Greg and Heather’s “Starship Euphoria” Noggarup, Western Australia,
Latitude 33 degrees South

Starship; A structure slipping through space and time, powered by our nearest Star, Sublime !

Commissioned March 2001. Outer hull is double brick with corrugated iron meteorite shield. A true passive solar design, with the major observation ports on the North side to insure deep and intimate penetration of the Sun’s warm caress in Winter.

The carefully calculated roof overhang (eave) acts as a radiation shield in Summer, casting a shadow on the entire north wall. This, in conjunction with cieling insulation and thickend monolitic slab foundation, (thermal mass) ensures that the internal biosphere stays within the optimum temperature range for humanoid life forms all year round, without having to resort to primitive, energy guzzling, mechanical heat exchangers (air conditioners)

Power system

• 24 x Uni-Solar US-64 Advanced, thin film, triple junction photo-voltaic panels. (1536 peak watts)
  Nett daily energy production (after system losses) is 7000 watt-hours in Summer, and 4500 watt-hours in Winter.
  
  
• 1 x Plasmatronic PL-40 regulator / controller wiith SH200 current shunt and PLS shunt adaptor. This allows all solar energy generated and consumed to be monitored, providing an accurate indiication of the ships energy reserves at all times.
  
  
• 24 x Exide 2 volt 670 amp-hour deep cycle battery cells. Therse are connected in series to yield 32,160 watt-hours of energy storage, enough to sustain the life support systems for 5 days of complete solar eclipse on a full charge.
  
  
• 1 x Selectronic SE-42 True sine wave inverter. 3600 watts continuous, 5500 watts for 0.5 hours, 10,000 watts for 10 seconds. This powerful, state of the art unit, converts the D.C energy generated from the solar panels, and stored in the battery, into 240 volt A.C power, for the carefully selected suite of energy efficient appliances on board.
  
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  1 x SSL 48 volt, 50 amp, Industrial grade battery charger. This powerful two stage charger, boost charges the ships energy storage system at up to 2500 watts per hour. Essential for manovering around black holes and long term atmospheric disturbances, whilst minimising auxiliary genset running time and fuel consumption.
  
  

Notes

Starship “Euphoria” is essentially 100% solar powered. Greg has a 7 KVA petrol generator as a backup, but it is almost redundant.

Bottled lpg gas is used for the cook top and oven, and a small amount of waste timber (renewable) is consumed by the “Gourmet” slow combustion space heater / water heater/ oven / cooktop, in the depths of Winter.

This beautiful and practical home, high up on the northern slope of a valley, looks quite ordinary from the exterior, which illustrates that solar buildings do not have to assume an extra-terrestrial appearance . Neither do sun-smart homes have to cost anymore than un-smart ones. The materials are the same, It is simply their arrangement, and the thoughtful application of three essential elements, orientation, thermal mass, and insulation.