As part of the process of setting up an organic self sustainable farm , I am looking at powering the property using Solar.
For pathway lights, house lighting, borewells etc.
It is a 10 acre property.
Do share your experiences as also dos and donts.
In addition how much will it cost to set up a solar system to power 2 borewells, 2 homes , 40 path lights.
I have done ample reading on the matter but learning from others experiences will help.
The place is in ananthpur district, in AP.
Thanks
Dear Johnk,
The cost of the required solar power system would depend on your specific requirement.
In your case, you need three kind of systems namely;
A)Solar Water Pumping System for your two 3 phase borewell pumps
B)Solar Offgrid Rooftop System for your residential single phase loads
C)Solar Street Light System for your pathway lights
To design A, please share your motor details
To deign B, please share your load and running time required details
To design C, please share the spacing between the pathway lights required
Being an integrator & solar design engineer myself , one must DO what i suggest is to kindly provide specific inputs rather than generic requests to get the system that meets your requirements.
Regards,
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Dear saravanakumargcses,
I have always had this question in my mind, seeing that you are a person of solar energy field I am putting it to you. Every one suggest three different arrangements for the three different types of requirements like pumps, street lights and farm house needs. Why shouldn’t we have one solar power unit which generates sufficient power say 10 to 12 kva and we use it to power all our energy needs of the farm.
Await your valuable inputs.
Regards
There are only two broad categories in solar power systems; namely
A)Solar DC power inverted to give a single phase power (Phase & Neutral).
This is accomplished using a inverter which definitely needs battery for the inversion.
B)Solar DC power inverted to give a three phase power (3 phases and no neutral)
This is accomplished using IGBT drivers which directly converts incident DC solar power into 3 phase alternating power without neutral.
So broadly speaking, single phase loads require neutral and three phase motor loads dont require neutral.
Hence its advised to seperate the loads based on the power requirements. Also contingency. Having one common system would mean downtime across all applications.
Having said all the above, its not that we cant have a single system having 3 phases & neutral as output that can be connected to all the loads. But the pricing is enormous for such machines. And trust me it isnt worth the penny you shed!
Regards,
Great !!. Thanks
I can see the technical sense and economic sense in keeping the motors on direct solar power whereas the rest on a single power unit with batteries.
Thanks once again.
Hello Members,
Im YBN REDDY, there is a lot of powercut in my village.
I would like to bye Solar panel of 100w and like to connect my self in my home for lighting and fans. atleast i can run 1 fan and 2 lights with 100w solar panel. but iam confused. how should i connect the solar pannel to fans. in between the item name called solar controller is to be kept or any other device will come in between solar pannel and lighting system. did any one know these imformation please share with me.
- what are the additional devices are required to install 100w solar pannel.
- how i can connect and use renowable energy…
Thanks,
YBN REDDY
Hi,
With a 100W panel, at the maximum you could generate only 0.4 to 0.5 units a day, meaning you would be able to run 1 100W fan + 2 50W tubelights for 2 to 2.5 hrs maximum a day.
In this case use you need;
100w panel - 1 no
300Va UPS - 1 no
12V 7A Charge Controller - 1 no
12V 60Ah Battery - 1 no
Cables to connect - Solar panel & Charge Controller, Charge controller & battery, battery & UPS
In case if you desire more runtime, increase the solar panels & Battery capacity suitably. Rest all will remain the same irrespective of run hrs.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Try running the whole system on 12V DC circuit. You would need a 100W panel, 1 charge controller, battery, DC fan [try DC 12V super fan, its super efficient, consuming 35W max] and DC lights [there are plenty to choose from these days, try auroville website]. That way you eliminate an inverter and improve on the efficiency many fold.
DC Solution is good when you dont have the lights or fans and if you need to buy fresh.
Cost of buying a new DC fan + DC bulbs is as almost equal to cost of having the low capacity inverter.
Plus, with inverter you can also charge mobile phones or run your FM when you dont run other designated loads.
Regards,