The New And Improved Unofficial R65 Forum V2
General Category => Totally Off-Topic Discussions, Rants, Tire & Oil Threads, Etc. => Topic started by: Justin B. on August 13, 2019, 09:44:09 AM
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Last week we finally finished installing the upgraded solar system at our cabin. I went from 900 watt to 2900 watt! :)
After finishing up the install the next several days were miserably hot and I was able to run the AC between about 11:00 and 17:30 strictly off solar and still had the batteries in float by mid afternoon!
Here's when it looks like...
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The hardest part was digging the holes. Even with a tractor and 12" auger it took all day due to having to dig out/bust huge rocks that got in the way.
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Whats the battery voltage and AH rating?
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Right now I have 6 100 AH AGM deep cycle batteries wired series-parallel for 24V. First of next year I will be upgrading to a higher capacity bank, probably either LFP or NiZn. The panels are 310 W/ea and the CC is a MidNite Solar Classic 200SL.
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Justin
We are now "off grid" in suburbia - 56 * 270 watt panels and 4 * 6.5KwHr, 48 volt batteries.
Truth is we do still have a grid connection so that we can sell excess power, but havin't had a bill for over a year now and every three months or so we get a cheque from them.
The inverter and charger are Solax hybrid devices.
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Gee Tony that's some power. I had to get the calculator out to work out the Kws of the panels.
I am lucky in Victoria I got in early and got the government 60c a Kw payin so I am usually in the black and have had $2000 pay back over 8 years.
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Gee Tony that's some power. I had to get the calculator out to work out the Kws of the panels.
It's 15Kw spread over two 5Kw inverters (one being the hybrid) and using the allowable "headroom" to legally breach the 10Kw limit on a single phase installation.
The equipment wasn't available a year ago but if I were doing this now I would have gone 3-phase and put 20Kw worth of panels up.
Not being an early adopter I get a miserly 9.2c per KwHr feed in, but the batteries ensure I use no grid power at night so I still turn a small profit.
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They’re both good looking setups guys. I’m jealous! And cheque’s from the generator company Skippy on a .60c tariff!? Niiiice.
I was a really early adopter... I bought my first solar panels in 1989, from memory paying about $400 each for 80W panels. Sine wave inverters were invented at that stage, but were totally unaffordable while synchronous inverters were still a dream! You could use modified square wave inverters (which were still expensive) for running incandescant lights but for everything else you needed 12v appliances. Consequently, my kids grew up watching The Simpson’s on a 4” B&W telly. They’re both high powered professionals now, so apparently it didn’t do them any harm. My eyesight though definitely suffered after 15 years of crap lights!
Being on the top of a windy hill, I also rebuilt and ran a 1930’s Dunlite 32V wind generator, (I was inspired by Michael Hackleman’s fantastic Home Built Wind Generated Electricity Handbook about the amazing 1930’s US built Jacobs wind generator - still a great book - written in the early 70’s - and still valid technology).
It’s good to see that the technology has both improved and become affordable. My house these days is a bit too forested in to be able to generate sufficient power for all of our needs (particularly through the winter months) but we still have a 1.5KW array feeding back into the grid with an entirely measly feedback tariff of .11c/ kwhr I think.
I’ve got a lovely sunny and windy few acres high on the hill about 300 meters from the house and will one day utilise it to build my own power station and as Tony mentioned, once 3 phase inverter technology becomes affordable I should be able to transmit decent currents over those distances without suffering unacceptable I squared R losses. With the exponential power price increases of the last 10 years, it becomes more and more affordable every day....
More power to all of you guys!
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Tony - a very impressive array!
ged - yeah, things have changed a lot over the past few years, especially panel prices. These 310 watt panels cost me $173 USD/ea.