contemplating adding a 4th.  But, I will wait for a good rate to be assured for another year.  That happens in August or September.

I will estimate how much more PV production I might be able to add to my existing three meters/transformers.

The Pool/BigBarn meter is on "net metering" meaning I can use the grid as storage for a billing period.  The downside to net metering is that I get paid only about $.03/kwh for excess production.  The other two meters are on a "buy it immediately" or "sell it immediately" rate schedule.  Buy it for $.10/kwh, sell for ~$.06/kwh.

The Pool/BigBarn has a 15kw (15kva) transformer which limits production to 15kw.  The House has a 37.5kw and AcrossTheRoad has 50kw.

The Pool/BigBarn has had recent observed excess production as high as 125kwh per day.  It is not optimized for energy production which means relatively few paired East and West facing panels.  So, I estimate that I might get ~10% more energy/day by reworking to all E/W facing panels.  I do believe I am now producing at the limit of the transformer.

AcrossTheRoad has some room for increased production.  The observed daily sales have reached 255kwh.  That transformer should have a capacity 3 times that of Pool/BigBarn.  So, total production on that meter might reach 375kwh/day.  120kwh/day more than current.

House also has some room for increased production.  Observed daily sales have reached slightly more than 200kwh.  With only a 37.5kw transformer, the head room would be only a bit more than twice that of Pool/BigBarn or 250+kwh/day.  About 50kwh/day more than current.

SO!  I should have growth capacity of 170-200 kwh/day without adding or upgrading transformers.   That would be peak days of 375+250= 625kwh on the two not net metering meters.  That's compared to 455kwh current.  I can hope to increase my monthly credits to 625/455 = 1.37.  37% more than current.  Notice the shift from peak daily sales to average over a month.   Peak monthly credit so far has been $680.  So, with current rates and with no transformer upgrades, I can look forward to monthly credits around $935 as I build out to fill current capacities.  I will not likely reach $1k/month unless I increase capacity.

Adding a 4th 50kw meter/transformer might add an additional 375kwh of peak day production or an estimated $500/month.

Feel free to critique my estimates.