New guy! lots of questions ! LOTS of Sun!!!

[The Hatian]

Hi , Im thank full for anyone who can help me solve this problem that i have . I am going to Haiti in July to build a self sustaining solar/well system that will allow for fresh water to be brought to people out there as well provide electricity for a small home. heres my dilema:
1. I am not "too" familiar with Ohm's laws wattage, volts, amperage, KWHs
2. I Know a charge controller is Key since im using batteries but i dont know how many amps it should be set at
3. I need enough energy to power a refrigerator, light provide lighting to several energy saver bulbs, and other small appliances ( its ok to just give a raw average)
4. I know i will need an inverter but what specifications
5. I know i will need at least 2 batteries in my battery bank but is more NEEDED or just better ? if so how many ?
6. and finally i plan on using an 85 watt solar panel to provide the optimal energy needed for the pump but should i have another panel ? if so how many watts ?
* Ive included a raw sketch of this venture (please disregard any of the numbers watts volts as i may be incorrect in whats sufficient) I am in need of your tips and advice to get this going . i ship my materials out through cargo on april 15th. Below is the link to the solar well pump that i will use to connect to the solar panel. a simple on off switch system (not being connected to the batteries. Thank you so much all
PS i get about 14 hours of sun in Haiti per. day
Belo

http://www.solarpumps.com/files/Quic...SSBLPumps2.jpg

[Sunking]

No one can answer your questions. We need to know how many watt hours you need in a day. I hardly doubt a 85 watt panel is going to even come close to your needs.

[Mike90250]

to power a fridge, even a small one, you wil need a lot of solar way more than 2, 85 w panels.

[Sunking]

to power a fridge, even a small one, you wil need a lot of solar way more than 2, 85 w panels.

Spot on Mike depending on pump size I think he is looking at more like 1000 to 2000 watt solar panels and a few tons of batteries.

[Mike90250]

Well Pump, how deep, how many Gallons per Minute how much horsepower ?

Fridge - even a mini-fridge will consume almost 1KW of power per day, you can get
a high efficenicy fridge (Energy Star in USA) that is full size, but you will need at least 1.5KW of panels, and theft proof racks for them.

Plan on at least a 24V or 48V system with a large inverter to power the well pump.


Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV
Powerfab poletop 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 | Midnight ePanel

[The Hatian]

re:

No one can answer your questions. We need to know how many watt hours you need in a day. I hardly doubt a 85 watt panel is going to even come close to your needs.

Ok thanks for getting the ball rolling. I guess
My real issue is I don't know how to calculate how much energy I will need. :/ and if I were to support a fridge is it the watts in the panels that matter ?? Or the number of batteries in my bank ??

[The Hatian]

re: well pump

Spot on Mike depending on pump size I think he is looking at more like 1000 to 2000 watt solar panels and a few tons of batteries.

True , but I've contacted the manufacturer and I was informed that an 80 watt panel would allow me to get the gallons per min flow I'm looking for which is about 3 out 4 gallons per minute. I would like to connect the panel straight to the well pump with an on off switch. (Running 3 hours per day straight tops!)

[russ]

Hi Hatian - Welcome to Solar Panel Talk!

To know how to size a system you have to tell the guys about how many watts you would consume daily.

List out each appliance and the power consumption plus how long each will be operated each day. There is not really any standard number. Appliance sticker will tell maximum consumption but that would oversize everything and make it even more expensive.

A Kill A Watt meter can be used to measure the consumption. For something like a fridge you need to have the peak amps plus the daily consumption.

How many lights, what wattage and how many hours a day.

The pump you pointed out does not do what you think - from their site - 'Max flow rate 3.0 gpm at 40 volts and no lift or pressure. Flow decreases as lift and pressure increase'.

I read that to mean that at 185' you would get a trickle out of the pipe. The document does not mention how many watts but the supplier that told you one 85 watt panel must have misunderstood or you did.

You need to have a depth for the well, daily gallons to be pumped and current draw from the manufacturer to determine that consumption. That pump is designed to be used with an open tank - not a pressurized system.

Russ

[The Hatian]

Hi Hatian - Welcome to Solar Panel Talk!

To know how to size a system you have to tell the guys about how many watts you would consume daily.

List out each appliance and the power consumption plus how long each will be operated each day. There is not really any standard number. Appliance sticker will tell maximum consumption but that would oversize everything and make it even more expensive.

A Kill A Watt meter can be used to measure the consumption. For something like a fridge you need to have the peak amps plus the daily consumption.

How many lights, what wattage and how many hours a day.

The pump you pointed out does not do what you think - from their site - 'Max flow rate 3.0 gpm at 40 volts and no lift or pressure. Flow decreases as lift and pressure increase'.

I read that to mean that at 185' you would get a trickle out of the pipe. The document does not mention how many watts but the supplier that told you one 85 watt panel must have misunderstood or you did.

You need to have a depth for the well, daily gallons to be pumped and current draw from the manufacturer to determine that consumption. That pump is designed to be used with an open tank - not a pressurized system.
Thank you Russ, I will start by calculating each device that I will plug into the system and label how many hours of likely usage. I feel that once I get the total I can work backwords to get the inverter needed/ the amount of batteries/ the type of charge controller/ and the amount and watts of the Solar panel. Thank you I wll try and calculate the kilo what hours per day tonight
Russ

Thank you Russ, I will start by calculating each device that I will plug into the system and label how many hours of likely usage. I feel that once I get the total I can work backwords to get the inverter needed/ the amount of batteries/ the type of charge controller/ and the amount and watts of the Solar panel. Thank you I wll try and calculate the kilo what hours per day tonight

[russ]

I said the pump would put out a trickle at 185' depth - that was wrong as the graph shows 1 GPM (approximately) at zero pressure at that depth.

Russ

[The Hatian]

Hi guys , I think I figured it out. I checked the numbers for the appliances I will use the most and divided them by the year and then to the month and finally by the day and the result was , for 10 cfl bulbs a refrigerator and a small tv I would use about 60 KWHs per month . (Now the system will never run more than 8-10 hrs per day except for the fridge). I am in desperate need to solve this equation backwards. I would like to get your suggestions on what may be the best amount of 12volt deep , proper inverter, proper charge controller and finally panels, this is a charity project so I aim to keep cost low. I am truly a novice but I know there is power in Green Energy. Thanks

[Mike90250]

Hi guys , I think I figured it out. I checked the numbers for the appliances I will use the most and divided them by the year and then to the month and finally by the day and the result was , for 10 cfl bulbs a refrigerator and a small tv I would use about 60 KWHs per month . (Now the system will never run more than 8-10 hrs per day except for the fridge). I am in desperate need to solve this equation backwards. I would like to get your suggestions on what may be the best amount of 12volt deep , proper inverter, proper charge controller and finally panels,

60KWh / 30 days = 2kwh a day. You system will run at about 50% efficiency, and only have 4 hour days in winter. Lets allow 1 cloudy day before you HAVE to start the genset, so that's 4KWH consumed [in 2 days]. It will take close to 8KWH to replace that, so 8KWh / 4 hours = 2KW array size. This would be the very smallest PV array to not have to run the genset daily.
You need 8KW of battery, so @ 12V, that's 666 amps. The largest batteries I know of are 400ah/6V. You would need 4 of them, giving you 12V @ 800ah.
The minimum charge current would be about 7% or 56 amps, 2Kw of PV, can supply 133A, so you are OK there, you just need 2, 60 rated charge controllers to manage that.

this is a charity project so I aim to keep cost low. I am truly a novice but I know there is power in Green Energy. Thanks

But power is not free, but from the grid, it's nearly free.