Solar Electric Project

[ultrarunner]

Great project... keep the pictures coming.

Any chance of listing the components with prices after you get it up and running?

 

[hayden]

Any chance of listing the components with prices after you get it up and running?

Here are the major parts, but I'll leave out the prices since they are a moving target. Batteries, for example, have doubled in price since 3RRL did his system 2 years ago. You can find current prices and lots of other good info at the Alternative Energy Store (Solar Panels, Wind Generators, Solar Home Systems, Energy Efficient Appliances and Residential Panels). I'm and advisor to them and they are a great bunch of guys with great knowledge. By the way, I don't get paid as an advisor and have no economic interest in the company.

My system consists of:

24 Sharp 135W solar panels
2 Direct Power pole mounts (6" poles)
2 Midnite Solar combiner boxes
2 Lightning arestors
2 Xantrex XW MPPT charge controllers
4 60A CD breakers for the input and output for each charger
1 Xantrex XW 6048 6KW, 48V Inverter
1 Xantrex XW breaker panel and wiring box
1 Xantrex XW System Controller
1 Xantrex XW Generator controller
1 Xantrex XW gateway for computer monitoring
1 Battery desulfator (I forget the manufacturer)
1 pair 5' 4/0 battery cables
12 Surrette 4-KS-25PS 4V 1350Ah batteries wired in series for 1350Ah @48V

I've left out things like wire, conduit, and other site-specific nits, but it you want to know the details of the wire runs, loss calculations, wire sizing, conduit sizing, etc. I'd be happy to spill my guys on the subject.

I haven't picked the generator yet, but it will either be a Cummins 10KW diesel or a Kohler 10KW diesel. My current generator is an Onan 4kw propane model which has been great, but it's undersized for the new system and has 2500 hrs on it so I'll be retiring it. I have both bulk diesel and bulk propane on site, but I decided to go with diesel because of the overall higher efficiency of a diesel engine, especially at less than full load. I'll be using about 6KW while charging the batteries and at that load a diesel is about twice as efficient as a spark engine. Also, the smallest commercial grade 1800 RPM propane generator from Cummins (and I think Kohler too) is 20KW which is serious overkill for my needs.

The whole system will cost about $55k, with the panels, batteries, and generator (in that order) begin the biggest ticket items.

 

[ultrarunner]

Wow... thanks for the quick reply, materials list and ballpark system cost.

I will check Alternative Energy Store site.

One of my biggest hesitations is theft. Around my neck of the woods... metal theft is a big problem and the thieves seem to have no fear... I can just picture going away for a weekend and being looted.

I've even had the locks cut from my Cat D3 Dozer... not too sure how someone could steal my Dozer without getting caught...

Thanks Again!

 

[RedDirt]

For those thinking of solar water heating look into the "breadbox" design. In the 70's & 80's we lived both off grid and minimal grid for about fifteen years and found the breadbox design to be quite efficient and certainly reasonable and easy to build.

We used two naked 30gal discarded gas fired heater tanks laid horizontally, one above the other, piped in series; the lower one "feeding" the upper one. Cold piped to bottom tank, hot out the top tank. Tanks were placed in a six sided plywood box with a patio door "seconds" sheet of glass (cheap) top. Tanks were spaced about a foot apart and the inside of the box was insulated with foil-faced 1 1/2" or 2" rigid insulation that I sloped at calculated sun angles so sunlight was reflected to the back sides of the tank too. Voids behind the sloped rigid insulation was stuffed lightly with fiberglass insulation batts. Tanks were painted flat black, no fancy solar coatings then. Box faced due south and inclined a bit steeper than sun equinox angle, a tad favoring winter angle. Box had a ply lid that was also rigid insulated. A few times a year I'd adjust the angle of the lid at open position to gain the most reflection I could get from the lid foil faced insulation.

Operation was merely open the lid when the sun hit the box in the morning and close the lid at night. Lid opening in our case was easy as the box was mounted in front and below our front deck on the hillside home site. Two ropes were tied to the deck handrail that were lengthened/shortened to make the lid angle adjustment.

This system was at our year-round home at 3000ft elevation in the Cascade mountains of southern Oregon in the eighties. We lived in a fairly steep river valley meadow so we had mountains east and west that blocked early morning, late afternoon sun. Still, the system produced 100% of all hot water needs for two, including clothes washing, for eight/nine months a year. The remainder of the year it was used in "good" weather but mostly, during the rain/snow season, used as a pre-heater to the coils run through the wood cookstove.

As I recall the total cost of the heater was in the range of $135 -$150 around 1981-82. A day or so each to design/draw plan, build, install. We ran this system about 7-8 years until we moved.

BTW - At the no-grid home, early 70's, refrigeration was a few crocks in the spring overflow flume that ran underneath the house and ran off in a waterfall in front, below, the south porch. Later we had an older propane refrigerator but I never got it running well. Water (of course) was gravity flow spring water. Lights were propane and kerosene lamps; we liked the Aladdin lamps (light equivalent to a propane but silent!). Stove was wood cookstove and a propane stove top for the hottest part of the summer. Music was homemade or a car stereo radio/cassette deck hooked to a 12v battery I charged every couple weeks in the truck. No TV. Space heating was wood. Total annual utility bill was a couple fills of the 20 gal propane tank (at something ridiculous like $.70 or so a gallon!) and about ten gallons of kerosene. Maybe $80 to $100 max a year. We were snowed in for about 4 months a year; I was a timber faller in the summer. then a carpenter. Yes, we had a flush toilet; this was a classy shack!

 

[jdmar]

Absolutely fantastic post. I appreciate all the pics and the links everyone has provided. I have an efficient house (SIPS) but no solar/wind/water power yet. I think I need to get going!
Peter

 

[hayden]

My experience with truck deliveries is that they are always a bit of a fiasco. Today was no exception.

The good news is that the batteries arrived - all 3900 lbs of them - and they are safely on the ground. The driver found our house, which is no small feat, and he brought a truck small enough to get in AND get turned around to get out again. The truck had a lift gate, and he had a pallet jack on-board to maneuver the pallets to the back of the truck and within reach of my tractor. Doesn't sound too bad, does it?

This first problem was that his pallet jack was just a touch too wide to get under the pallets. It would get in an inch or two and wedge on the sides against the pallet frame. I now know an industry that would benefit from standardization - pallet manufacturers. I though the world had already learned this lesson, but apparently not.

So, we messed around for about an hour with different combinations of tow straps, chains, and lifting straps attached to my tractor trying to pull these pallets (and contents too!) out to the back of the truck. It was pretty comical. We finally got the first pallet out by ramming the jack far enough into the pallet that we could lift most of the weight and drag it back.

I was then able to fork it with my tractor's pallet forks, which fortunately are adjustable. This is where I expected trouble since my loader is rated at around 1800-1900 lbs depending on how far in front you are lifting, and each pallet weighed 315 lbs x 6 + the pallet and packing. That's about 1900 lbs if my math is right, and I was worried that the loader wouldn't lift the load and that I'd have to unload one battery at a time. It turns out that the loader CAN lift a 1900 lbs pallet, but the rear wheels can't stay on the ground at the same time. So off I went in search of an accessible, heavy, and quick to attach 3PH implement to act as a counter weight. My rake was accessible and quick to attach, but not the heaviest thing around, but I tried it anyway. Good news, it was enough. I was able to fork the pallet off the back of the truck and get it out of the way. It was definitely right at the limit of the loader. Depending on the position, I could curl but not lift, or lift but not curl.

That was the easy one. The next pallet was partially behind another load so we didn't have a straight pull with the tow strap. Plus, the batteries we way over to one side on the pallet and even a little off one side, so it was even harder to un-weight it enough to move it. But with lots of shoving, jacking, pulling and cussing, we got it to the back of the truck. Now the adjustable forks on the tractor came in handy again because I was able to offset them to compensate for the off center load on the pallet and get the load centered for the tractor. With the loader at it's limits, the last thing I wanted was to tip the tractor over and spill 60 gal of sulfuric acid all over the place.

Finally, two pallets on the ground and covered with a tarp.

You might ask, "why no pictures". Did I mention that it was pouring rain the whole time?

 

[tommu56]

hayden

At least you could get them delivered when I wanted my L16's I had to drive an hour south load them by hand then drive 300 more miles north and unload them by hand. Now I just need more panels Iam at only 250 watts and last week my wife was up there all week with out any sun and batteries were down to 80% when I got there to fire up generator .

tom

 

[schmism]

any intrest in selling your old 4K inverter?

Will it grid tie?

Ive got materials for my otherpower 12' wind turbine aquired, and plan to have it installed by fall. I want to add about 600w of solar in addtion.

mine would be grid tied as i dont want to fuss with rewireing the house to split circuits between offgrid and on grid....

My goal is to produce 50% of our power requirements, and have a long term (4 day +) backup, reduced comsuption durring this period, solution as well as 100% short term needs, measured in hrs not days. Id say we loose power for 2-4 hrs at least once a month.

may not sound bad, but when you came from a location in st louis that lost power twice in 8 years for about an hr even when entire parts of the city were out due to storms, its a lot.

 

[hayden]

any intrest in selling your old 4K inverter?

Will it grid tie?

Yes to both questions, but I have a tentative buyer for most if not all of my old system. If it falls through, I'll let you know.

 

[varmint]

Once again, TBN provides a great surprise discovery: this thread! About the only thing I can add is this: your diesel generator can provide a good source of heat as well as electricity- I once meet some folks who had a big CNC machine operation on their family farm, which had utiltiy power, but not the 3 phase that their CNC required. So, since they were too far from the needed 3 phase to afford installation, they solved the problem with a Cat. diesel generator. Being in the NE, the waste heat was put to good use most of the time.
We have a horse barn with the perfectly oriented roof for solar panels, so I am getting interested in installing a 4-5KW (?) system, not because we have to, but because it's the right thing to do. We already drive a hybrid, sold our pickup truck because I hardly needed it, use CFBs, gas demand water heater, dual flush toilets, etc., and seems like solar would be great, grid-tied of course. Just wish there was a way to make our old farmhouse tighter. Really enjoyed your posts, and look forward to more!