Make a course in Spain

Hi guys, Im planning to build my first power wall in next weeks and I have had a crazy idea! Here in spain there is not much information about this and I guess it may be people interested on learn how to build his own power wall.

I guess it may be interesting to host a 2 days course where students can learn the basics on how to build his own powerwall. I have a place to make the course and I can get some material to be used but I have not the skills / knowledge to explain anything XD

So... If anyone is interested on come here as teacher let's PM or reply on this thread to see details and talk about conditions.

Cheers!

I already had the same idea and will soon start planning a workshop for a local fablab/maker's place I'm volunteering at. But I think I'll start making powerbanks from used laptop cells, first, because (1) it's less complex, easier to understand and people will have a result when they go home at the end of the course, and (2) there're not many people over here thinking about building their own powerwall. In addition, this workshop combines electronics, batteries, laser cutting and 3D printing, which is all available at the fablab here.

I also doubt that many people have the necessary knowledge/skills (batteries, electronics, DIY) and have the confidence to start a project of this size... so I don't think I'll get enough participants for a workshop on powerwalls (at least over here). And I also think two days is not enough, because if you want to teach people sustained knowledge, you'll have to start with the basic in physics (what is voltage, current or power?) and solar. It's not just soldering masses of cells together...So I'll start small and wait for feedback, then maybe grow bigger.

But I definitely have enough knowledge and experience to teach people, so if you're desperately looking for someone, I wouldn't say no - especially if I can combine it with a nice holiday in Spain .

Have sun!
Oliver

owitte said:

I already had the same idea and will soon start planning a workshop for a local fablab/maker's place I'm volunteering at. But I think I'll start making powerbanks from used laptop cells, first, because (1) it's less complex, easier to understand and people will have a result when they go home at the end of the course, and (2) there're not many people over here thinking about building their own powerwall. In addition, this workshop combines electronics, batteries, laser cutting and 3D printing, which is all available at the fablab here.

I also doubt that many people have the necessary knowledge/skills (batteries, electronics, DIY) and have the confidence to start a project of this size... so I don't think I'll get enough participants for a workshop on powerwalls (at least over here). And I also think two days is not enough, because if you want to teach people sustained knowledge, you'll have to start with the basic in physics (what is voltage, current or power?) and solar. It's not just soldering masses of cells together...So I'll start small and wait for feedback, then maybe grow bigger.

But I definitely have enough knowledge and experience to teach people, so if you're desperately looking for someone, I wouldn't say no - especially if I can combine it with a nice holiday in Spain .

Have sun!
Oliver

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Hi Oliver!!! I agree on many points, maybe not in all : for sure in deep knowledge in just couple of days will be imposible but maybe we can plan something to introduce the whole proccess, what I see interesting in work on a real instalation is that people will see that is really possible to power a house just with DIY PW and, even if after the course they will need to research and find out additional info is a good start point and a chance to meet other people insterested in the topic (we have found this forum after a weekend solar workshopthat was not enough to understand all in detail but was enough to "fill the gaps" and have a better overall info...) Not sure but if you guess that is possible to prepare something cool I will be happy to host your spanish holidays : Let's think on it and we continue exploring the idea...

Before you do it think a bit ahead on what it is you want or should teach. For instance in many countries a full powerwall out of home made battery packs isnt legal. Its very important to have all those points clear and know what rules are out ther. Just building the powerwall is the easy part but what about insurance and all other. It can easily get bad attention if its not keept proper. Same as there is no "perfect" manual for doing a powerwall here either.

With that said lets the fun begin.

I think a such a workshoop perhaps should not be about a powerwall as such but more of how you can do devices and packs that can power parts. Like a smaller backup units and other.

This also depends on area you do it in of course. In some areas just a backup unit you can have do alot and could be a good start for people.

SaraG said:

Hi Oliver!!! I agree on many points, maybe not in all : for sure in deep knowledge in just couple of days will be imposible but maybe we can plan something to introduce the whole proccess, what I see interesting in work on a real instalation is that people will see that is really possible to power a house just with DIY PW and, even if after the course they will need to research and find out additional info is a good start point and a chance to meet other people insterested in the topic (we have found this forum after a weekend solar workshopthat was not enough to understand all in detail but was enough to "fill the gaps" and have a better overall info...) Not sure but if you guess that is possible to prepare something cool I will be happy to host your spanish holidays : Let's think on it and we continue exploring the idea...

Click to expand...

Hi SaraG,

I definitely agree, the most important thing is to inspire people and to give them a vision. I remember when I started my "mission", I never doubt that it's possible to power my house with solar energy (most of the time, though, I'm realistic and I live in Germany). Of course I knew that I can't replace grid energy 100%, but my goal was to get as close as I could with as little resources as possible. My result so far: I spend about 5000 (including everthing like solar panels, charge controllers, inverter batteries and so on) for a reduction of 60% off my power billl. And I still believeit was worth every cent (a friend of mine paid around 7000 just for a 2kWh battery!). And I also know that there're many people thinking about this topic. Here in Germany, a lot of people bought a solar installation many years ago, when the government supported them with long-term contracts (20 years) for feeding energy back to the grid. They were paid around 50 cents per kWh those days (around 15 years ago). But now, the situation has changed, the govermental support was drastically reduced to 11 cents per kWh and for most people it's not profitable anymore to have a solar system and solely feed the power they produce back to the grid. And those who signed a contract 15 years ago will sooner or later be faced with the question "what to do with my solar power after the contract ended?". That's when storage system come into focus.

However, I never wanted to produce energy and feed it back to the grid, my goal was to be as independend from the grid as I can. So energy storage was a central issue for me. I started with (quite expensive) lead-acid batteries and noticed very soon in production mode, that this technology is not good enough for powering high-consumption devices like washing machines or dish washer or even a coffee maker. So I was looking for a better solution and ended up with LiIon technology. So, as a consequence of cheap sources and the DIY idea, I started collecting laptop batteries. That was long before I found Pete's youtube channel or any other solution like that. I developed my own solution parallel to a growingcommunity...

Anyhow, I don't want to annoy you or write a book about that . As a maker, I think we should just start this project and see where we'll end up. Let's start developing a course by defining the target group and the goals we want to achieve. Then we can think about the contents of the course and the ways we want to present it. Btw - I thought I never find a need to use it- I studied education and social science (long time ago)... never worked in this field but also never lost contact. So I hope these skills are not burried too deep .

Ah, and one more thing: I don't speak spanish, so we'll have to stick with english...

Have sun!
Oliver

Hi people. Here one guy from Spain ready to help too.