New to forum- advice on solar options?

[Lucie]

Hi folks, We are starting a homestead and want to run solar for our future household needs. We have an existing 48v 240w system to run our deep well pump. This was the first deep well solar system the well co. ever did so we are all learning. They said that we have 220v from our inverter. Our water pumping needs will be substantial so we're wondering what would be the best route for providing 110v AC and possibly DC to our cabin. The cabin site is between 110 and 150 ft away from the well pump solar panels and controller shed. Is there an efficient way to upgrade the system we have or should we consider a seperate system for our household needs? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you. -Lucie

[GreenPowerVideos]

You'll need to make some decisions

Lucie-

You need a separate system. That is what I as an installer would do.

Installing a system for the cabin would require this thinking process:

1. You have to determine what you want to power and how much power it takes per month. This is done by using a Kill-A-Watt meter or manually with the equipment's power labeling. You will do this by adding up how many Kilowatt hours you need /mo.
That 1000W for an hour.

2. 6 watts of panels makes one KWH a month. So, multiply your monthly KWH needs (daily X 30) by 6. That's how much power your panels will have to put out. Actually, you'll need to add at least 20% for a safety margin- as there are system losses.

3. You'll then need to figure out the total current your panels are putting out (wattage / voltage) and multiply by 20-25X. That is the size of the battery bank in Amp hours you'll need. The battery bank voltage can be 24V if you don't run any 12V RV-style appliances in the cabin.

4. You then need to buy a charge controller in the watt size of your panel array. I'd get a good MPPT style one. Pay the $$ for it now, or loose the power you paid for in the panels by using a poor charge controller. The controller manages charging the batteries.

5. You then need to determine the best location for the panels.. and fab up mounting frames of treated lumber or metal. You can mount them on the roof if that has sun exposure. Sun exposure has to be over 4 hours... total exposure is best. I set them in the garden and run wire up to the house.

6. You then have to determine the wire gauges for the connections using the charts in the manual from the charge controller. Size does matter. Go big! Short and big.

7. Breakers are used to disconnect each element in the line-up. Breakers must be between 1.2 and 1.4X the maximum current rating you expect at that point.. and they go between all the parts.. panels, charge controller, battery to the house...

8. You must ground the panel array and battery box components with 8 foot ground rods and less than 4 feet of 4 gauge wire.


OK, dinner time! I spelled this all out in plain english over 5 months on video. It is about 4 hours of video. You CAN do this yourself. Installers charge about what the hardware costs to install it. Yea, multiply the hardware cost by two. You can legally do this.. and physically do this. You just need the information.


Hope this helps!

Bob Nagy

[Mike90250]

Well, not sure what you have. 240W of PV won't run much of a 220V pump for very long.

I may have somewhat the same conditions you have, it all depends on your pump system, do you pump into a 40 gal pressure tank, or a 500 water tank for gravity feed?

If using a pressure tank, you will not have much capacity to pump at all after 3pm or before 9am.

I'm pumping about 2,000 gallons daily for a large orchard, have 9,000 gallons of storage (3, 3,000 gl tanks) and have timer set to only run pump 11am - 3pm.
My 1/2 hp pump consumes 1,000 watts while running, and while the sun is high, I can still recharge the batteries that power the shop and fridge.

Do you have any idea of your household needs ?


solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar

Powerfab top of pole PV mount | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 400A battery bank | 15, Evergreen ESA 205 fa3 "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel |

[Naptown]

I am seeing mixed output from the OP
On one hand she or he says it is 220 v
In another section she says the pump is 48 volt.
This could be a case of a hybrid system charging a 48 volt battery bank and then converting to 220 volt or something else. What is the case?