Looking for solar pumping configuration for a small farm (two fields of 1/2 acre & 3/4 acre, totalling 1.25 acre) where a small orchard is to be planted along with space for intercrops. Water depth is just about 30 feet. I wish to create a couple of ponds to hold water and pump from there to the field.
What could be the smallest capacity pump (hp), smallest capacity panel (watt), and minimum thickness of the bore to draw water from ground into the ponds. This needs to be a simple battery-less system. The highest frequency of irrigation in summer will be once a week. Also, is it possible to use the same pump to pump water into the fields from the ponds?
Vendors and experts are welcome to respond. A diagram of the two fields is attached with markings for site proposed for the bore (B-1&2), solar panels (SP-1&2), and ponds (P-1&2).
You can visit Tiny Tech Plants (www tinytechindia com) for best Solar Plant. Its selling the products at best rate. You can contact them. A friend from our side, using his Wind Pump which is shipped from Rajkot to South Tamilnadu. So shipping should not be a problem to anywhere in India. A 250w panel is costing approx 10,000 Rs which is best price and no where in ebay/IndustryBuying/Any Online or distributors you can get cheap.
Even 0.5 hp pumps are also available for domestic open well use. For submersible, we are using 2 hp as minimum. I hope we can even get lesser hp submersible.
It is better to think before buying as All-in-one could be costlier. You can plan for 1000 w ( 4 x 250w) higher panel, inverter and programmable change over (like 1 to 2 or 1 to 3), a Mobile Starter to control from remote place, 1 hp motor, solenoid valve (can be connected with Mobile Starter).
If it is open well, you can use same motor. But moving motor frequently is not an good option. Between Bore Well and Pond, the motors cannot be shifted. Since the pipeline are fixed, better to have separate setup turned ON/OFF by Change Over unit.
For reference you can refer IndustryBuying or eBay for any Crompton Greaves open well motor or submersed motor (placed below water in open well or pond which has more power) and Texmo submersible pumps.
Mobile Starter and Solenoid Valve : www niagaraautomation com, www realtech in
If you are interested, you can enquire about each item separate and plan for better option.
Thank you Soundar for the detailed reply. How is your friend’s wind pump working? How much did it cost? Is he satisfied with the performance and how long has it been in operation? Thanks.
Going by your requirement I believe your idea is to collect water from the borewells and store in the ponds and then use it for irrigation.
Solar water pumping turnkey setups start as low as 0.5HP submersible pump. My suggestion is shown in the picture.
Having the solar setup equidistant between the two ponds will help you much better in terms of performance,
You totally need 3 pumps & solar power for running these 3 pumps.
Options available are you can run all the pumps/any of the pumps at any given point of time.
Since your land hold is less and you have a unbelievable water source of 30ft borewell I suggest you;
Pump Side:
A) Install 0.5Hp borewell pumps in the two borewells that on an average pumps apprx 25,000 liters/pump a day from 30ft depth when run on solar
B)Install 1Hp openwell pump in the pond that will irrigate your total land in one solar day
Solar Side:
2Hp System incase both A & B needs to run simultanesously
Or
1Hp System incase either A or B needs to be run at a time
Dear Soundar,
Please share the specifications or the discharge chart of the wind pump if you can get your hand to it.
Also, mobile starter cannot be integrated to solar water pumping system as it is based on VFD technology and using a solenoid valve is possible to control the irrigation valve provided there is a single phase power or a battery or a dedicated solar panel attached to it for power.
Even using a solenoid valve can be ignored if the VFD chosen has timer functionality to control the input power to the motor.
The wind pump is installed in Nanguneri by Alwar Narayanan (radhamuralifarms blogspot in). The pump seems 8 month old and it gives issues then and there. It requires a moderate skill to handle. The pump is supplied by Tiny Tech Farms. I hope the costs is around 2 lakh to 2.5 lakh, but I suggest this if someone wants really a sustainable agriculture. He is convinced with the unit, because he is trying to have sustainable agriculture. If you read his blog, you can get more information. Its different and difficult from common agriculture. I respect his views
Hi Saravana Kumar,
Regarding wind pump, I could not able to get discharge rate, but looks he manages this for his limited crops.
Regarding the Mobile Starter, once the power is converted to 1 Phase or 3 Phase AC, I hope it can be used. The VFD may be for direct DC motor drive. Few companies here started integrating solenoid with Mobile Starter to automate the irrigation.
Its only experiment, with 1 or 3 phase AC, Programmable Change Over (general is manual change over approved by Govt. Electricity Board, since we own power, I don’t think any issue, but programmable change overs still need to be identified) Mobile Starter with Solenoid Value Controller can solve certain level.
I’m using 3 Phase Mobile Starter without Valve Controller from Niagara (bought before their Solenoid Integration) and its performance is good.
We can use mobile gsm kits plus solenoid valves for controlling irrigation, yes, i dont deny. And there are many companies that are doing it.
But this setup cannot be used with VFD based solar water pumping systems as VFD is basically soft start and typically has no “no volt coil” present for the actuation. This is even confirmed by Niagara automation to us sometime back.
Having said that as mentioned earlier you can use a 12V source or single phase power separately and control just the solenoid valve which is integrated with the VFD built in timer.
We have been researching the integration of VFD based solar water pumping units with raspberry pi for remote control of the solar pumping units using internet for quite some time now.I shall update you once we succeed.
I have worked sometime with SolFocus, who was pioneer once in CPVs. When you have a Grid Connected Solar System, then you can consider it as plain AC source irrespective of source like Solar or Wind or any other traditional. And I hope that can be controlled as like usual power source.
I have not used any panels so far to answer better, but I’m having certain experiences with these products differently.
MPPT + VFD inverters are costly with most companies and all they do is getting from China and branding here. Very few have indigenous design. In all those, I felt Desai from Tiny Tech is giving better price. My relative installed 5 HP ( not 5kw as supplied by Tiny Tech) with and without subsidy from local company here. The cost for non subsidized is costly around 5.5 to 6 lakh, whereas Tiny Tech gives for 3.2 lakh (2.7 lakh option for non metal structure) which is better. Though quality difference are there, I doubt any company honestly selling.
Raspberry Pi is a good choice too as it has libraries. And I have tried using FriendlyArm for this, but due to different focus I missed. Wishes for your experiments.
Problem is not with the solar power but the power electronics we use to convert that solar power into AC power.
Cutting edge developments in power electronics is the only way forward I see to manage solar converted AC power being able to control/managed easily.
5HP Systems are comparatively economical as mostly use 250w panels for the array which are market ready & standard. I agree 5HP Solar systems roughly cost around the figure you have mentioned. Even our offer price falls in that range as well But if you look at the cost economics of 1Hp, 2hp & 3Hp, they dont meet prorate costs because of the simple fact these systems requires 30w, 50w & 100w panels for array respectively for better performance.These panels cost/watt is higher than bigger panels BTW
And regarding VFD + MPPT, i second your opinion as market is filled with cheap dumps from China and other market. But there are still reputed brands like Fuji, ABB etc that offer these. And we all know what quality to expect from these co’s.
Last but not the least, thank you for the wishes and I hope we accomplish what we are set out for.
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