Black Mesa Ranch
Snowflake, Arizona, USA
Artisan Cheese
Nubian Goats
Cheese and Candy Information and Online Ordering Page
Featured pages on this site
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Alternative Energy (updated 10/11)
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David's Culinary Blog
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New!
See our goats in action in this professionally done Whole Foods YouTube promo for our cheeses.
Plus..
See BMR owner/cheese maker, David, make Pasta with Goat Cheese in just one minute.
But, wait, there's more!
Take a 4 minute "tour of the ranch" on YouTube .
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Award Winning Artisan Goat Cheeses
4 Awards 2010 ADGA National Competition
2 Awards 2008 ADGA National Competition
4 Awards 2005 ADGA National Competition
3 Awards 2004 ADGA National Competition
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(available seasonally)
1 Award 2010 ADGA National Competition
2 Awards 2005 ADGA National Competition
2 Awards 2004 ADGA National Competition
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Click here to read the online version of Kathryn's booklet
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This site last updated:
May 13, 2013
© 2000-2013 Black Mesa Ranch Inc. All Rights Reserved
Endorsed by more than 36 humane organizations, the Certified Humane Raised and Handled® program is nationally recognized as the Gold Standard for certifying animal welfare.
Arizona Grown!
Have you ever wanted to run a utility company? No? Me neither, but in order to live out here (or in any other, similar, "extreme rural" location) with any of the modern conveniences most of us have grown accustomed to (like lighting, decent refrigeration and the like) you might just have to start your own Alternative Energy Small Utility.
Alternative energy is generally considered to be any source of power- heat- or light-producing energy used in the normal course of going about life that is not delivered in a neat package via cable or pipe from your local utility provider. It can include wood, geothermal, water, wind, methane, passive solar and PV (photo voltaic) solar among many others.
The term "Alternative Energy" is a bit misleading in our case. For us to live here, there were no alternatives but to go "alternative". To survive with any style here we have to be our own electric power company, and like many others in rural situations be our own water company, and our own sanitation department...
Alternative Electricity
Generating the Power for BMR
Grid power (that lovely stuff that comes in a seemingly endless, subsidized, stream down the wires from, well... wherever) is miles and miles from the Ranch. Don't get me wrong. While there is a certain bold freedom to being un-tethered from The Grid, I'm basically a pragmatic. If The Grid were magically extended to our property line tomorrow I'd likely be signing up for their power the next day. (though I'd certainly keep producing as much power as I was able too and sell it back to them when possible). That, however, is not the case, nor is it likely to be for the foreseeable future. If we want to live in the 21st century (and what fun would it be not to?) we have to generate our own electricity.
PV Solar for Power
When we began looking for our "perfect property" we realized that many of the criteria that would make it perfect for us in so many ways would also make it unlikely to have access to grid power so... years ago we began to learn a little about alternative sources. It quickly became apparent that, in Arizona, photo-voltaic (PV) solar power was an obvious solution.
PV solar (as opposed to passive solar) is the process by which the sun's radiation is converted (by solar panels) into direct current (DC) electrical energy. For our needs it was clear that we would need storage capacity for the energy (a battery bank) and a way to convert the DC current to normal AC household current (an inverter). These three components, the panels, the batteries and the inverter are the basis of our system
Wind Power
Another power opportunity in our locale is the wind. Even after just a few months here we realized that there was a huge potential power source we had left untapped. Wind power has come a long way from the hay days of those picturesque mechanical power windmills which can still be seen dotting the landscape here (we have a non-functional one near the well we keep for esthetic reasons but with hopes of refurbishing it back onto productive service at some point in the future). Many modern wind generators incorporate ultra-quite turbines which directly generate electrical power. We eventually added to our power plant a 900 watt wind turbine installed on a 50' tower and are now thoroughly enjoying the benefits of being able to generate power 24 hours a day.
Back-up Power
There are times, even here in AZ, when the sun doesn't shine, and the wind doesn't blow, or when we have extra heavy power requirements. For these times we needed a back-up generator which we eventually added in to the system. Our propane gas powered generator also is used for the periodic "equalization" of the batteries, a process of over-charging them to balance and refresh their electrolytes. We also use a large (9kW) portable gasoline generator for our well pumping and for various shop and field power requirements (like welding or power tool work out at the barn).
Our System Specifications and Costs
- Panels: 2560 watts of 48 volt DC power provided by 32, 80 watt Kyocera modules - $10,400
- Racks: 4, 8-module manually adjustable racks - $5450
- Inverter: Trace SW4048 115 volt (gang-able to 240 volt) power panel with 4000 watt, 48 volt pure sine inverter, C-40 charge controller and assorted disconnects, beakers and junction boxes, and remote TriMetric battery condition read-out console at the house - $3700
- Batteries: a bank of 40, Trojan T-105, 220 amp-hour 6 volt lead-acid batteries arranged in 5 strings of 8 with Water Miser safety vent caps all around - $3600
- Wind Generator: 900 watt Whisper H40 - $1330
- Tower: 50' tri-pole tower with guy wires - $1025
- Back-up Generator: A 10,000 watt LP gas powered, air-cooled Generac Guardian with complete remote auto start functions - $3500
The Price Tag
The total cost of this system (so far), including misc. little this-and-thats and installation is right about at $30,000. Kind-of makes those $100 monthly electric bills we used to complain about not seem so bad after all!
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Updates on our System
2004 - 2005 - 2007 - 2008 - 2008(again) - 2009 - 2010 - 2011
New Year's Day we woke up to a temperature of minus 10! We had a full
week of severely low temps. Our well head froze and damaged our wonderful
solar well pump. We ended up hauling water from 10 miles away every day
for several weeks in
order to provide for over 100 animals that depend on us. It was grueling
work in very cold weather. We had to have a contractor come out and pull
our pump out and replace it. We also had him set up a duel system with our
old generator powered (A/C) pump in-line with the solar pump. This should
provide us with a back-up in case one of the pumps breaks down again.
Total cost: $4600
The new inverter that we had installed in 2008 really was a dud and we had the
old inverter rebuilt and installed a month after trying the "new and improved"
one. So we did end up getting a few more years production out of our
original inverter. However by the end of 2010 we felt that we were pushing
our luck. Because of our heavy electrical demands due to our cheese dairy,
we decided to go with a duel inverter system by Outback. The two inverters
help even-out the power when there is a surge. This means that we can
actually run our milking machine without running the generator. The duel
system even allows for a faster charge to the batteries when the diesel
generator is running. That should save on some diesel! Final cost:
$6000
Thankfully it was a very uneventful year in the power department.
We decided to go solar with our water pumping this year. We pulled
the
old well pump out and replaced it with a Grundfos 6 SQF-2 pump that can run on
AC or DC. We added 600 watts of solar panels so that whenever the sun
shines our water tank fills. It is a very nice addition to the ranch.
Final cost approx. $7000.
O
ur
wind generator once again blew it's bearings and was hauled in for repair.
It took over two months to get it back. Repair costs were about $800.
If (when) the wind generator breaks again we will have to replace it with a
newer version since the company no longer carries parts for this one.
The fan on our inverter stopped working awhile ago and we've rigged an external fan to blow on the heat sink to keep it cool. Otherwise it overheats and turns all the power off to the ranch. Now the inverter is refusing to consistently accept power from the generator. We suspect the circuit board is going out and since we can't be without a reliable inverter we will have a new one installed next week. Price tag $3000. It's going to be an expensive year keeping up with our "free power"! (See 2010 entry above - this new inverter didn't work well so the company took it back and didn't charge us for it. We had our old inverter rebuilt and installed for just a couple hundred dollars.)
March 2008 update:
Our
battery bank had an estimated life of 5-7 years. Well, it's been 7 1/2
years now and the batteries are feeling their age. We replaced the 40
Trojan T-105's with 24 larger batteries. Lead had just hit an all time
high on the commodities market and we paid $7000 for our new battery bank.
While the guys from Val-U Solar where out installing the new batteries, they
also checked our panels. It was quite a surprise to find out that over
half of our panels were not producing power and many more were producing less
then they were designed to. Since they were still under warranty the
panels were replaced by the company.
May 2007 update:
Live and learn. The Hardy Diesel generator was a real bear to keep
working. It constantly needed tinkering with, blew lots of oil, and was
just as temperamental as the old LPG generator. In the spring of this year
it finally, simply, blew up. It threw a rod through the housing and, so,
finished it's lackluster career at the ranch. It was a tough couple weeks
waiting for a replacement since we need a big generator to run our pasteurizer
for making cheese. But we dragged over the big gas generator from the well
and used it until the new $8,000 22k Perkins diesel generator arrived.
Despite the wind and snow of a freak May blizzard we were able to install the
newest generator and it is working much better than the old ones ever did.
August 2005 update:
In June our wind generator started making grinding noises and in July it gave up entirely. We had it taken down and sent in for repairs. It was reinstalled in August and seems to be working fine now. The repairs and installation were about $500.
June 2004 update:
Having determined that the 10 kW Generac LPG back-up generator we'd been using almost since we installed the whole power system was simply too unreliable and temperamental for our dairy needs, we purchased and installed a new Hardy Diesel 15kW unit. After some initial tweaking it is running well and is a welcomed relief from the Generac. Our plan is to explore selling the Generac and if that doesn't pan out we will install it at the shop/machine barn for easy, on-demand power over there.
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