Check out my fresh new manual. This has possibly never been done before this way. :)
Feel free to use it for your own house, the instructions are also suitable for retrofitting.

EN ABSTRACT (the work is written in german!)

The present work deals with the remote-monitoring and -maintenance of pumped
solar thermal systems and was created in cooperation with TiSUN GmbH. Main
motivation is the problem that a failure or shortfall of a solar system is often not
noticed by the operator. The reason for this is the existing backup heater, which
takes over the water heating mostly automatically.

To keep the effort and additional costs for remote-monitoring and maintenance within
reasonable limits, the existing measurement- and control-technology of the solar
system has to be used. Therefore the status quo of customary temperature-, flow-,
pressure- and irradiation-sensors in solar systems is described. The solar controller
is the central gateway for sensor inputs, the operating data recording and
transmission of data to an external display. For remote maintenance, access to the
settings of the solar controller is required.

As a practical reference, three on the market available solar controllers are examined
regarding their suitability for remote-monitoring and -maintenance. It turns out that
the subject can be solved very differently: from simple data acquisition and
transmission with memory cards, via additional modules with web servers and
network connectivity, up to the data transfer to external web server or digital picture
W-LAN frames.

Furthermore the data analysis of solar systems for fault detection, control and
function optimization is outlined. Not all influencing factors are recorded digitally,
however it is shown that for only a few temperature profiles are enough for a rough
functional description of a plant. Finally an outlook on future developments of the
relatively new solutions for remote-monitoring and -maintenance of solar thermal
systems is given.

Just watched "Inside Job" with Conny - what a great movie, my favorite part just in the end:

^click

" Why should a financial engineer be payed 4 to 100 times more than a real engineer? A real engineer builds bridges, a financial engineer builds dreams. And if those dreams turn out to be nightmares, other people have to pay for it. "

To hell with those damn jobs, which do nothing for society and destroy the planet.

will post my diploma thesis here soon - as free PDF for the world !

Cool, I'm so happy:




my OET semester on the FH-Wels main stairway:


... would never like to miss this time in my life!
Thanks to all people who made this possible. And one special thank to Beate, who does a really great job in the OET department!

Check out this draft render I did for my dad to motivate him for a photovoltaic system on his balcony:

Building integrated photovoltaics, beautiful!

check out the GIPV project reports here:
http://www.klimafonds.gv.at/home/studien.html


South facing: OK

(c) google...

Studying "Eco-Energy Engineering" at FH-Wels also includes a semester of full time working. I did it at TiSUN GmbH in Tirol, where I had build up a good reputation when working there in my study free time.
This guaranteed a fast start with all the collages I already knew in the company and interesting, advanced projects.

Down there you find the report I did of my working semester.

It's written in german, a google translated english version can be found here. Otherwise you might be disturbed by the heavy usage of the word "Die" - which simply means "the" in german. :-)


(click to view the pdf)


Interesting work, good money and the feeling of doing the right thing !

That's it,

It's time to understand "Peak Oil" for everybody. This video is very well done and describes the situation clearest:




The other parts:

Part 2 of 8
Part 3 of 8
Part 4 of 8
Part 5 of 8
Part 6 of 8
Part 7 of 8
Part 8 of 8

Each one it about 10 min.


Be sure not to miss this knowledge, it will influence our further decisions in a positive way and at least you won't run blind into the future.


The economic crisis maybe slowed down the oil consumption a bit, but don't under-expect the daily increase of oil demand in China and India ...

More information can be found easily here.


Act now!

This time I blog in german, but you can translate it here.

Nach sechs Semestern Ökoenergietechnik Studium an der FH-Wels habe ich mir einen guten Überblick geschaffen, wie es um unsere Energieversorgung so steht.


Meine Schlussfolgerungen erzähle ich inzwischen regelmäßig Freunden, Verwandten und Bekannten. Das Gespräch beginnt meistens mit weit verbreiteten Meinungen, die etwa so klingen:

"Das Öl reicht uns eh noch 20-30 Jahre und inzwischen kommt schon was neues, da ist ja eh der Wasserstoff und so - mit dem fahr ma halt dann weiter ... "



Ich antworte dann immer folgendes:

"Nicht das Ende des Öls ist unser Problem, sondern der Peak-Oil. Das so genannte Ölfördermaximum, welches in vielen erdölfördernden Ländern wie Alaska, Syrien oder Norwegen bereits überschritten wurde.
Zeitgleich steigt der tägliche Verbrauch an Öl, welcher sich irgendwann nicht mehr mit der täglichen Fördermenge decken lässt. Dies lässt sich zwar über Puffer und den globalen Markt hinauszögern, es wird aber definitiv zu Engpässen kommen.
Was dann folgt kann sich wohl jeder, in einer vom Öl vollkommen abhängigen Wirtschaft, leicht selbst ausmalen. Sobald über die Medien echte Versorgungsprobleme trotz Zahlungsfähigkeit des zu der Zeit aktuellen Ölpreises publik würden, wäre der Aufschrei groß. Angefangen mit Hamsterkäufen und den Reaktionen der Börsen ist bis hin zu Krieg alles möglich.
Dann ist das Drängen Richtung alternativen Energien natürlich groß! Aber ein Umstieg kann leider nicht von heute auf morgen passieren. Zurzeit decken die meisten Staaten nicht einmal den ständig weiter steigenden Energiebedarf mit regenerativen Energiequellen.
Eine Wechsel bedarf mehr als nur andere Energie-Konsumeinstellungen der Bevölkerung. Auch das Verbrauchsverhalten muss sich ändern, Energieeffizienz ist notwendig um überhaupt die Versorgung unserer Energiedienstleistungen über Windräder, PV-Module, Kollektoren, Akkus, Wasserstoff ... möglich zu machen.
Das alles muss aber auch produzieren werden. Und dies geht leider nur mehr über ein gut ölgeschmierte funktionierende Weltwirtschaft.
Darum wäre die Zeit zu handeln gerade JETZT, wenn alles noch gut läuft. Den wenn wir warten bis uns Versorgungsprobleme uns die Schlinge um den Hals zuziehen, wird unser Leben sehr viel schwieriger werden!"


Dann folgen Diskussionen über "Pfadabhängigkeit", "Verteidigung des Status quo", "Kernfusion", "staatliche Förderungen", "menschlicher Egoismus", "Politik", "was für Auswege es gibt" und so weiter - immer wieder interessant!


Ich bin froh das ich vor 4 Jahren mit einer reinen Techniker Karriere noch nicht zufrieden war und mich entschieden habe mich in eine Richtung weiter zu bilden die mir wirklich etwas bedeutet. Ökoenergietechnik Projekte motivieren mich und ich werde mein Möglichstes tun um die Zukunft freundlicher zu gestalten, als sie für mich jetzt aussieht.


Hier noch der Artikel, der mich zu diesem Blog-Eintrag motiviert hat - wenn ich ihr es nicht mir glaubt, glaubt es den Schweizern. :-)
klick: NZZ(Neue Zürcher Zeitung)

FH-Wels FUP Präsentation: Biomasse Mikronetz www.energie-zukunft.at from solarthermienator on Vimeo.

I decided to build myself some really cool green mobility mountainbike to get around at home in Tirol.

To motivate you2 act2, I set up a new website to document the whole project:

E-MTB.at


Bike the planet!

Yeah! We did the project documentation for the BMB-Project as a website and took the idea even further than we thought before:

-> Informations about the project biomass micro-net to motivate YOU for similar projects.
-> Exchange platform for the registered society "Zukunftsenergie Bärenloch" established by the project team.
-> Future plans of "Zukunftsenergie Bärenloch": PV, energy-efficiency, thermal insulation ...
-> Alternative energy and green living links.

And still developing! (in near future a own blog and forum)


Main page(click)




Biomass Micro-Net


The whole website is written in my german native language, but you can also check out the Google translated website here.


Get the KnowHow, enjoy and then ACT!

Check out the presentation slides used on thursday in Niederkappel! They supported us very well in giving all different people attending an understanding of our ideas.

It worked out perfect => on monday we start with the realization planing!

4mb pdf

080404MM-Szenario-Presentation-Niederkappel

There are also ideas now for doing the project documentation as a website. You will find the link first here.

so ... Stay tuned!

... is the interdisciplinary project I joined this semester. It runs beside the study program and is done by a group of students.

To test new ways in online project management, I've set up the project at Goplan.org. This simple online platform helps to keep all people in touch and we saved already a lot of organization time.

KISS: Improving the survivability of the region Bärenloch.*
*We plan a heat micronet including the full bandwidth of finance, law and of course as engineers - the technical solution(s).

Next thursday is going to be an important day, we present the possible scenarios for the parties concerned. But we will make our ideas stick.



Stay tuned!

click