Off the grid power

[HUON]

Berlin, I hope this might be of some use.

[HUON]

And some more, Berlin.

[HUON]

The inverter is 7.5kva, the zivan battery charger was purchased during a drought/bushfire season (little water, lots of smoke no sun). we use a 10 kva honda generator to keep the batteries happy during trying times.

[Berlin]

Wow, that's quite a set up! Thanks Huon, I'll have a good look at it. How many amp hours do you have in the battery bank?


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[cava]

That's an impressive setup Huon. :2tsup:

We are looking for an off grid system to match our new house build (yet to be started), if possible.

Without prying too much, can you advise the cost of such a setup?

[HUON]

I'll let you know as soon as the memory bank kicks in, Cava. It was built up in stages, starting with a 24vlt system and help with the RAPs assistance. While we were building our stone house(took 7 years) we lived in a converted dairy, we had two solar panels and two tractor batteries for our lights, a chip heater for hot water and a combustion heater for winter warmth oh and a small bench top gas stove for cooking.The breeze way was our kitchen and shower and the vat room was our living and dining area. Very cosy. and we were considerably younger.

[Big Shed]

And this all relates to Gardening how???????????

[HUON]

It's a long story, Big Shed, but it relates to the odd Pm between Berlin and me. I couldn't work out how to pm pics so I took the liberty of using this site. Sorry if I've upset apple cart.

If it's more convenient you could move it to my post on "suggestions for other forums" site

[Big Shed]

Thanks, just don't want to see this forum, created at special request, turn in to something other than a Gardening forum.

There is another forum called My Bush Block, which would have been more suitable and it may have been of interest to other people as well.

[HUON]

No worries Fred move it across any time, to my "rural block". I do like the sound of my "bush block" though.
Cheers
Brendan

[HUON]

Cava this is a rough guesstimate, with raps assistance it probably cost us $30,000 that's including an upgrade from a 24volt system to a 48volt system. At the time the relevant power company wanted about $43,000 to connect into a 3 phase power line running through a neighbours property (500 metres away). To me it's a no brainer considering we haven't paid a power bill since we moved here, probably a saving of approximately $60,000 over 30 years more or less.
Cheers
Brendan

[cava]

Thanks Brendan.

Not knowing much about RAPS systems, what is the advantage/disadvantage of a 48V vs 24V setup?

George

[HUON]

The RAPS was a government assistance scheme to assist folk in setting up their power systems. As for a 24volt system compared to a 48volt system, well basically a 48volt system gives you a deeper power base. You can store more power and/or you can run more appliances or tools for a longer period of time.
Hope this helps.

[Superbunny]

Thanks guys for the discussion, I'm planing off grid for my new build home in Tasmania but I'm 12 months away from starting the build. I got the block, the planing permit, the building permit and a new drive, just finished the clearing and levelling for the house and shed. New shed goes up in the new year a nice 12 x 9. Started the research for off grid and even put in a battery room in the house design for off grid. Going to do some work in the new year on the creek that runs through the property to see if it is viable for hydro for the winter to top up solar. Still not decided on every thing at this stage but looking at LG 300w (they might be 350w by the time I get the the install) panels, SMA inverter, 48v system, gel deep cycle batteries and generator back up if the hydro is not suitable. Hope to have about 10kw on two roofs facing North, North West and two evacuated tube hot water systems, one for hot water and one for under floor heating. I know it's going to cost but that's offset by the cost of connecting to the grid as I have to go underground and over 150-200 meters to get to it. So keep discussing and I'll learn more, I wondered why it was suggested to me to go 48v instead of 12v, now I know thanks to you guys.:D:D

SB

[cava]

Hope to have about 10kw on two roofs facing North, North West and two evacuated tube hot water systems, one for hot water and one for under floor heating.

SB
Not sure if an evacuated tube HWS would heat your property in Tasmania. I hope that you have done the calculations.

I know of one energy consultant just south of Launceston who renovated/built, and he had to rely on a wood heating boiler for his radiators through winter.

[HUON]

Berlin, the system equates to 1380 amp hours. I had to ring my friend at Sunreal (Wangaratta) to get the info.
Cheers
Brendan

[Barterbuilt]

Re solar hot water.......

We are just about to embark on a fairly serious off grid system at the farm
One of the recomendations was to have an electric HWS, to be used as a dump load.
This would depend on the size of the system and how much electricity you would use during the day.
Once the batteries are topped up in the morning any excess power that is not used ( off grid ) is wasted, so at this point having an array of optional appliances, pumps, HWS and the like means that the power is not wasted.
As an evac HWS will run at 3-4K and you can buy panels at less than a dollar a Watt, you could put an extra 4-5 kW of panels on the roof.

We are also using Lithium batts which are much smaller, can be drained to 80% DOD if required and will take a huge input charge. Can also be put safely inside.
Ours is a 48V, 18.5 kW 3 phase with 1200 Amp/hour Lithium.
Not a cheap exercise but cheaper than bringing in the single phase grid 500 meters to the house. Poles, trany and connection is not cheap anymore.

[HUON]

G'day Barterbuilt, I'm curious about how you would dump your extra power into your hot water system. From what I've been told by various installers of stand alone systems we could only dump straight from the batteries (DC, 12,24 or 48 volt) not from the inverter (ac). that was a while ago so maybe things have changed since the good old days. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter or anyone else's thoughts
Cheers
Brendan

[HUON]

Found an interesting site (www.solarhomestead.com (http://www.solarhomestead.com)) that covers most of the issues I raised previously. The hot water section goes into dumping excess power amongst other things (AC&DC).

[Superbunny]

Berlin, the system equates to 1380 amp hours. I had to ring my friend at Sunreal (Wangaratta) to get the info.
Cheers
Brendan

Huon, is the 1380 amp hour sufficient for your needs given an average house demand?

I just got back from my Tassie block and got some data a the creek for hydro, looks to be a starter but need more winter flow data. I don't think evacuated tubes will be a problem as they perform well in low temp environments, just look at how well they go in Canada and the UK, and I have a great northerly aspect at the right winter angle in the design build.

Shed starting next week now I have the batter cut and supported with rocks (very big ones) so I'm on my way. When at the block I stayed in my dad's motor home which he has some solar panels to charge the batteries and it went very well with plenty of charge going in.:D:D

SB

[HUON]

G'day Superbunny, I'll list some of the appliances we run in the house; TV & DVD, computer, washing machine, the gas stove has an electric grill, stereo, two ceiling fans soon to be increased to four, about twenty lights inside the house and nine around the verandah and a tv, almost forgot the fridge.
Now the shed; a bandsaw (20"), a lathe, a drill press, a planer thicknesser (10") tormek sharpener, Dewalt compound cutoff saw and numerous power tools, compressor, pressure washer, bench grinder.
Of course only having two hands I don't use them all at once
I agree with regarding the hotwater tubes.
Cheers

[HUON]

Superbunny, don't forget to post some pics of your progress. Should be of immense interest to similar minded folk.

[HUON]

Haven't read tomorrow's Age yet but the website headlines sound like some interesting reading. A sign of things to come folks, if you don't invest in your own power supply then you need your head read. Don't wait for the parliamentary parrots to catch up.

[HUON]

Seems like they're still struggling. I think the state governments need to regain control of our utilities, and tell the shareholder driven companies to take a long leap off a short pier.

[KBs PensNmore]

Don't know what it's like in the other states, but here they've nothing left to sell. Everything has been privatized, every cost has gone through the roof, or levied beyond belief.

[HUON]

Things change rather quickly, all you need are some state governments with vision and no vested interests in mining unlike federal billionaire politicians.

[KBs PensNmore]

Where do we find them?????

[HUON]

OK , point taken (no vested interests might be a bit of a stretch), but I like SA's idea of the big batteries and possibly Vic and QLD following suit. I also like SA's interest in floating solar panels on their water treatment plants or catchments (reduces evaporation as a bonus).

[HUON]

Just been reading the Guardian online, last year according to the article 3.5 million panels were put on rooftops across Australia. That equates to 9,500 panels a day and since 2012 the prices have halved for solar panels. Can't say the same for grid power.
Whoever sold off our utilities should be thrown into jail, after they've been flogged.

[HUON]

Replaced two cells (2 volt batteries) a few days ago, they were about 15 years old. the folk that supplied them said they're selling gel batteries now. While we were getting them into position we started talking about the latest and greatest in battery storage, I mentioned Tesla , I quickly found out that they weren't suited to stand alone systems like ours. It was pointed out that most of the battery technology these days were aimed at returning excess power to the grid (which is not a bad thing).
There is a new lead acid battery, developed by CSIRO, sold by ecolt (suspect spelling), it runs at it's best between 30 and 90 %.

[Chris Parks]

Replaced two cells (2 volt batteries) a few days ago, they were about 15 years old. the folk that supplied them said they're selling gel batteries now. While we were getting them into position we started talking about the latest and greatest in battery storage, I mentioned Tesla , I quickly found out that they weren't suited to stand alone systems like ours. It was pointed out that most of the battery technology these days were aimed at returning excess power to the grid (which is not a bad thing).
There is a new lead acid battery, developed by CSIRO, sold by ecolt (suspect spelling), it runs at it's best between 30 and 90 %.

That point seems to get glossed over at high speed for some reason.

[HUON]

I think the name of the battery is Ultra. the reason the battery can perform well at 30% is due to it's inbuilt capacitor.