off grid

[steve Leese]

Hi
Can anyone point me in the direction of a wholesaler of a off grid system for a customer of mine. thanks steve from Arizon energy.

 

[SpitfireW'sale]

PM sent Steve

 

[solarfred]

What exactly is the customer after? Pure off grid with just battery bank or hybrid on grid /off grid using batteries only at night or when no mains?

 

[steve Leese]

Hi
the customer wants to put 10x58w fl fittings in a remote barn, so just batteries, its for donky sanctury barn and the vet has said it must be lit at night, for 6 hours,

 

[Earthstore]

It would work out better to have a grid connected system, then use the FITS/savings to pay for the lights to be on at night.
Have you thought of working that out instead?

 

[steve Leese]

Thanks earthstore. i have been getting a couple quotes and the supliers say it is going to be very expensive to do the job with solar panels and i would be better using a genny

 

[Patrick MacLeay]

You could use an 12v inverter and some old car batteries and a solar panel. We use this system at festivals with low energy lighting. You could even skip the inverter and just use 12v LEDs. Much cheaper setup, and doesn't require a genny which unfortunately make remote locations very appealing to thieves.
Remember to connect up the battery bank with the positive at one end and the negative at other end, otherwise you end up just running out one battery.

 

[solarfred]

What wattage LED's and what about a charge controller?? The request was for 580 watts of Fluorescent which will require quite a lot of storage capacity at 6 hours every night. The car batteries would be useless in a week as you need proper deep cycle batteries.
This needs doing properly if it is going to be effective with effective light output and reasonable cost.

 

[moggy1968]

you need to look at the required lumens output of the lights rather than the wattage to see what your equivalent would be for a more efficient lighting solution.
You could talk to the sunstore
leisure batteries , rather than car batteries, are designed to be run flat and won't deteriorate like a car battery which isn't designed for this type of use, rather to produce high instantaneous cranking power.

 

[solarfred]

Wattage dictates the amount of power required to be stored to run the lights for a period of time which is critical in this set up.(amp/hours & watt/hours).
Lumens is a measure of light output linked to but not dependent on wattage but more to do with chip output.
So if you want the equivalent light output then measure the lumens of the existing lighting and replace with LED's but unless you have sufficient stored power the lumen will be irrelevant because the lights will go out.
Running deep cycle batteries flat will reduce their life by multiples. Keeping the discharge above 30% will extend their life for years. 50% is an accepted maximum. The more you take out the shorter the lifetime and this is critical in a long term venture which is being proposed here.

 

[Patrick MacLeay]

Yep- I was just thinking of a cheap alternative, as I find I can use a few car batteries that are no longer serviceable if they are for static use, and just overspec the solar panel, if space is not too much of an issue. If they need to be carried around or space is a premium then run flat gel/leisure batteries are of course best, the system could be tested with cheap/free batteries that could be replaced if it is required. However I hadn't noticed quite how much power they wanted, I would seriously consider how much power is really required, as this would probably end up being prohibitively expensive to set up.

 

[moggy1968]

you miss my point, if you know how many lumens you need, you can then look at an equivalent low wattage lighting solution which will provide the same output for less power, which will reduce the amount of battery power you need

 

[solarfred]

Using similar light output to fluorescent tubes as requested by customer using LED tubes the power requirement will be about half but it will still be too high without a lot of solar panels which makes the project very expensive.
If someone visits the sanctuary every day and can carry a battery I would suggest setting up a battery system and inverter and recharge one battery each night from the mains. The batteries will last a long time if you have sufficient of the correct size. The cost of recharging will be negligible.(but Gel batteries need special care when charging).
Using lots of small LED's will require a lot of fittings and cable. Tubes can be put in second hand battens after dumping all the electronics and will provide a lot of light across a wide area with shorter cabling.

Higher voltage means smaller cables and lower amps so it needs to be designed correctly.

If no one can recharge a battery each or every other day then solar panels will be required in sufficient quantity to recharge the batteries during periods of no sun for up to possibly 2 weeks and winter will be a test.
Not sure if the light requirement is a veterinary specification?? Is it 6 hours in summer or winter?

I have PM'd you already.

 

[MorganPVI]

The problem with off grid is having enough power for Dec, Jan and Feb. There simply is not enough sunlight to recharge the batteries, over sizing the system is inefficient as the summer months will provide you far too much power. Batteries are expensive and currently the weak link in the chain, for a 24v system using the best 2v wet acid cells your looking at a £600 a year replacement cost for batteries alone. Car batteries just will not cut it as they are designed for very high output for a very short amount of time. You can cycle them 30 times compared to 4500 for the 2v cells.

In this case i'd suggest minimizing the power requirements of the lighting, getting the maximum lumens for the lowest kwh is paramount, even so your going to need to add an external source for the winter months, perhaps a hybrid system that could incorporate a generator set to recharge the batteries twice weekly in the winter months would be the optimum solution. The cost of an off grid system can be high but if you choose your batteries correctly and investigate feed in tariff payments for off grid and standalone you can make the project viable.

 

[steve Leese]

Hi
Thanks to erveryone who posted on this subject, the owner of the donkeys has decided to go down the lines of a generator, this is mainly due to cost, thanks