Welcome to the RE website!
I am very enthusiastic about RE (Renewable Energy), positively biased by the Sun! That is the reason I started these pages at October 23, 1998 and that I am loading these pages with Renewable Energy info, Energy saving hints and Photovoltaic Solar Electricity generation designs, to share the knowledge with you and promote RE.
Technical stuff - electronics, software - and 'homebrew' guides are what I aim for, as I am technical oriented, want to do everything myself and I am backed by a degree in Electrical Engineering. What about savings? Well, Renewable Energy saves the environment a lot of waste, saves our children a lot of trouble and it may save us already a lot of money after the initial investment. But what the heck - it is fun as a hobby and gives you a good feeling.
I have taken photographs to present the details of installation of the Solar Panels (on my suburban house), the layout of the system, the connection and construction of the inverter, the basics of an inverter and waveforms and so on ..... Everything that could help to get a good picture of how to generate your own electricity and spin your power meter backwards. Best of all: you save the environment tons of exhaust! Weather is not always good for solar power here in the Netherlands, but the first summer (1999) has rewarded me with a lot of sun. Summer 2000 was a little less, but now I've got hot water as well. You can react via e-mail: cwater@proxim.com if you want to discuss the presented info with me.
Further information
In 2006 the site was relocated from Geocities to Freewebs, while simultaneously getting a new lay-out. It has been taken apart and put together again conform the changed rules for HTML and CSS, creating a hopefully more comprehensible and user-friendly, if not less informative website. For all the links that were previously to be found at the bottom of each page, please consult the links section (found under Miscellaneous).
A Guide for New Visitors
- Navigation - the three sections found under this heading are the general part of this website, where you can find the introductions and this guide (Main), recent updates and when each page was last edited (Updates), the disclaimer and rules pertaining to this website (Terms of Use).
- Solar Energy - the largest section of this site, containing most of the information and the reason for its creation in the first place. It is a report of how I placed solar panels on my house when I lived in Enschede (in the east of the Netherlands)(Solar Projects), and its subsequent performance (Statistics for 1999 and 2000) before I moved. The other two pages are about the reason I paid almost nothing for heat and light in those same two years, and its design (Homebrew Inverter and Inverter Basics).
- Water Power - information about two water pumps, one you can make yourself and the other one often used by the WOT in development countries.
- Personal - (new section 2006) a short profile (Profile) and my e-mail, phone, etc. (Contact).
- Miscellaneous - Things that didn't fit under any other heading. The first is about ways you can very easily save energy yourself (Saving Energy). After all, energy you don't use at all is even better than placing a couple of solar panels on your roof to compensate it. If you want to leave a message, a comment or even a flame, you can sign the guestbook. For further resources on saving energy, the pumps and my Dutch website about cars that work on air pressure, links are your friends (Links).