Bárcena de Bureba has been deserted because it wasn't connected to the power grid 100 years ago. Initially, the residents found it too scary; your hair stands on end, and you could even die Barcena it. Later, the younger generation raised funds, but someone ran off with the money. Long story short, a village without electricity, and the last resident left 40 years ago.
We want to make the village inhabitable again, but in a better way with a smaller ecological footprint. With current technology, solar panels will form the basis of our energy generation. We asked The Hague University of Applied Sciences to conduct a study to see if this is feasible. After six months of work, they delivered an initial version of the report, indicating that it's possible, but support will be needed during the winter months. This support was initially based on biofuel. Hopefully, we can avoid this; we're not looking forward to burning wood, especially if 50 houses are all doing it.
To gain experience and because we need electricity during construction, we will initially set up a system. This system should be expandable and capable of capturing and storing solar power. Additionally, it should be flexible in managing electricity. We want to establish two networks: one with high-priority power for essentials like the refrigerator that always needs to be on, and one for low-priority devices like the television that can be turned off during power shortages.
We had looked around on the internet and stumbled upon a Chinese system a few months ago. While this system may have worked well, despite being okay with doing a lot ourselves, I wanted more support with such a system.
After an internet search, I found the Offgrid Center. On their website, they specialize in tiny houses, caravans, and other offgrid systems. Additionally, I was very pleased to see that they were willing to brainstorm and collaborate. I sent them an email about our project and asked if we could talk. After an email and a phone call, they expressed great enthusiasm, and we arranged to meet in Wierden.
That's a four-hour train ride back and forth, so it took some calendar coordination, but we were able to meet quickly. We spoke with Nander for 90 minutes, who provided us with a wealth of information at lightning speed. Batteries, inverters, DC versus AC, management, water purification, and toilet options. It was very clear and looked of high quality. We agreed to collaborate and start with an initial system.
Two days later, we received the list of items. We exchanged some more questions and are now ready to order. It will be delivered as a pallet in the Netherlands, after which we will transport it to Spain with our trailer. It will be an exciting journey, and it will be even more exciting to get everything up and running there. But with the help of the Offgrid Center, it will certainly succeed!
After the transaction we had time to think about what we could do in the village, as now we are the owners. The next option for us to go to Spain was in the autumn holidays. Earlier on we tried to combine it with Spanish classes for the kids, but we couldn’t arrange extra free time from school, so we had to stick to the one week of school vacation. We thought about starting at one of the houses which is in the relative good condition, like getting a door, so we could close it and store stuff there. But we had no electricity or tools as we had no space to keep stuff safe. So we were kind of stuck in a chicken and egg problem. To get out of this we set up a plan to get a container which we could lock. But that would not be there for this vacation. Then Maaike’s parents asked: “Would it be of any use if we were there with some tools to clear away the burrs, bushes and so on?” Of course that would be great! We were happy that they were enthusiastic and by itself there was a plan to do
Went to search for Barcena de Bureba yesterday and ended up in the wrong one. Found out later where the other one is, yours.
ReplyDeleteIs this ardbol.es where we have to follow your adventure or will you (also) make a YouTube channel?
Me and some friends like to follow you!
Sadly google has an error showing our village in the wrong place, about 100 km south of where we are. There is a blog post about it some articles ago.
ReplyDeleteYes this will be the main location of our development, But we do have a youtube channel. Only I have no knowledge yet for making cool video's