Adding solar to an old on grid homestead

[viking]

It was mentioned about having the well pump running on 240 VAC, our Magnum Energy 4,000. watt pure sine wave inverter is split phase 120/240 so it's capable of running a well pump. On the other hand there are submersible well pumps that are available that run on 12 VDC and I would certainly take that into consideration. So far our new batteries are doing well considering we've had a number of grid down occurrences, electrolyte levels are staying very good considering the charge-discharge frequent cycles that have gone on.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Last week I picked up 4 new solar panels, 410 watts each, plus a new charge controller, mount, plus other miscellaneous stuff. This will help supplement the 10 panels I already have. The new panels should cut back on the generator run time during winter and early spring.
Yesterday I wired in the new generator auto start controller for the well pump. It was expensive, but we have water on demand now!

 

[UrbanHunter]

I am in the final stages to setting up some stand by power for some of my wife's things and I am seeing an open ground when testing my inverter equipment. I am debating on what I need to do to address this issue. Have any of you had this issue on small inverters and how did you address it?

I have seen one solution neutral-ground bonding, but I'm not sure about that.
The other thing I could try is earth-grounding the inverter to see if that resolves the issue.

Anyway it is just one more thing on my list of to do's. I would love to hear any feedback....

 

[Neb]

I am in the final stages to setting up some stand by power for some of my wife's things and I am seeing an open ground when testing my inverter equipment. I am debating on what I need to do to address this issue. Have any of you had this issue on small inverters and how did you address it?

I have seen one solution neutral-ground bonding, but I'm not sure about that.
The other thing I could try is earth-grounding the inverter to see if that resolves the issue.

Anyway it is just one more thing on my list of to do's. I would love to hear any feedback....

The electrical code dictates the gnd and neutral are bonded at the service entry only. That is the difference between a service entry and a sub panel. The idea is there should be no current in the ground wire. Notice the ground wire in some wire is a smaller gage sometimes.

So without knowing exactly what you are doing...

???
Run your inverter ground to the same ground stake used by the service entrance
???

Ben

 

[Biggkidd]

Trying to remember but I "think" the ground lug only grounds the case of the inverter. Open one up and take a look.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Today I was able to run the little AC completely off the inverter for the whole day and my battery bank was still at 13 volts at the end of the day. I sat the temperature setting a little low and placed the fan to run continuous (none of that economy settings), finally the wife screamed uncle and asked me to raise it a couple of degrees as she was freezing. So now if I set it at the regular setting and on auto it should be just fine and considering the sun is most of our heat gain problem this is a perfect match for using SOLAR! Kind of a fight fire with fire type of approach.

I have the frame and the wires prepared for the additional solar array, over this long weekend I will be able to install the extra controller and panels. I will have 4 times as much capacity as the AC uses, so I can still power the indoor growing lights, and have reserves for emergency power backup.

Oh, I used a VOM and checked between the outlet ground and the case (battery was disconnected!) and they are not tied together, so grounding the case will not provide the earth ground that I wanted, but there is a place on the inverter where I can easily connect an earth ground (it has a high power link port with screw connections).

 

[user 4343]

Has anyone installed a potable tank to store well water and an ac booster pump to pressurize home water system as backup for grid down, when there’s no 240v power for the well pump? If so, how has that worked out for you?

 

[Mountain trapper]

Has anyone installed a potable tank to store well water and an ac booster pump to pressurize home water system as backup for grid down, when there’s no 240v power for the well pump? If so, how has that worked out for you?

I put in a water tank in my fur shed. I installed a 110v on-demand pump and an accumulator tank. Also had a propane tank less water heater in the system. The only problem was keeping it from freezing. It was fine as long as I kept the wood stove burning. Now I drain the tank for winter.
My well pump runs off a 12kw propane generator plumbed to a 500 gallon propane tank. As long as propane is available, we're fine.

 

[UrbanHunter]

I have a couple potable barrels in my basement and two RV water pumps (1- 12 Volt DC) and the other 110 AC. There is a cold water line running to the barrels (There is also a drain and sump pump there). When the water has gone down in the past I have connected the RV Water pump to the cold water line, shut off the city feed and then open the cold water line and turn on the pump, it supplies sufficient water for most of our needs, because the line also feeds the water heater we can even take a hot shower if necessary.

https://camperguide.org/best-rv-water-pump/
I have the surflo pumps with a pressure regulator...

 

[UrbanHunter]

Today, we had a small power outage, outside temperatures were just over 90F when we got the call. The power company notified us that our power was down and that it would be about 4 hours to get the power restored. The AC in the wife's sitting area never missed a beat, I flipped the switch on the O2 machine backup inverter and it ran fine. The power is now restored and the wife is fine, everything worked as planned.

The wife was amazed at how quickly the rest of the house heated up and that her sitting area stayed cool, she was unhappy that I didn't provide a backup to keep her TV on too. But hey, in an emergency you will need to prioritize your loads...

She said that just that one event let her know that my concerns about grid integrity were not overly Alarmist.

 

[Aerindel]

I have a couple potable barrels in my basement and two RV water pumps (1- 12 Volt DC) and the other 110 AC. There is a cold water line running to the barrels (There is also a drain and sump pump there). When the water has gone down in the past I have connected the RV Water pump to the cold water line, shut off the city feed and then open the cold water line and turn on the pump, it supplies sufficient water for most of our needs, because the line also feeds the water heater we can even take a hot shower if necessary.

https://camperguide.org/best-rv-water-pump/
I have the surflo pumps with a pressure regulator...

Yes!. I am a big advocate of plumbed in, grid independent tanks. Its not hard to set up and allows you to use all your existing plumbing, with your emergency water supply.

Has anyone installed a potable tank to store well water and an ac booster pump to pressurize home water system as backup for grid down, when there’s no 240v power for the well pump? If so, how has that worked out for you?

Yes. This is how my entire system works.

I have a deep well, that I use to fill a 550 gallon water tank, that feeds a DC Surflo pump that runs everything else.

In the summer, I have an irrigation ditch, and a hyrdaulic ramp that fees a rooftop tank. This runs all the hot water, bath and washingmachine water, so I only need to fill the well water tank about twice for the whole summer. In the winter, I run everything off the well tank, so I have to refill it about every three weeks.

I've had this system for about fifteen years....so yeah, it works well.

 

[viking]

I'm a strong advocate of having at least one 1,500 gallon water tank with float switches or float valve to keep a constant water level in the tank, pump from the well into the tank and have a pump and pressure tank for the house that is fed from the bottom outlet of the tank, having a battery powered pump for when the grid is down for both the well and the home. We were fortunate to have a hill behind our home and shortly after we moved here we hand cast a 1,100 gallon cistern at the top of our property, the spring that feeds it is 500' up the mountain, the tank provides 25 psi gravity feed at our home. I have a 1,100 gallon black poly tank next to the cistern which will be hooked up in the near future, with help from son or a friend, I'm just getting too old for digging projects.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Okay, it is now August. The "experiment" with adding the window unit to the room on the South West corner of the house has been going for 3 months. My solar array and battery bank has been able to keep it running every day from 08:00 till 20:00, that room stays at 72F the rest of the house is at 73F. Last year we were keeping the house at 74F. We have had several 8 hr power outages, but none of them effected my wife's situation, she stayed cool and I just switched her oxygen machine to it's battery backup. FYI the oxygen machine and it's battery backup are in a bathroom in the center of the house to allow for her hose to reach everywhere.

Got a notice from the power company yesterday, our power consumption is down 21%.

For the last week, my wife has started asking me why I don't put the oxygen concentrator on the solar/battery system.. Now that is a major change of attitude...

 

[dademoss]

Okay, it is now August. The "experiment" with adding the window unit to the room on the South West corner of the house has been going for 3 months. My solar array and battery bank has been able to keep it running every day from 08:00 till 20:00, that room stays at 72F the rest of the house is at 73F. Last year we were keeping the house at 74F. We have had several 8 hr power outages, but none of them effected my wife's situation, she stayed cool and I just switched her oxygen machine to it's battery backup. FYI the oxygen machine and it's battery backup are in a bathroom in the center of the house to allow for her hose to reach everywhere.

Got a notice from the power company yesterday, our power consumption is down 21%.

For the last week, my wife has started asking me why I don't put the oxygen concentrator on the solar/battery system.. Now that is a major change of attitude...

It is amazing how attitudes change over time . When we got married Lori freaked when she found the .357 in a drawer. Now when there is a noise outside she yells "Take Your gun" . I will need more panels for the new "he shed" and a new set of batteries

 

[UrbanHunter]

It is amazing how attitudes change over time . When we got married Lori freaked when she found the .357 in a drawer. Now when there is a noise outside she yells "Take Your gun" . I will need more panels for the new "he shed" and a new set of batteries

From what I can tell so far, I wish I had a full bank of LiFePO4 batteries instead of the lead acid. I have 12 100AH flooded batteries but for the same price I could have gotten 4 of the LiFePO4 batteries. I bought 4 of them and they are the back-up for the O2 Machine, but they are safe for in the house but the flooded ones are not. But then again the LiFePO4 batteries don't like extreme hot and cold. It will be interesting to see how each holds up in it's appointed role.

My flooded battery bank voltage swings gently between 11.9V (early morning) and 13.6V (late afternoon). The AC is runnng until just after dark and there are some lights that come on at 04:00 which is why the voltage is near it's lowest around 08:00.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Okay, Last week we had a power outage event. We went 30 hours in the dark before our power was restored. My emergency plans using Solar went okay, not perfect but okay.

Positives:
The battery bank for the O2 machine lasted for 14 hours (design target was 12)
The big battery bank was able to keep the AC in the bedroom running the whole time.
The big battery bank was able to operate the CPAP machine over night.
The Solar Panels were able to fully charge the big battery bank, run the little AC, run 3 refrigerators and power the 5A (60watt) Charger for the O2 Machine's battery bank: (only from 10AM till 5PM)
None of the freezers got above 20F.. no food loss.

Negatives:
I was not able to run everything mentioned above and run the O2 machine, I am about 500 watts short.
I did not have sufficient Battery backups to run the refrigerators over night.
I did not have a battery backup for the sump pump (it didn't flood) but it could have.
The backup for the network router was not sufficient to make it through the night, no wifi calling...
I did not have a low wattage cooking solution ready for the wife, I was able to use a small microwave, but she wanted to bake...
We ended up using almost a full bottle of O2 in the 11 hours after the O2 machine battery bank ran out.
I had to take a day off from work to keep everything working and the wife comfortable.

All in all I think it was a good learning experience...

Action Plan Going Forward:
Plan to install 600 watts more solar asap. I already have the panels and cables, just need to build a frame and install them.
Plan to purchase an inverter/charger for the LiFePO4 battery bank to allow for automatic transfer and faster battery charging (my little charger took 60 hours to charge the bank back up to full).
As soon as I can afford it, Plan to purchase another set of LiFePO4 batteries to provide emergency back up for the refrigerators. freezers, and sump pump.
I am gathering low wattage cooking appliances and creating a centralized storage location for them so I can quickly pull them out in an emergency.

Expectations:
These upgrades should allow me to keep my food safe and my wife's machines running almost indefinitely as long as we have partly sunny days.
But if I were forced to pull out the old generator I could get by running it for about 4 hours a day, leaving it off overnight (running everything on batteries at night) to reduce the likelihood of theft.

 

[UrbanHunter]

I have been working in the bathroom, I have a small battery bank and an inverter in there for emergencies, I had been in a rush when I installed everything and was kind of sloppy. It worked and all but took up too much room, I rearranged the inverter location and made a shelf over the battery bank, it gave me a nice shelf where I can store more towels. It also places the inverter high enough that the wife can plug in the oxygen machine and turn it on without bending over too much. The nice thing is I was able to do it all using scraps saved from the kitchen remodel in 2020.

This is the system I talked about in my previous post that can run the O2 machine for 14 hours. I was planning to put the O2 machine on my big battery bank that is directly tied to Solar, but the machine does not like it when being switched from inverter to grid (when the batteries get below 11.8V), it throws an awful fit. So I am looking to find other full time uses for the surplus power that I have available.

I am making a similar arrangement down stairs, but there I have to double stack the batteries as I only have a 16X18" space for the batteries. I have been moving all my freezers and refrigerators down stairs onto 1 circuit and using a kill-o-watt meter to observe the draw. When I am done I hope to have all those units and the sump pump on a single circuit with an automatic transfer switch, the goal is to be able to use the solar power's battery array to power everything most of the time and have a separate emergency backup on standby/power saver mode. And to have it all using automatic transfer switches so I don't have to run around like a chicken with his head cut off every time we lose power.

The solar worked so well at powering the small AC unit this summer I want to be able to keep using the available solar power on things that run all year long. With the cost of Grid Electricity I want to move things that run constantly off to solar. Note, I am very much aware that we have more cloud cover and shorter days in the winter, so my Solar power will be less plentiful, but it can still be a valuable asset.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Well, today the results of my Kill-o-watt meter are in and some of my plans are set back a bit, I am seeing peak draws of 1500 watts, without the sump pump. This means that placing a 1500 watt inverter in this position will not work out. I have seen how pumps draw a very large current at start up that will knock out a weak inverter.

So I have been using a 3000 watt SL Euthtion pure sine inverter as my primary and it has been rock solid for the past year, it does not have a GFCI but has shown itself to work with my automatic transfer switches and has been driving my irrigation pump daily, the dilemma is size, do a get a smaller unit to fit the application or do I buy a larger unit to upgrade my primary and re-purpose my 3000 unit to the basement emergency location? I could get the 2000 watt unit SL makes for $200 or... I see that SL makes a 4000 watt unit that will fit in my current primary enclosure, the cost is about $370 on amazon....
Coming from the Tim Taylor school of thought, more power is always better... 4000 it is! (SL makes a 5000 watt unit, but I thought that would be overkill...).

It means that I won't get the project done till Labor Day, but I will feel better knowing I have everything covered!

 

[viking]

We're running a 4,000 watt 120/240 VAC pure sine wave inverter/charger from Magnum Energy, powered by five banks of four 205 amp hour GC-2 batteries each, we have had them run two large refrigerators, one large and on small chest freezer, lights and television/DVD player for six days without a good solar charge because of heavy clouds, the 7th day I cranked up our generator for a bit before the grid power finally came back on line, since then we have replaced the 9 year old batteries with 210 amp hour batteries and added a sixth bank of four, the system seems to like having the extra battery bank and I haven't had to top the batteries off with distilled water for nearly a year and that's after a number of grid outages, anyway it's amazing how many things the 4,000 watt inverter will take care of in our home, of course it's always best to downsize on the things you want ran off of batteries to conserve on available energy.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Top picture is our current solar array, 10 panels @ 295 watts each, and electrical building.
Bottom picture is the new solar panels, 4 panels @ 405 watts each. Our battery bank is 12 - 2 volt batteries @ 1169 amp hours each.

 

[viking]

Mountain trapper, I'm not getting any pics, what make are your 2 volt batteries?

 

[Mountain trapper]

Mountain trapper, I'm not getting any pics, what make are your 2 volt batteries?

These are Rolls batteries. Made in Canada i think. I installed them a year ago this month and haven't had to add any water yet. I believe they cost around $400+ each. Money well spent in my book.

 

[viking]

These are Rolls batteries. Made in Canada i think. I installed them a year ago this month and haven't had to add any water yet. I believe they cost around $400+ each. Money well spent in my book.

Rolls Surrett, that's what I figured, I've checked them out on line, from what I see they look like the best lead-acid deep cycle batteries you can get a hold of, pretty much out of my monetary resources, price wise, anyway all of my GC-2 batteries are from Costco, branded as Interstate, the last set we bought were $89.99 a piece with cores, they are now about $109.99. As it was we spent $2,159.76 for 24 new GC-2's. Keep us apprised on how these Rolls batteries work out for you, I still have it mind that Rolls, in the long run, could be a wise investment for us.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Rolls Surrett, that's what I figured, I've checked them out on line, from what I see they look like the best lead-acid deep cycle batteries you can get a hold of, pretty much out of my monetary resources, price wise, anyway all of my GC-2 batteries are from Costco, branded as Interstate, the last set we bought were $89.99 a piece with cores, they are now about $109.99. As it was we spent $2,159.76 for 24 new GC-2's. Keep us apprised on how these Rolls batteries work out for you, I still have it mind that Rolls, in the long run, could be a wise investment for us.

By my estimation these batteries will pay for themselves in less than 18 months. That's calculating the savings on diesel and run time on the generator. With my old battery bank, the generator averaged almost 6 hours per day over a 12 month period. With these new batteries I'm currently averaging less than 1 hour per day run time. I'm paying over $6 per gallon for off road diesel. Most days the generator doesn't need to start. Only when it's an overcast day, which is rare here in summer, or if I'm running the AC after the sun goes down, also rare.
I installed the new solar panels in a sunnier location. Once they are connected to the main system, I doubt if the generator will ever start, except for a dark overcast day in winter.

 

[viking]

The only thing that could make the Rolls batteries more expensive would be If we don't have a local supplier, shipping for these very heavy batteries could be very expensive, a good example of shipping costs would be when we bought our solar panels, solar controller and the inverter, we saved more than $200 in shipping, our van used very little fuel to pick them up and not only that, we know how well they were handled.

 

[Mountain trapper]

I bought my batteries from a solar dealer up north. Since these batteries were going to pass through my area on the way to the dealer, they dropped them off at my house for no charge.

 

[Supervisor42]

Top picture is our current solar array, 10 panels @ 295 watts each, and electrical building.
Bottom picture is the new solar panels, 4 panels @ 405 watts each. Our battery bank is 12 - 2 volt batteries @ 1169 amp hours each.
View attachment 115010

Love the fuel tanks!!!

 

[Mountain trapper]

Love the fuel tanks!!!

Just filled the tank on the right. Almost $1300 for non ethanol premium.

 

[UrbanHunter]

I love your setup @Mountain trapper, you're about 3 times my capacity. Mine was originally just for emergency backup, but when I realized that I had valuable power sitting in those batteries I have been working on trying to use some of it every day. I also like your balance of resources.

 

[UrbanHunter]

So I have been thinking about small emergency battery backup systems ~ 2000 watts and I was wanting to get input from the group here.
Is it better to go with a combined inverter/charger that has everything built into 1 unit or are you better off going with separate inverter, smart charger, and automatic transfer switch?

For my thinking I will use components that I am seeing on Amazo
Lets assume a 2000 watt pure sine inverter, using a common 12 Volt system Batteries for each approach, I will ignore the batteries, ANL Fuse, and cables:

A 2000 watt pure sine Inverter/Charger will cost between $600 and $850, high end units will be $1200 and up.

For a separate system the component costs are:
A 2000 watt pure sine Inverter will cost between $200 and $450.
A 20-30 Amp smart charger will cost between $70 and $200
A 15 Amp/1800 watt automatic transfer switch is about $80, 30A/3600 watt units are between $200 and $300.
Total cost between $350 and $900

Comparison ..................................................................... Pro's....................................... : .............................................................Con's
Single Unit : Smaller footprint, simpler to set up, single purchase/warranty : If one component fails, the whole system is down.
Separate System : Can buy piecemeal, swap-out/upgrade components : Larger footprint, requires more planning, separate warranties

So did I miss something? Any thoughts on the subject?