Your Questions About Wind Generators Alaska
Chris asks…
If it is dark in Alaska half the year, what about solar items?
Do items such as solar calculators and such still work? Yes I know you can just go inside and turn on the lights.
admin answers:
Little solar items like watches and calculators work like anywhere else – fine indoors and fine outdoors dawn to dusk. And they don’t work outdoors at night (the northern lights can get bright enough to cast a shadow but never bright enough to power a solar cell.) Just the nights are longer in Alaska.
Note that where most all Alaskans live (Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, etc), there is always daytime and nighttime throughout the year. Very short days in winter and very long in summer (5.5 hours in Dec, 19.5 hours in June where i live in Kenai), but you have to be north of the Arctic Circle (like Prudhoe Bay or the town of Barrow) to have weeks or months without any sun.
In those locations, various solar installations wouldn’t work – power for remote highway phones, radio repeater sites, weather stations, railroad switching gates, etc (not that the Alaskan Railroad goes north of Fairbanks). Such off-the-grid uses would require wind power or a fuel-powered, auto-start generator.
Both solar-generated electricity and solar heating are tough up here. When you need it (winter), we’ve got only a few hours of low-angle sun. When you’ve got it (summer), you don’t use much electricity nor need much heat. Since you need to be on-the-grid or have a generator anyway, the advantages of solar rarely emerge.
I have seen an Aaskan Railroad switching gate just south of Denali National Park with a huge array of PV solar panels for power. At 11 pm, the sun was shining almost directly at the BACK of the panels. Looked all wrong, but they were installed correctly. And sized large for winter use.
Linda asks…
How to people have electricity in remote places? ?
I was reading someone’s web page who had built a cabin in a remote part of Alaska. They had to have an outhouse, no running water, etc. But then they showed pictures of the inside when it was finished and it looked like there were lights lighting up the place….so how could that be possible in this situation? A generator? or what? Thanks for any ideas!
admin answers:
We lived ‘off the grid’ for years before power was brought out to our more remote area in Alaska. You can run a generator (gas or diesel) for basic power needs. Generators come in all sizes depending on your power needs. Or have inverter that allows you to use the power stores of batteries, which will need to be recharged with a generator, wind, or alternative means.
If it is just lights you can easily install propane lights in a cabin that work quite nicely. A a propane stove and propane refrigerator, and you are all set.
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