New and Confused and in desperate need of some help

[thastinger]

I don't know what kind of margins a typical greenhouse operates at but I'm pretty sure that it isn't going to be enough to do that x40. 24Kwh/day via PV is a ton of power and expense. I'm not sure what equipment is available to you or what your insolation hours are but in USD it would cost you probably 15000.00 each and then you would have battery replacement x40 sets every few years after that.

[barry]

G'day one and all.

I am in South Africa. Here most South Africans are not doing to well. Power prices are skyrocketing. Businesses selling solar are really taking advantage and hiking prices and their services. Therefore we are considering doing this ourselves.

We run a nursery. This is becoming a difficult enterprise as we use a lot of power.

We have on 40 greenhouse tunnels. Each running a 5.5kw exhaust fan. We are now slowly changing them over to 1kw's. It is going to help but we need to reduce costs further drastically. If not a lot of people are going to be without work as we employ almost 200 people.

What we want to do is a "step by step month by month" kind of solution.

Every month we want to purchase enough equipment to run 1 exhaust fan. Next month the same for the next one and so on. These fans run 24 hours a day. By the way these are 3 phase.

Any help will be great! Cheap and reliable solution.

What would we need:

3phase 1 Kw Exhaust Fan to run 24 hours a day (off the grid)
- Solar Panels
- Inverter (Must it be True Sine Wive?)
- Charge Controller (MPPT? LVD etc.)
- Batteries (Deep Cycle)
- Anything else? Circuit breaker or fuses.

I have been doing some reading. I know what to do with plants but this is way out of my comfort zone.

Thanks a stack.

Regards,
Barry