I have a friend in the battery business. He keeps an eye out for good batteries that have been used a bit but are still virtually 100%. This happens in industrial applications now and then. If he can find a few, he lets me know.

We need batteries up here. They are an integral part of our ‘power’ system. The more and better batteries you have the more ‘juice’ you can ‘store’ so that you don’t have to run the generator. In the summer, with the solar panels cranked up, we can easily go a week, sometimes ten days, on just what the sun provides.

In the winter, when the winds really blow, I have a small wind turbine that does the same thing – just not as well. Smaller output. The solar panels in the summer work better than the wind turbine in the winter.

Having too few batteries means not being able to store the energy when it is available but not needed at the moment. So, you really need storage capacity. Of course, having too many batteries is not only expensive but, if my generating source is not big enough (too few panels, small wind turbine, puny battery charger for when the genset is running) then the capacity is never utilized. ‘Balancing’ your system is critical.

I needed four more to add to my 8 to get the right balance. I called my ‘battery’ friend.

I was in luck. He had 16 good batteries he was just holding for guys like me. So, I told the folks up here about the other 12.

“Yeah. Please. I need some. Could you get me (2, 4, 8 or one)” depending on the neighbour. So, I ordered all 16.

These puppies are not your basic ‘car’ battery. Each one weighs 150 pounds and is three times the size of a ‘car’ battery. 16 of them weigh over 2300 pounds. Twenty three hundred pounds is stretching the ‘lifting’ capacity of the barge we employ.

By a miracle of cooperation, kindness and professionalism (battery buddy) all 16 batteries got to the pick-up terminal in Vancouver where a ‘hauler’ then picked them up and dropped them off at the barge just North of town at Menzies Bay (Campbell River). The barge guys loaded them on and went about their ports-of-call for a few days and then dropped them on the dock at Surge Narrows.

Elapsed time: five days. Cost: a few hundred dollars. Efficiency and ease: priceless.

Once on the dock, it is every man/woman for themselves. Sal and I hauled the four we wanted down on to my boat and took them to our house. Getting those batteries up the hill will be a challenge. But I’ll rig up something using the funicular or the high-line. We are good.

“Hey! I heard you got a good deal on batteries, Dave. Man, I wished I had heard about that! I really need some. Can you get some more?”

“Well, I can try. My buddy doesn’t always have them, ya know. But I’ll put in the request. We pretty much have to order 16 at a time, tho. Doesn’t make sense due to the cost of shipping to order less. How many you want?”

“Well, uh……….gee………..like………one?”

“That’s OK. If 15 others come forward (at this writing, I already have seven more spoken for), we’ll put in the request.”

By the end of July they might – if my battery buddy has some – get here.

And that is how things get done out here. Slowly. But the slowness is at our end – not the supplier nor the carrier. The ‘pros’ in the city, in the trucking and on the barge are fabulous. It’s us. We are a bit slow on the decision-making and final-stage assembly. That is why – when things take a long time – it’s called ‘Island Time.’