The hague university

Before we are going to write about setting up our first power plant, there is one more blog that’s been on the shelf for a while.

In spring 2022 Maaike’s family had a reunion, family being all aunts and uncles and cousins from fathers side. At that time our idea of buying Bárcena was still very fresh, but the idea was born so off course we talked about it. Cousin Joep, who works at The Hague University and the department of energy transition, was very interested in the project and said at his work they were always looking for projects for students and ours might be a good candidate.

In the year that followed we stayed in contact and when it became more and more certain that in September the village would be ours, we agreed to do a minor on the university on our project. The project being: what do we need to make the village have power all year long this off grid. So in September 2023 we had a meeting with four students who were going to work on the project.

Therefore Tibor made a design for how we could put solar panels on the roofs, to receive energy but also to have a covered terrace and have a fence also made of solar panels. Which is quite interesting because the first panels we bought are bi-facial and will receive energy from all sides. We will try this concept on the first house we will build.

One of the things they wanted to know was if it is possible to gain energy from the river. So when we were in Spain in October, the kids did some research by throwing sticks in the water and counting the time to cross several meters. The conclusion of the students was that the strength of the current was not enough. But there is still some discussion going on about this matter. Some people think it should be possible to get energy from the stream, others not.

The research the students did gave us a good overview of how much energy we would need for 5 houses, based on average household numbers. They also provided us with information about how much solar panels we would need in combination with heat pumps.

Their conclusion was that in winter we would still need quite some biomass. The results provide food for thought for more research, so hopefully next September there will be a follow up research. One of the things we want to find out if it is possible to gain enough energy so that we can avoid biomass, for example through heat storage. And more in general we would like to know what we can do with energy that is not used in summer and how can share energy between houses. What does this mean for how we should set up the solar panels?

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The first week of work

After the transaction we had time to think about what we could do in the village, as now we are the owners. The next option for us to go to Spain was in the autumn holidays. Earlier on we tried to combine it with Spanish classes for the kids, but we couldn’t arrange extra free time from school, so we had to stick to the one week of school vacation. We thought about starting at one of the houses which is in the relative good condition, like getting a door, so we could close it and store stuff there. But we had no electricity or tools as we had no space to keep stuff safe. So we were kind of stuck in a chicken and egg problem. To get out of this we set up a plan to get a container which we could lock. But that would not be there for this vacation. Then Maaike’s parents asked: “Would it be of any use if we were there with some tools to clear away the burrs, bushes and so on?” Of course that would be great! We were happy that they were enthusiastic and by itself there was a plan to do ...

El Vicino

In May we went to 'our' village to show it to the parents of Maaike. So we drove there and after a half our drive with a lot of corners we were a bit drowsy getting out of the car. And there stood a friendly man in blue overalls. He seemed Spanish we asked Maaike to talk to him. But she did not know what to say. So we looked at each other for a couple of minutes. Then he started to tell that the village is empty which we agreed upon off course. He also told that the village was being bought by some people. Maaike asked if she should reply and we said yes please do. After telling the we are the mysterious people we are buying the village he started to tell a lot of stories. His name is Gerardo. He was born in the village and now lives in Burgos and in the summer in Abajas. He knew about the buy because he owns a parcel of land and did not want to sell. He want to keep it for income and only wants to rent it out. So we talked about that for a bit and as we were intereste...

Finding the right pieces of land

When we first visited Bárcena de Bureba we where guided by the current owner Marcelino. As we where interested, we told him about our project Ardbol. We explained him that we needed about 5 to 10 hectares of land. He replied that it was no problem, he knew many farmers in the area. Soon we got an image of the land area (See image below) from Marcelino without any explanation but it looked promising. We assumed the black crosses where the pieces of land we could buy. When I checked it on the Spanish cadastral website some pieces where quite clear but some existed out of many small parts. After the price negotiation we where anxiously waiting on which pieces of land we could buy. In august we got a large zipfile with new information. As Yasmin could not open it and we where on mobiles we needed to wait until we where behind a computer, which of course added on to the tension. Finally we could open it. In it where 64 files. 60 of each house and 4 for the land. See the next imag...

ardbol

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