Helios Eco Lab

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Helios Eco Lab

The page chronicles the quest for developing new technologies and behaviours for everyday living that are affordable, fun and sustainable.

08/08/2026

Anyone interested in a couple of SMA Sunny Island Inverters? (The yellow boxes) my pride and joy for 12 years charging my lead batteries and providing an AC grid for the house, no problems at all, until my lead batteries finally gave up the ghost and I switched to Lithium, which as I discovered my SMAs are not set up for. Believe me I tried everything to reset them but to no avail. SMA were number 1 globally for off grid inverters when I bought them in 2014. Sadly SMA departed the Greek market and provide very minimal back up. Very disappointing to see this from a top German brand. So I kept the 3 SMA Sunny Boy PV inverters and purchased a 15kW Victron Inverter to replace the 2 Sunny Islands, So far so good. I chose Victron because they are a top off grid Dutch brand supported here. I could have gone for one of the many cheaper Chinese hybrid inverters but I need support to be around for 10-20 years as technology changes.

29/03/2026

When you have had just too much of geopolitics then get out and plant vegetables and build a dome with a bunch of bright eyed schoolkids and reignite that sense of optimism and purpose from deep within. Many thanks to Elena Pappas, Troop Leader and all the other helpers mums and dads and children for an uplifting day last 15th of March.

14/02/2026

Micro wind has taken a back seat in the renewables story whilst photovoltaics have gone crazy, so too mega wind and offshore wind, all for good reason, they just work so well. But micro wind has a special place in my heart, it was my first venture into sustainability age 15 when I attached some balsa wood blades on to a bicycle wheel and attached it to a pole, and it went around. The joy of that moment never left me and is why I still have one spinning away doing not so much apart from making me smile. Last weekend was windy and I managed to get 1kW out of my turbine for a few brief moments but that’s pretty good, equal to 3 solar PV panels, and it works at night too, but in reality it’s only viable in super strong winds. As a rule of thumb if the trees around you are permanently bent from the wind like you see on mountain tops or remote exposed locations then it’s a great choice.

17/01/2026

After 11,5 years we finally replaced our lead batteries with 7 x 7.2 kWh Leoch Lithium LifePO4 batteries. As an illustration of how the industry has moved and in particular reduced size and cost, the original lead AGM batteries cost a little over 7k euros for 28 KWh. Because lead batteries degrade sharply if you deep discharge I was very careful and very rarely went below 50% meaning I would obtain twice the amount of cycles. I was told 5 years life, 7 if you are lucky or in my case 11,5 years if you are super careful. So the 28 kWh battery lead battery was in effect just half that 14kWh. It was fine if you did your big loads like EV car charging when it was sunny and just light loads like lighting at night, plus perhaps a quick toast or warming of soup. We now have 50kWh, almost x4 the effective size for roughly the same price with 2/3 the physical footprint and hopefully 6000 cycles, let’s see in 10-20 years! PS the last months have been quite a struggle as the old lead battery was really dead, if a cloud went over with a big load, off it would go unless I switched on the 22kWh auxiliary battery rebuilt from a salvaged Peugeot. It was kind of fun improvising for a while and even going down to 31 volts which I thought impossible for a 48 volt battery, an education you might say getting every last electron out. Lead is a toxic material of course and should not be prematurely discarded and has gone for recycling. Lithium too does have an environmental footprint but rest assured this piece of kit will also be milked to the maximum Over the next 20 years the comparative carbon, environmental and financial cost of fossil fuels would be astronomically high compared to my solar / battery system and without hesitating is the right way to go. And who knows the technological advances around the corner with sodium batteries and alike?

17/11/2025

Not such a big olive harvest this year but enough to almost fill a 17 litre can, that will last I guess around 6 months, it took a couple of days, so if you work out the hourly rate compared to a regular job it’s not so good, but growing your own food and harvesting is something more than the cash savings, there’s the healthy food of course without pesticides but there’s more, the exercise, being outside and the grounding, de stressing and being with nature. In Greeece you can grow and harvest all year round. We’re planting the broccoli whilst harvesting the oranges and last of the pomegranate. Still crates of Pumkin and Squash from the late summer.

17/09/2025

Our black Nissan Leaf Tekna started life in the UK in 2013 as a smart state of the art electric car with a 80 mile / 128 km 24kWh battery. Things rapidly moved on with Teslas quickly taking over with great styling and 3-4 times the range / battery size. Nevertheless for city driving, the Leaf is still a very impressive car to this day. We acquired our Leaf from a salvage auction in 2020 after receiving a nasty rear end crash, but no damage to the main mechanical and electrical components. It's amazing how quick insurance companies are at righting off vehicles. Thankfully there is a thriving repair industry that saves decent cars from being crushed and we happily used the Leaf for day to day driving. The biggest problem was the depleted battery. At around 60% it was still a usable run around and chose it as a guinea pig for making a V2H Vehicle to House hack via a 4kW grid-tied inverter hooked up to our main house 28kWh battery. It worked but it required bypassing the proper leaf plugs which was not so convenient plus it became tempremental with a number of error codes appearing than needed to be cleared in Leaf Spy. Clearly the Leaf on-board computer knew something was 'Strange'. In late 2023 the computer finally told us the game was up. I believe there was a fault with the pre-charge resistor and main contactors in the main battery pack. So hard to know for sure but trawling through the on line Leaf community gave this impression. It's hard to know if our 'Hack' had caused the problem or not. So what to do? Remove the main battery, open it up and inspect? Or get a new larger 62kWh battery from China? We chose the second option but a risky one. At over 8,000 euros it was a significant investment but nothing compared to the OEM Nissan battery at over twice the price for the same original size. With great relief the Leaf computer accepted it's new battery and we now have a 379km range on full charge, which is absolutely fine for us. It's an extra 200 kg or so heavier so its not quite so quick like having 3 extra passengers on board and I dont expect the same economy. For anyone thinking of swapping a Leaf battery it's not so difficult, it really is plug and play as the manufacturers say but you do need to find a friendly local garage with a lift, a palette truck and a rising table....those batteries are crazy heavy. Next question is what to do with the old battery. Here in Greece there is nobody who recycles and in any case 60% may be rubbish for a car but its great for certain static applications so we'll hook it up for some experiment or other. Because of the suspect contactors inside we will probably convert the 400V battery to a far safer 48V without the need for contactors. Or anyone out there looking for a DIY home set up let me know.

10/08/2025

Thanks again to the Greek Fire Fighters, you did an amazing job, so quickly and bravely, 100% respect....just a couple of hectares of farm land lost but could have been much worse.🙏

18/04/2025

What to do when your ageing (10 years) 28kWh 48volt AGM (Lead)Battery starts to show its age (voltage drops)? Lithium batteries have come down hugely in price and are now the obvious choice, they are compact and can be fully charged and discharged whereas lead will prematurely degrade if you go below half. Our lithium battery started life as a 400 Volts Peugeot 208e, modified beautifully by Andreas to work with 48 volts. Problem is, mixing battery chemistries and age is not possible unless you rig something like we show on this post with the small but more powerful lithium battery charging the lead battery via a dedicated old Studer inverter we had from an old project and a second hand but great quality 30 amp charger. It's a little complicated and inefficient with all the conversions DC-AC-DC but after a few tests with smaller chargers now works well and is a viable solution for other older battery upgrades.

19/03/2025

Having open days and giving training seminars is great fun, so when Volvo asked to come to Helios Eco Lab as part of a training programme run with Dimitris Vintzilaios at PPP Learn we of course agreed. We showcased the whole solar electric ecosystem in order to give the Volvo EV team an immersive experience showing the opportunities and benefits of sustainable practices and in particular demonstrate how solar home charging for example is so very convenient and cheap. Volvo EV communications currently revolves around the vehicle attributes, purchase cost, low running costs, charging, range, performance and so on but the sustainability story is much bigger and Volvo felt, and we agree that there is more to say including the considerable effort made by Volvo to use recycled materials within their supply chain.
The message we have for Volvo and ultimately Volvo customers goes much further than just financial savings and technology. EV and solar EV in particular opens a whole new paradigm where cars are able to power a house or grid and vice versa. Embracing the whole spectrum of solar coupled with EV, customers can see what unshackling from the major energy and fuel networks means. Sounds good on paper but coming here the team were able to see the full extent of the possibilities of the transition to decentralised clean energy.
The environmental perspective we provide here in full too from the use of recycled materials for doors, stairs, furniture, lights and power banks to home grown pumpkin soup for lunch and using repurposed scrap cardboard refrigerator boxes instead of throw away flip charts. Plus of course lots of brainstorming, discussions topped with a Climate Fresc workshop facilitated by Dimitris.

Address

Helios Eco Lab
Kouvarás
19003

Opening Hours

12:00 - 16:00

Website

http://www.dconform.com/

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