The world's cutest weed cutter

Let me introduce you to the cutest weed cutter in the world:

Natchan (front) and her friend Kaakun (back) 

Her name is Natchan. Natchan and her friend Kaakun come to our power plant almost every day to help out with an otherwise daunting task of weeding (that is, weeding a thousand square meters of land). I would love to use a friendlier expression like "lawn mowing" instead of "weeding," but what really grows at our power plant are weeds, not a lawn, and the activity we engage in is the War on Weeds. War is sometimes brutal, but however strong the enemy might be, the one thing we want to avoid is chemical weapons (=herbicides). So we fight with traditional armaments: a sickle and a scythe (for me) and a weed cutter (for Nobuo). But with two goats joining our ranks, it's an easy victory.

Talking so much about weeds might seem like too much fuss about nothing, but if you ever experienced Japanese summer in the countryside, you know that if you don't interfere, weeds soon grow over your head (literally). So much as I admire the vitality and ingenious survival skills of Japanese weeds, I have to fight them back. And I am grateful for our goat-friends' help.

Here's Natchan at work:

Natchan is not only the cutest but also the most enthusiastic weeder I've ever met. She never complains of working too hard or having eaten too much of  the weed. For comparison - Nobuo starts whining after 5 minutes of weed cutting and takes a break after 10 minutes (sometimes never to resume again.) Who would you take as a team member on a weeding mission?

Here's Nobuo exchanging weeding tips with Natchan:

Nobuo (right) chatting with Natchan (left).

Natchan and Kaakun are our neighbor's goats. Our power plant  is located in a rural part of Tsukuba, with many fields around. There's a lot of grass and weeds everywhere, most noticeably on the sides of the rice fields,  so it seems that our neighbor wouldn't have to bother to come to our place to graze her goats. The main reason why she comes here and not elsewhere is the chemical weapons - we don't use them, but most farmers around do. That makes our power plant a safe place for goats (and frogs and sparrows....) to graze.

It's a truly win-win situation.  Goats are happy to have fresh grass for lunch and we're happy to be exempt from the weed cutting task. I hope this collaboration will continue for very long time.

Chickens' first time on new playground

Our chickens can finally play on the grass outside the coop (click on picture for enlargement):

2015/6/22 morning. Chickens on their new playground.
(Visual distortion on this and other pictures is due to the fisheye lens of our Sony action camera)

Here are their first moments out of the coop:

On their new playground chickens are busy pecking everything that comes in their way, eating grass and chasing bugs. And digging ground for more bugs and seeds and other yummy stuff. Before, they used to flock around me when I came to feed them. Now they hardly notice when I come.  Which I take as a sign that they're happy on their own.

This is view from outside:

2015/6/22 morning. View from the south-west. 

2015/6/22 morning. View from the south-east.

The fence is made of metal lattice panels that we got for free from a new local friend of ours who happened to have an old fence he didn't need any more. We're happy that we could reuse something instead of buying new stuff. Reusing old fence also made it much cheaper for us.  

To put up the fence we needed fence posts, for which we used supporting poles of the power plant. This is one of the instances when having a solar sharing power plant on your land is more convenient than not having one. The fact that we didn't have to erect new fence posts saved us a lot of time. 

But this playground is still too small for our 30+ chickens. With  chickens pecking all day on an area of 20 square meters (that's the current playground size; the size of coop is not included), my guess is that the grass and insects will disappear within next 7 days. We plan to enlarge chickens' playing area to at least 10 times the current size. We just have to build a new, much longer fence - next task on our To do list. 

Chickens posing for camera.

When it is good to tilt panels to the north.

This is photo of our power plant taken on early morning June 8, 2015:

At first glance there's nothing strange about this picture, but if you know the place, you'll soon notice one strange thing - panels are pointing to the north.
The photo was taken from the east, meaning cardinal directions are as follows:

Logically panels should be tilted to the opposite direction, like on this picture from March this year:

Well, our panels do usually face south, but we noticed that in summer, there are certain times of the day when panels capture most sun when tilted to the north. Those time frames are early morning and late afternoon. We noticed that power generation output can improve by 1-2 kilowatts when panels face the north in the right time of the day.

How to explain it?

The explanation is simple: Position of the sun at sunrise/sunset changes in summer and in winter.  Everyone knows that sun rises in the east and sets in the west. What most people don't notice is that usually it's not due east (exactly 90 degrees on compass) or due west (exactly 270 degrees on compass) -  It's just roughly the east and roughly the west.
It seems that the sun rises due east and sets due west only twice a year (on spring equinox and autumn equinox). On all other days, sun rises somewhat north or south of due east and sets somewhat north or south of due west.

So, when is it north-east and when south-east? When is it north-west and when south-west?

The answer here in Tsukuba, Japan (latitude: about 36 degrees on northern hemisphere), is as follows:

winter sunrise:  south-east
winter sunset:  south-west

summer sunrise: north-east
summer sunset: north-west

This is not a life saving knowledge but it's a fun fact to know! Moreover, now that we're raising chickens under the panels, I go to the power plant early mornings and late afternoons almost everyday. If I'm there anyway, why not change the tilt and improve performance for a few kilowatt hours a day.

Related article: Power generation - performance report (April 24, 2015).

Basic information / 基本情報

Basic information about our project　/ プロジェクトの基本情報

Name: Power plant Oo
名称：　おお発電所

Place: Tsukuba, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan
所在地：　茨城県つくば市

Installed capacity: 
  Installed capacity of inverters　 38.5 kW
  Installed capacity of solar panels　 40.71 kW

設備容量：
  パワコンの容量　　38.5 kW
　太陽光パネルの容量　　40.71kW


Solar panels: 354 panels x 115 W 
太陽光パネル：354枚 x　115 W


Land area: about 1000 m2
設置面積： 約1000平米


Height from ground: 3 m
パネルの地面からの高さ：　3m


Shading rate: about 33%
遮光率： 約33%


Operation start: 27 November 2014
運転開始：2014年11月27日


Design and construction by: Solar Culture, Ceratech Tsukuba
設計・施工： ソーラーカルチャー株式会社、有限会社セラテックつくば


Activities under the panels: Free range chickens / picnics & barbecues
パネル下の土地利用：　鶏の放し飼 ／　バーベキューやピクニック

Chickens flying

It's been a month since our chickens arrived. In the life of a chicken, one month is a long time. It takes humans several years to grow from cute babies into cheeky school-age children. Chickens can do it in a single month.


They are now less cute or fluffy , but they are  stronger and more independent than before. They have impressive wings and can fly!


This is how our chickens looked when they arrived a month ago (end of April):

And these are the same chickens one month later (end of May):

On the picture above, chickens are sitting on a perch that we just finished yesterday (May 31). Perch was an instant success, chickens love it.


Now we're working on a fence outside the coop so that chickens can play on the grass. As they grow bigger, the coop will soon be too small. Picture below shows the inside of the coop (this picture was taken just before finishing the perch yesterday).





That was a quick update.