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You didn't say you had no grid access. That's a different story. I'm not your enemy! I run off grid with intertie options because I can and that's still the best way to do it IF you have grid access. That's the point I'm making.
Again, my first statement was "it depends on where you live". In your case you have very low usage, do you live alone? That makes a difference too. Insulation is fine but then if the house is too tight you need an air to air exchanger, also not everyone has the option of adding massive insulation. I think you're a relatively unique case. How many people don't have access to the grid? Being in shape has nothing to do with living off the grid! Come on. What does it mean to be in good shape? Someone can run a marathon and think they are healthy That's called physically fit, Jim Fix ran marathons and dropped dead of a heart attack! Being healthy is another story and, again, it has nothing to do with living off the grid! I think we have to evaluate the op's situation and then see which is the best path to follow. Not everyone can, or should, live off the grid, it's not better or worse, it depends on variables. If you have six kids and live in the burbs' then living off the grid is probably not for you. Rob |
Yes there are many variables to how to live off grid , and the why can vary quite a bit to . I have grid access at my new site , old site would have cost me over $100,000 for a single swer line to the house .
Old site It had a creak that flowed 3 to 4 L a second in low flow summer (spring fed ran all year) in high flow times It was 10 feet wide and 3 feet deep slope was 273 m length 75m fall . I fitted a hydro ram pump at the top running off a fall of 2m that pumped water up to a 135,000 L water tank at the top of the property , this ran back down a 3 inch poly pipe to the main house and fed fire fighter sprinklers with 16m head . In a bush fire you opened one valve and 1 ah around the house was wet in a few seconds and would last several hours around the house. Line then ran back down to the bottom of the creek for a fall of close to 100m into a pelton wheel generator producing 1000v AC run back up to the main house and used to charge a 1000 ah 48v lead acid battery bank. (ex forklift battery bought at scrap value) system was assisted with 2 kw of solar panels. This system cost under $3000 Aus complete (using second hand bits and bobs) ran for 4 years with me looking after it , is still going strong (battery is tired but still serviceable) with a pair of green horns running it (with strict instruction written before I left) another 5 years later. Should never have sold it (divorce and offered silly money for something I paid a pittance for 5 years before) 160 ah of bush in the hills of Victoria Australia. If your an energy hungry type off grid solar is going to be expensive , more frugal will do just fine in temperate climates , LIPo cells are great but still very expensive , large format are pricey here and the Tesla wall costs $10K Aus for the smaller unit here. Over 1000's of off grid setups are running and have been for years here in Aus mostly in far flung places where grid is never going to go or is just up the road but cost is prohibitive. There are quite a few being off grid set up in towns now though , mostly enthusiasts doing fit outs the pros are all about grid Tie here . Feed in tariffs are almost non existent some company's simply take the excess and give nothing, almost all increase your monthly connection rate (some by 50%) being "on grid" is becoming less than ideal long term. |
I have used both lead acid and lithium.
For a large build I would stick with lead acid. To build a 100ah 13 volt battery it would cost well over $600. To build a 225ah 12 volt battery it would cost about half that. Pretty easy to figure out which one I would go with. When I need portability and high mobility I go with lithium. |
If you factor in depth of discharge between lead acid and lithium chemistry , Lithium becomes far more cost effective in stationary large format .
If your running lead acid to a maximum of 80% discharge your 1000ah 48 volt pack (commonly used here in Aus) (and if looked after should last 15 years) is only 200ah in reality or about 8,000 watt hours in usable Ac in home after losses . A lithium pack will live just as long at 80% discharge , so a 250 ah pack is giving you the same usable storage.... |
"After all that you will still need to buy a backup generator. Typically start up costs are usually starting well over $20,000."
Really? I see turnkey 10-15 kW units from Generac, and others for 1/4 of that . . . Steve |
Battery choices
It depends on the application and all batteries have their strengths and weaknesses.
Lithium batteries are made of small individual cells, sure they're great - used and charged correctly - but deplete them below the minimum low point and the batteries are finished, over charge them and like AGM batteries they toast so you have to use an inverter with a variable charge algorithm and set them up properly. I don't know what systems detect bad cells, my inverters don't have that ability. I guess you have to keep an eye on your voltages. L/A are more forgiving, yes, you have to set them up properly but they aren't as critical as lithium. I've been running Rolls for about 10 years now, but I only use them when the grid is down and for this application they're fine, in fact I think lithium batteries might even be overkill for me, I'll see when these quit which batteries are the better choice. I like AGM batteries in off grid/intertie systems. No maintenance and low usage, but they are costly for what you get so lithium might be a better choice. Rob |
If my lithium batteries discharge too far one time they are likely finished.
If I charge them while the cell temperatures are below 20°F I lose 20% of their capacity. If the charge controller shorts out their finished. If you need more power from lead acid just buy a bigger battery. It will be cheaper than lithium. I know only about half the amp hours are useable in lead acid. So what? Now you just have marginally more amp hours than lithium, still for half the price. Why else did you think I was comparing a 225ah lead to a 100ah lithium. To me 225ah really means 110ah useable. Then day to day only around 50ah of that 225ah should be used. With lithium you don't really want to discharge them below 40% or charge them above 90 to 95% day to day. Still never going to buy lithium for a large stationary install. Plus Lithium batteries are non recyclable. Lead acid batteries by weight are the most recycled consumer product on earth. |
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Lithium has a longer lifespan. It is recyclable. Safer. Virtually no maintenance. There are those who will mistake operational needs for problems. Nothing can be done about that. Engineer solutions is what most of us do. Some folks who own pb based systems still argue. Woad faces are common. But a couple years ago Princeton researchers proved what lithium folks have been saying. Right now lithium is cheaper on a per cycle basis than pb. To go off grid is completely within reach. And I would suggest, the moral responsibility of those with the brains and budget to do so. A Tesla battery or two (now available). An SMA inverter (now available). Few solar panels. Day to put it together. No worries. |
If you discharge a deep cycle lead acid to 50% compared to 80% you've taken 10 years off its service life....
You can discharge most large format lithium down to 20% will little ill effect , management systems for lithium are common cheap and reliable , and lithium is almost 100% recyclable just like lead acid .... Don't get me wrong , I have a 500 ah 48 volt bank of sealed AGM lead acid Mil spec units in the shed that will grow to around 2000 ah for the house I'm in. I choose these as I can buy them at scrap price after 3 years use (and I know they have sat the whole time on charge except for a few cycle capacity tests) and at 20% DOD they have a 15 year warranty, Not that I could claim it. By the time they're dead Lithium will be as cheap as lead acid. |
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If you have a lithium battery pack, then you have a lot of low voltage single cells. How do you change it? With all the problems of L/A batteries they still have a place in home installs. You keep saying "To go off grid is completely in reach." For whom? Certainly not the person living in the suburbs on a 100 x 100 lot. you can't use your situation as the paradigm for everyone. This is how people get in trouble, you have to qualify your statement. Rob |
Still can't go down to the battery store in my small town and buy lithium anything.
What do you do when the lithium bricks? Sit in the dark for a week till a new one shows up? In the US lithium batteries are not being recycled last time I checked, because it costs more to recycle them than it does to build new ones from raw materials. And they are supposed to be getting cheaper so even less initiative to recycle them. |
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Depending on what sort of lead acid battery you use (IE single cell flooded or sealed lead acid AGM) swapping out a single cell or loosing 5 good cells because one goes dead in a 12v unit is either the same or worse than a single lithium cell going bad. Second :- Most large format lead acid management systems do not look on a per cell basis , a few do , most rely on you personally checking with a hydrometer for single cells or management burps cells for balance (not best setup for cell life long term. Third:- Lithium battery management generally works on a per cell basis and most good units can switch out a bad cell, if it goes bad or in charging , more modern lithium "packs" like the Tesla unit run direct PV voltages (350v etc) so run more cells than your average lead acid unit and can operate with several dead cells switched out. Really smart units are linked to the web and could call out maintenance before total battery failure is an issue. Forth :- several off grid systems operate here in Aus in our larger city's one comes to mind that is a particularly difficult install. Located in Melbourne Victoria Australia , coastal town in a major capital city of mainland Aus Latitude: 37°48′50″ S Longitude: 144°57′47″ E Elevation above sea level: 25 m = 82 ft Average weather data Climate statistics for Australian locations As you can see not Arctic conditions of cooler parts of Europe/Canada but far from sunny ideal Solar conditions. Yet with a 14m X 45m plot surrounded by 12m high vibrated concrete and brick industrial buildings and only a single car width lane way a 2 bedroom house was built from recycled building materials for less than $40,000 Aus (average build price for an Aus 4 bedroom home is $360,000). It uses evacuated tube hot water , 100% battery backed (lead acid) off grid solar , 100% rain water , reticulation system removed (at great pain of council and nashing of teath in protest) , All waste water is processed on site to better than drinking water status on site using composting/worm toilet/reed bed system. Heating is wood fired with a grain heater planed I believe (I haven't visited the site in many years, have lost touch with them) 3 people lived there , 2 adults and an older teen. They had a significant garden, one being Vegetarian this was a strong priority , large parts of their diet came from the house plot. This all "just" out of the CBD (about 5km) in an industrial area on a site no one wanted (to small for a industrial shed, bad access etc, dark and surrounded by sheds scared off most people looking to build a house) block sold for a pittance because of this , in an area just 2km up the road a block half the size sells for $1.1 million with a Victorian style terrace house . 100% off grid is not out of reach of most , Settlers lived in wood shacks in places with permafrost areas for 100's of years "Off grid" . What it comes down to is what are you happy to live with ? Live in a tent year round and a led light powered by a 12v AGM and solar panel might be enough to keep you happy. Live in a 6 bedroom house in the Arctic circle with energy hungry kids and like to weld with a 250 amp welder every day consuming 30 kw/h a day and your up for some big coin. BUT its not imposable . |
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No in America recycling anything is very low just like here in Aust you ship most of your stuff to Mexico we ship it to china or India. Yet with politicians being lobbied by green groups , legal tightening of environmental laws causing business to find the cheaper option it will happen , look to Europe they went from 2.5% battery recycling to 45% in a few years. Lithium Battery's are full of high value metals , not recycling them is madness. |
You should be able to find 6 volt golf cart batteries. I would suggest that you start out with them first until you learn the ropes..
I've been totally off grid for over 20 yrs.. |
Another idea at least for winter time usage would be a combined heat and power unit. Small diesel generator with a heat exchanger and a storage tank to store the heated water. While the engine runs it also generates electricity that could be used to charge your batter bank especially in the cloudy winter months.
Anyway to answer the main question in this thread yes I would like to be off grid at some point or at least not totally dependent on it. I actually plan to build a energy efficient house in the next year or two. If it works out I plan on using the mchp ape ouch along with solar and batteries to do the primary usage of the house. I already have a 13hp 2 cylinder diesel motor and a generator head and 1kw solar. I'm even concede ring a cistern as I will have 1700sqft hoist and a 2000sqft garage both with metal roofs |
Might I suggest some reading on lithium? I see posts based on an inadequate level of knowledge. By ex. I read "Lithium batteries are made of small individual cells". While in fact there are 1000ah battery cells readily available. Also there seems to be a lack of understanding what a BMS is ... Assumptions based on poor research are rarely pretty to read.
I would like to share a story if I might. Over the last 12 months I've seen two people go off grid. One guy put in a 4,000 dollar pb battery. He didn't go lithium because of confusing reports. This is very sad as he has no real technical training. This battery pack is unlikely to last more than 3 years. Right from purchase the pack sat untended and uninstalled for six months. Ouch right. Of course with a lithium pack, which would have cost 50% more but given him more capacity and at least double and probably 4 times the lifespan ... no problem. The second fellow put in 5,000 lbs of pb based battery. Again he did so because lithium is being inundated with PR flack hack bs. He thought, better safe than sorry. His installer, getting a nice commission on the pb battery and none off lithium of course also pushed for that option. Unfortunately, by the time he built a special addition to his house for the huge battery the cost was pretty comparable to lithium. But having no experience with lead he has no idea the pain in the derriere he has let himself in for. The poor performance. The constant maintenance. Etc. PS-One might look at BMS (battery management system) Rec and "mini bms" are neat systems. lifepo4 SMA inverter sunny boy (some amazing products for off grid/grid tie-even a new inverter designed for high voltage lithium systems) victron (excellent stuff for smaller systems) balqon (beautiful lifepo4 batteries for the plug and play crowd) also you might have a look for posts using off grid system leaf battery off grid system volt battery some neat stuff happening. off grid tech is improving so fast. it's a wonderful time to watch and learn. |
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Thank you for this post creeky! I'm printing a copy of it so I can read up on the topics you've listed. I've heard of a few of them and glossed them right over because I am not ready to sever my grid connection anytime soon. I am more than happy to look at the possibilites out there because, as they say, "stuff happens." |
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I know for my next battery build I am using 60ah or 100ah prismatic cells and copper buss bars. |
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Cost for Lithium here in any quality cell is pricey , more so than prices in the states by a good margin, mostly due to volumes imported here (we only have a population of 22 million for the whole country .... Yet I see BMS are better understood here than over your side of the world , or so it seems by the average punter. Even with the high prices we currently have I see lithium in large format very competitive with lead acid , I'm just lucky to have access to cheap lead acid. Volumes of electric and hybrid cars here is low , battery packs will be priced very high for some time here. Parting out crashed cars to to assist in cost recovery then claim the battery might be an option , But not for me yet. |
Location...location.....location...
Hey all, have been reading this thread all week with great interest but just now actually have a few free minutes to jump in! There are of course MANY considerations when thinking about going off-grid. As many have said here already, and I would agree, the grid is probably the cheapest form of back-up battery - BUT there are many caveats with that statement.
Accessibility: if you can't connect to it - you can't use it. Although currently connected to the grid for USEAGE, I cannot connect to PROVIDE. I will spare the political crap that the originator of this thread is all to aware of here in Ontario Canada.....suffice it to say that while monster turbines are going up all around us, our utility has no way to be able to handle the massive spike in power output from a few 10kw arrays....(blood pressure rising) :confused: Cost: As costs for electricity rise - off-grid becomes more and more cost effective. As randen stated in his original post - we are presently at around $.26-.28/kwh. With my small diesel tractor and the PTO mounted generator I can produce power for $.32/kwh so we aren't that far apart on cost for my most costly form of production. Location: Like the old real estate adage says "location,location,location" If you live downtown in a major city - it is going to be more difficult although as others have pointed out - not impossible to cut the cord. For me, I have 100 acres so I can put up as many panels as I need. If you able to supplement with wind and/or hydro - awesome! You will burn less or no fuel in the winter to run a generator. 20 acres of my property is woodlot, so my heat is also taken care of. In 20 years I've yet to have to cut a live tree - cleaning up everything that dies or falls over has heated our home...and my wife likes it warm.:thumbup: Lifestyle: This is probably the hardest one to judge. As others have said the needs of a 4500 sq.ft. house differ greatly from a 1700 sq.ft. house. Again in my situation I have planned my system so that we continue to live as we do now....otherwise I think I might find myself single again.... Due to our "time of day" rates for electricity we have all basically had to become vampires in order to do everything we need to do as it is 3X more expensive during the day. Using power during the day will be a welcome return to "normalcy" for us once we cut the cord. Resourcefulness: If you can design, build and maintain your system it is obviously going to be more economically feasible. Many in this thread alone have given valuable tips for cutting electricity needs. I ran 240v Hobbs meters on my electric hot water tank elements for a year. This showed me that hot water was 30% of my electrical use. I invested in an evacuated tube solar water heater with the 50 gal tank mounted on top. I have a small circulating pump hooked to a 10w panel that runs water between the HWT inside and the solar unit when the panel gets sun. By 4PM I have 90 gallons (40 inside 50 out) of 130 degree water. For the past 5 years I shut my HWT off at the panel from May-Sept. and I live above the 42nd parallel. I also have an external heat pump to add to the HWT for winter use (summer project!) which should take care of my hot water needs throughout the winter at substantially less cost. I appreciate all of your feedback - this truly is a great site and everyone is most helpful! Tim |
Hi Tim,
I had long talks with the president of our electric coop. The biggest hurdle for them is demand. Everyone comes home after work and turns on the air conditioning, TV's, takes showers, etc. What this means is that the power company has to have a reserve for this spike in power and that costs us more. If they didn't have the surge the grid would be able to run much less overhead and costs to consumers would be less. What NY Power Authority did was really neat, they have a reservoir that PV power pumps water into all day. When the power surge comes the water runs down tubes and powers generators to absorb the extra power. The thing is that people have no idea how fragile the grid is, worse they don't care and they care less about conservation of power. I constantly get people asking me if they can heat their 5k house with a couple of PV modules. We know who won the Super Bowl but we have no idea of our own needs! That will only change when the grid comes falling down. A single relay took down most of the US East coast several years ago, that's how fragile the grid is. Rob |
Hey Rob!
Yes I remember "the blackout" well. As of 9:45AM Nuclear is producing 8000Mw and Hydro 5000Mw Gas 1500Mw Solar 96Mw Wind 73Mw and biofuel 36Mw. Nuclear and Hydro are our main base (88%) and the gas ramps up top cover peaks. Our spikes are actually very gradual and fairly easily managed. The reason I say it is mostly political is because.....well.....it is. I have applied over 25 times over the past 5-7 years to grid-tie, with systems ranging from 10kw down to 1kw - all have been denied due to "lack of capacity from our feeder station". I could believe that, if dozens of new houses hadn't been built just in a 2 mile radius of my place - all connected to this same inadequate feeder. They are able to provide power TO you just not FROM you. In all honesty a 1kw system probably wouldn't even see an electron leave my property, let alone make it past all those new houses to the feeder station. This is what I mean about it being political. Just this week our provincial government has decreed that natural gas as a heating fuel will be banned in the coming years and everyone will have to use electricity.....double speak for sure. In all fairness though my desire to grid-tie isn't sustainable. If we all did it or were able to the utility would fold. It works solely to my advantage as I use them as my battery, yet doesn't address the main issue - we all want power when we want it and want to store it when we don't. Whether it is on our electricity bill to be carried forward or in a battery bank in the shed....We are a society that wants what we want...when we want it! As long as we as individuals are willing to pay for that ( off grid is a perfect example ) then combining our knowledge, successes and failures ( like on this forum) is I believe the best way to go about that. Tim |
Tim,
I think you're pretty much right. I've contoured the perfect set up for me but I don't think it's the best for my utility but that's technology and technology is what changes how we do things. I see a future where every house is autonomous and power lines are the anachronism. We're getting to that. I remember when satellite dishes first came out, they were these mammoth things with elaborate control systems to pick satellites. Home power will go the same way and the politics of single point control of energy won't be able to hold off the technology or simplicity of individual systems. Rob |
So back to Randen's initial question......I apologize for getting somewhat off topic....
Plans are indeed in the works to "cut the cord" or "go dark"! I've had a micro-offgrid system working for a couple of years now to run my wood kiln. As we have been hit with the Emerald ash borer I decided to make new flooring for the house rather than firewood out of the hundreds of ash trees that died. A 420w 2-panel homemade tracker charges a 12v /1000ah battery bank via an Outback FM60 charge controller. A small modified-sinewave inverter then powers the kiln. This has allowed me to make mistakes and fine tune the system at a level that is manageable and allowed me to collect lots of data. My plans for off grid equipment are as follows: 40 @ Eclipsall 250w panels (10kw) 6 @ Canadian solar 205w panels (1.2kw) 3 @ Jingwang (or something like that) 210w panels (0.6 kw) 20 @ single-axis polar trackers (homemade) 2 @ Magnum MS4448PAE inverters 2 @ Magnum PT-100 charge controllers ( was going to use outback FM80's but these new controllers allows me to get away with 2 instead of 3 controllers) Batteries are still up in the air - I already have 700ah (48v) of reclaimed AGM's that I will start with and add a few more strings as needed. They probably have another 5 years left in them. 1 @ solar shed! This is my holdup right now - of our 6 kids, 4 have decided to get married over the past 4 years - let's just say the "shed fund" is rather depleted. Hopefully in two weeks when the 4th is married the shed will begin! I want everything out in the shed - the front half will be a pool shed and the back half will house the batteries, inverters, charge controllers and anything else I might need out there. I'm hoping (planning) that the well insulated shed will be heated by the inverters,etc in the winter months, and cooled via AC with excess PV in the summer. Tim |
Here is a different take on home batteries, that is very interesting:
Saltwater Battery | Safe Sustainable Batteries | Aquion Energy http://www.aquionenergy.com/wp-conte...2/stack_02.jpg |
The saltwater battery looks very interesting but a Tesla battery pack still has my attention. The power capacity of 85 kw is quite attractive. We're in the process of installing 4 kw of solar and shortly after an additional 6 kw.
The 10 kw of panels will net us about 14,000 kwh/year First thing first 4 kw's installed to power the house's air-conditioning and charging the car/truck. The electronics is going to be a little tricky. Looking at islanding the Enphase micro inverters. Randen |
Randen,
I have looked into islanding the Enphase microinverters. Supplying a 60 Hz, 240 V source to "trick" the inverters is not hard. More difficult is balancing the load. It looks to me like a dump load is absolutely necessary to keep output voltage in limits. Not hard to do - a large resistive element (hot water tank, element from a 240 V oven, etc). Harder is to do seamless switching between your true load and the dump load. Thoughts? Steve |
Steve
I've been looking at a small pure sine wave inverter (100w)240v 60htz. I believe its purpose is to sink a larger format inverter. As far as balancing, the two loads I'm looking at are 240v so balancing maybe a non issue. I've seen another fellow use a Magna sine which is a bi-directional inverter battery charger/inverter and its a pure sine wave. I've been cautioned to make sure the sine wave is spot on. As of yet work is keeping me hoppin. I have the Enphase inverters here in a box and the panels are still on their pallets. No time to play. Randen |
[QUOTE=NeilBlanchard;50236]Here is a different take on home batteries, that is very interesting:]
Hi Neil, the Aquion batteries are quite interesting however the amount required kind of puts them out of range. Each stack is only capable of 10amps, so I would need 20 stacks to cover max load on the inverters. That takes up a lot of room in the battery room, but leaves lots of room in my wallet! I also like the Redflow zinc-bromide unit: Redflow ZBM 3 - Redflow Limited I'd only need two of those babies - much less floor space and smaller dent in the wallet. They are also coming out with a "powerwall" sized unit that you can just plonk outside that will store 10kwh and 100% DOD daily, it may be a year or so out though. Exciting times for battery technologies for sure - I feel we're one good technology away from a mass exodus from the grid. Tim |
Randen, does SMA not have a solution for this? They have an inverter designed to go directly from PV to load.
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It was my understanding when I read about the new SMA inverter that does PV direct to load in an outage, that it only does this within a very narrow parameter up to a max output of 1500w as I recall.
If I were to go through the effort, and I may one day do this, I'd just use an SMA Sunny Island {or 2 so I'd have 240v available} and probably a Leaf battery or two. I currently have a Sunny Boy 5000 on my larger array, so it'll work nicely with it. |
Randen,
When I spoke of balancing it was not to balance the two 120 legs - rather it is production vs load balancing. You can't just connect a PV panel/inverter up to an appliance (even if 240 V). An inverter is neither a current or voltage source. Power has to go somewhere and most inverters simply go dead if the output load is not appropriate. Or there is smoke . . . . This is why I spoke of the need for an intelligent dump load. In this case (imagine full noon sun) and the appliance load is < production power. A lot of people in the utility offices watch this VERY carefully and are constantly bringing production up and down on and off line to meet ever changing hourly grid power needs. They have strict voltage, current and frequency limits they need to keep the grid within. Some of this is automated, but there is ALWAYS a power engineer in each generation station on 24x7 to either add or strip load - manually if need be. Load balancing is not easy. One way to do it is to combine batteries and PV panels and THEN do the AC conversion. The maximum from the batteries is always > than load. But this is also expensive. I am not aware of an inverter (no battery storage) that just with PV panels and the inverter has an associated output that can connect to a dump load (240 V resistance element in water tank for example) that can balance production load and dump automatically. I would sure like to see one! Steve |
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- See more at: SUNNY BOY 3000TL-US / 3800TL-US / 4000TL-US / 5000TL-US / 6000TL-US / 7000TL-US / 7700TL-US Best as I can tell just a single 120v outlet. Mark |
I'm trying to track down a used leaf battery pack and wondering how to charge it. I can repurpose the cells and charge with my Morningstar controllers (40v). But I wondered if I could use the A.C. charger that's built in along with a SMA inverter.
Then use the high voltage DC (360v) with the new SMA inverter and use it to provide AC to my off grid location. The price of that new inverter (under 1,500 US) is quite attractive. Any thoughts and ideas? |
FWIW
my cabin is off grid but only am there 3-5 nights a year. 4 kW genset for power tools microhydro of about 400 W from small stream and crossflow turbine and custom gear driven generator. Have 1kW inverter, could have a 50 or so kWhr batterybank that would be float charged from the hydro if I wanted, but no need. 400W enough for everything except power tools. |
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3742.1
Have most of turbine welded up (pic), need to get the bearing supports welded up next, etc. Grandsons did some of the welding, lots of technique for them to learn yet. I'll let them drag the 200 ft of sch 80 surplus pvc conduit thru the woods for the penstock, will try to remember to take pic of that when we install the old chevy 2.8L flywheel gear will drive a starter pinion and the generator at about 4000 RPM. it. I forget how to insert an image without having it on the web ? Attachment 6981 |
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For a cheap 3 phase gen look into Fisher n Paykel washing machine motors as a gen, 3 phase at 450v AC at 1000 rpm is no problem for low loss long runs . |
Working to off grid
The thread has gotten a little diluted and terribly side tracked. Let’s get this back on track
I had posted some progress on “ticking all the boxes” The project thus far has the pergola finished and producing power ( 4 kw ) The power was directed through a high voltage charge controller charging the old Nimh battery pack ( 390 volt ). 29 kWh The old battery pack has been removed as it developed internal shorts (catastrophically) A newer battery pack is being sourced The last week or so has been busy to finish installing the remaining 7 Kw of solar panels on the roof. The Dynoraxx system was used. Very nice system. My testing of a high voltage inverter solution was unsatisfactory therefore the development of a 2 phase high voltage inverter has begun Randen |
I thought I'd share a pic of one off grid system I helped build this summer.
http://www.bobolinksolar.com/wp-cont...ll-169x300.jpg This is 3kw of solar and 18kw of Volt based lithium with SW Schneider inverter and 600/85 solar controller. I call it the sweetheart. This fella is running his large cottage; Electric hot water etc and charging his electric car (Leaf), off of solar. I know. Volt batteries. And a Leaf car. Kind of funny. It really is about load management and smarter building. His cottage is well insulated. Takes advantage of a hillside for earth tempering of hot and cold weather. Yet in most other respects it is similar to a normal tract home. |
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