Last Winter has been an unusual Winter. For the first time in 25 years Sunseed closed to volunteers to focus on improvement works. That was not only refereed to the houses and commodities, it was also about internal structure, management and organisation.
All the staff members have been involved in many different meetings and working groups to analyze current situation, identify needs, brainstorm ideas, plan future actions and ways to make them happen.
EPF department (Patricia and Martin) has been involved in some of these working groups: Appreciative inquiries, Volunteers experience, Networking, Income generation, Sunseed Policies,…;
It has been great! We have had satisfactory result with which we are working now, and some of these working groups are still going on…
Other big part of the work during this Winter has been revamping our website. Our friend Mick Fuzz has done a great job, setting up the new website into wordpress and showing all the staff how to use it. Dave Buchanan, other old friend of us and webmaster, made the transfer of the page. Then one by one each department is making its bit on creating the product you are reading now!! Muuuyy bieen 🙂
EPF have been preparing the way for new volunteers and interns to come to Sunseed in the next years. Updating and translating documentation and formalizing collaboration agreements with several Universities & students for students placements & internships; as for example Brandenburg University in Germany, CATT Innovation Management GmbH in Austria, Ca Foscari University in Venice – Italy..
During the Winter we have made the plan for the department for next year, that is the EPF Annual Plan 2012 that soon will be available in the web; including the aims and actions for the next months.
And of course, we have been preparing Sunseed 2012 Courses, Guided Tours and other activities. For this year will organise: two practical courses on Permaculture , two courses on Solar Power – design and installation courses, two courses on Thermal mass stove courses, a course on Natural plaster, a course on Solar oven course and a course on 1 Solar air heater with recycled bottles.
There was space for little jobs, such as checking Sunseed information boards for updating.
Althought Sunseed was officially closed, we had host a Documentary filming; Carlos, Jean luc Danneyrolles and Samuel, from the Frech project “Le potager d ́un curieux” came to film during a whole day, exchange seeds and tell about their experiences visiting sustainable project from France to Granada. It was great to meet them and share dreams and realities. Good luck with your project!
In between all of this, we find the time to read, study and learn from each other. To enjoy our life together, what we offer to each other and the nature that involve us, the nature that is inside of us, the nature that we are…
We had beautiful walk … as for example to contemplate the almond blossom in January…
And now……Now we are ready now for a new start!!! Blossoming with the spring full of projects, volunteers, activities and buzzing of enthusiasm!!
Would you like to join us?
Patricia Canas Rios – EPF Coordinator – March 2012
Last Winter has been an unusual Winter. For the first time in 25 years Sunseed closed to volunteers to focus on improvement works. That was not only refereed to the houses and commodities, it was also about internal structure, management and organisation.
All the staff members have been involved in many different meetings and working groups to analyze current situation, identify needs, brainstorm ideas, plan future actions and ways to make them happen.
EPF department (Patricia and Martin) has been involved in some of these working groups: Appreciative inquiries, Volunteers experience, Networking, Income generation, Sunseed Policies,…;
It has been great! We have had satisfactory result with which we are working now, and some of these working groups are still going on…
Other big part of the work during this Winter has been revamping our website. Our friend Mick Fuzz has done a great job, setting up the new website into wordpress and showing all the staff how to use it. Dave Buchanan, other old friend of us and webmaster, made the transfer of the page. Then one by one each department is making its bit on creating the product you are reading now!! Muuuyy bieen 🙂
EPF have been preparing the way for new volunteers and interns to come to Sunseed in the next years. Updating and translating documentation and formalizing collaboration agreements with several Universities & students for students placements & internships; as for example Brandenburg University in Germany, CATT Innovation Management GmbH in Austria, Ca Foscari University in Venice – Italy..
During the Winter we have made the plan for the department for next year, that is the EPF Annual Plan 2012 that soon will be available in the web; including the aims and actions for the next months.And of course, we have been preparing Sunseed 2012 Courses, Guided Tours and other activities. For this year will organise: two practical courses on Permaculture , two courses on Solar Power – design and installation courses, two courses on Thermal mass stove courses, a course on Natural plaster, a course on Solar oven course and a course on 1 Solar air heater with recycled bottles.
There was space for little jobs, such as checking Sunseed information boards for updating.
Althought Sunseed was officially closed, we had host a Documentary filming; Carlos, Jean luc Danneyrolles and Samuel, from the Frech project “Le potager d ́un curieux” came to film during a whole day, exchange seeds and tell about their experiences visiting sustainable project from France to Granada. It was great to meet them and share dreams and realities. Good luck with your project!
In between all of this, we find the time to read, study and learn from each other. To enjoy our life together, what we offer to each other and the nature that involve us, the nature that is inside of us, the nature that we are…
We had beautiful walk … as for example to contemplate the almond blossom in January…
And now……Now we are ready now for a new start!!! Blossoming with the spring full of projects, volunteers, activities and buzzing of enthusiasm!!
Would you like to join us?
Patricia Canas Rios – EPF Coordinator – March 2012
It replaces the slightly daunting stepping-stone river crossing to the River Terrace. Created from reclaimed wooden planks and pallets it uses a reciprocal structure. Two weeks ago Leo lead a seminar on Reciprocal Structures, demonstrating how to build strong roofs, bridges or houses without nails. The wood for the bridge was cut to size and trialled by the Eco Construction team on the far terrace before being dismantled and carried down to the site for reassembly. Wooden pallets were added to the structure as the walkway and stones used to stabilise the base.
The gardens, Diego I and II in particular, have been transformed in the past few weeks by hard labour from the garden team and volunteers. There have been a few group flash-weeding sessions, new beds dug and compost bays built. Both the raised and sunken beds have been well irrigated and mulched with layers of cardboard, goat manure, compost and seaweed. Planting has commenced, initially parsnips and carrots, in conjunction with the bio-dynamic lunar calender.
There have been exciting improvements and creations in many of the living areas over the past few weeks. A new washing area and shower room has recently been completed using recycled tiles and glass bottles to create a beautiful colourful space. The living room has had a make-over with the addition of a study and library area made from recycled wood and tiles, argarve and gypsum. And Gaye’s House now has a cosy sitting room complete with a wood-burning stove and electricity.
Winter and spring saw us bringing more of our terraces into cultivation and success in propagating our own plants over the spring in our polytunnel. We have begun cultivating green manures such as alfalfa to continue to increase the fertility of our soils along with our tried and tested compost teas and food waste. We hope to develop and experiment further our composting techniques this summer.
New beds have been prepared in the Forest Garden and Far Terrace allowing us to demonstrate Permaculture techniques and to harvest the rewards.
We continue to trail Mycorrhizal planting and continue to work on our soil fertility strategy which, uniquely, excludes the use of animal manures – other than our own human waste!
Over the summer we aim to collect more of our own seed and improve our propagation results. Permaculture courses, based upon our own cultivation techniques are being organised for the autumn. Join us if you can.
Early June has seen temperatures exceeding 30 degrees so improvements to the irrigation line and weeding are the main duties of our team of volunteers. And of course there is the reward of a harvest most days – see below!.
After 5 years as Organic Gardens Trustee, Richard, has decided to step down to allow for a fresh input of ideas into what the future might hold for organic gardening in Los Molinos. If you feel that you would like to get involved with the Sunseed Project as a Trustee or Advisor please contact the Project to receive more details.
Have a happy and sunny summer from all the garden team at Sunseed!!!Como siempre, este verano ha sido un periodo muy atareado para las huertas…. esto se ha reflejado en la necesidad de vari@s asistentes junto con nuestra coordinadora Kirsty supertrabajadora.
El invierno y la primavera extendimos la plantacion en nuestras huertas y obtuvimos un gran exito en el crecimiento de nuestros propios planteles por semilla en nuestro invernadero.
Hemos empezado a cultivar abonos verdes como la alfalfa para continuar con el invcremento de fertilidad en nuestos suelos junto con el compost de residuos de comida y los purines-abonos liquidos vegetales.
Durante este verano esperamos desarrollar y experimentar mas si cabe nuestras tecnicas de compostaje.
Hemos preparado nuevos bancales en el Forest y la Far Terrace permitiendonos demostrar tecnicas de Permacultura y cosechando las recompensas.
Sunseed’s closure for the whole winter gave us an opportunity to do major works on all the photovoltaic systems. This put Sunseed in a really low energy situation as the amount of solar energy available is lowest in the winter anyway, let alone when we were dismantling the frame of the solar panels or shut down the system to make essential modifications. We managed to deal with this situation with the introduction of Green, Orange and Red days which give clear guidelines of what appliances/services can be used on a given day taking into account the weather forecast and the actual state-of-charge of our solar battery system.
The overall aim was to optimize the efficiency of all renewable energy systems on site. Anja – a German masters student on Leonardo placement – has been a great help in achieving this and as we progressed she gained a more in-depth knowledge of photovoltaic systems in return.
We started with Isabella’s house: we had to relocate the solar modules to a more easily accessible location which also had less shading from nearby trees. The proposed new location was assessed and the optimum seasonal angles were calculated by computer simulation software: without any investment we were able to increase annual solar energy production by 18%. The failing inverter had to be replaced which gave us an opportunity to redesign the 12V system to operate on 24V, thus reducing transmission losses in cables by 75%. The new inverter was installed and the battery bank reconfigured which left only the lighting system to get a total revamp. We identified the most frequently used areas and installed low-voltage energy efficient lights (CFLs) so that they operate even when we have to switch the inverter off (this happens if we have e.g. 5 consecutive days of cloudy days). The other rooms got normal (i.e. easily available and cheaper) 230V lightbulbs. Corridors and stairs where lighting is mainly used for access, got alternating switches and LEDs installed. The reason for this is that CFLs need about a minute to warm up and get to their full brightness, while LEDs give their maximum output instantly. Overall, we reduced the electricity demand of lighting by 38% while providing 24% more light, thus increasing the efficiency of the lighting system by 52%.
We also did maintenance work on the ram pump (a gravity pump supplying the whole village with water) and the irrigation line (which provides water for our gardens), organized the workshop a bit more, repaired the solar motion-sensor floodlight and took part in many interest groups on how to improve Sunseed in many different aspects.
We also designed a DIY battery monitor/solar&wind data logger system based on the open-source Arduino platform and unconventional components. This will be installed at Isabella’s hybrid solar/wind system for us to be able to analyze the data and to see the effects of further improvements while serving as an educational tool at the same time for university students.
In the next few months we will be focusing on the optimization of the two other house’s PV systems. Starting from April, Marlene – a German MSc Process Engineering intern – will take part in designing a low-cost solar tracker (based on open-source Arduino as well) for the main house which will provide us with more electricity for the best price-performance and the least environmental impact.
If you are a university student looking for a research project or an internship in alternative technology, if you would like to get involved in specific projects or if you are simply interested in working in the AT department, please have a look at our project pack and feel free to contact Csaba – the AT coordinator.
csaba
Sunseed’s closure for the whole winter gave us an opportunity to do major works on all the photovoltaic systems. This put Sunseed in a really low energy situation as the amount of solar energy available is lowest in the winter anyway, let alone when we were dismantling the frame of the solar panels or shut down the system to make essential modifications. We managed to deal with this situation with the introduction of Green, Orange and Red days which give clear guidelines of what appliances/services can be used on a given day taking into account the weather forecast and the actual state-of-charge of our solar battery system.
The overall aim was to optimize the efficiency of all renewable energy systems on site. Anja – a German masters student on Leonardo placement – has been a great help in achieving this and as we progressed she gained a more in-depth knowledge of photovoltaic systems in return.
We started with Isabella’s house: we had to relocate the solar modules to a more easily accessible location which also had less shading from nearby trees. The proposed new location was assessed and the optimum seasonal angles were calculated by computer simulation software: without any investment we were able to increase annual solar energy production by 18%. The failing inverter had to be replaced which gave us an opportunity to redesign the 12V system to operate on 24V, thus reducing transmission losses in cables by 75%. The new inverter was installed and the battery bank reconfigured which left only the lighting system to get a total revamp. We identified the most frequently used areas and installed low-voltage energy efficient lights (CFLs) so that they operate even when we have to switch the inverter off (this happens if we have e.g. 5 consecutive days of cloudy days). The other rooms got normal (i.e. easily available and cheaper) 230V lightbulbs. Corridors and stairs where lighting is mainly used for access, got alternating switches and LEDs installed. The reason for this is that CFLs need about a minute to warm up and get to their full brightness, while LEDs give their maximum output instantly. Overall, we reduced the electricity demand of lighting by 38% while providing 24% more light, thus increasing the efficiency of the lighting system by 52%.
We also did maintenance work on the ram pump (a gravity pump supplying the whole village with water) and the irrigation line (which provides water for our gardens), organized the workshop a bit more, repaired the solar motion-sensor floodlight and took part in many interest groups on how to improve Sunseed in many different aspects.
We also designed a DIY battery monitor/solar&wind data logger system based on the open-source Arduino platform and unconventional components. This will be installed at Isabella’s hybrid solar/wind system for us to be able to analyze the data and to see the effects of further improvements while serving as an educational tool at the same time for university students.
In the next few months we will be focusing on the optimization of the two other house’s PV systems. Starting from April, Marlene – a German MSc Process Engineering intern – will take part in designing a low-cost solar tracker (based on open-source Arduino as well) for the main house which will provide us with more electricity for the best price-performance and the least environmental impact.
If you are a university student looking for a research project or an internship in alternative technology, if you would like to get involved in specific projects or if you are simply interested in working in the AT department, please have a look at our project pack and feel free to contact Csaba – the AT coordinator.
csaba
Improvements to the monitoring of the water distribution system