solar, wind, battery set up

Does anyone have a solar, solar/wind/ or solar/wind/battery backup system for covering a "grid" power outage?

I'm mainly interested in how you determined the capacity of the battery bank and what you installed for inverters.

Thanks, Ron

Yes. I'd have to go look at the equipment, the solar charger controller, charger/inverter and battery bank. I believe it to be top quality equipment, though I don't have enough panels up yet to take it another step to invert and create more power than is used.

I think a simple load calculation based on the circuits you have and what they power is all that would be necessary.

Its Schneider electric, Xantrex model or system, its the hybrid charger and inverter,+ with AC1 off the incoming service and a AC2(option for a standby genset to charge batteries, 2nd back up).

Its a bit complex to learn in regards to some of it, but aside from balancing the battery bank periodically, there is not much maintenance. It performs well, covers an oil furnace, 220V well pump, a large chest freezer and 2 refrigerators, + all lighting circuits etc.

As I understand it, the batteries should last a lot longer in this set up because they are not constantly cycled like a solar power system. The key is keeping them charged to a certain level, its when you go below that in cycles, is what eventually can stratify the plates and reduce their capacity or performance, well as I understand it.

With power outages, the bank is ready at about 54 volts, its a 48 volt system. 6 hours on back up and its still above 50 volts. It takes a longer outage to draw it down below 48 volts, so you have power but still must conserve as needed. The solar panels will trickle or bulk charge the battery bank, as well as the AC 2 which I have yet to hook up but will soon. If no sun or its night, my gen set a miller trail blazer NT 251 with 8500 Watt continuous, would easily bulk charge the bank in an hour or less, turn off the generator, and that bank will provide power for quite some time, again depending on how much you conserve or use.

Billy, thanks so much,

I'd like to PM with you via email and phone if you have some time to type and or chat. Thanks

Ron

email would be fine, headed out now, I'm not that educated on the fine technical details of this, but be glad to help any way I could. I like the system so far though.

(quoted from post at 13:17:01 03/24/15) Does anyone have a solar, solar/wind/ or solar/wind/battery backup system for covering a "grid" power outage?

I'm mainly interested in how you determined the capacity of the battery bank and what you installed for inverters.

Thanks, Ron

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A remote cabin that will cost too much to extend utility power to it? An all electric house? Or a house on city water with a gas stove, gas furnace, gas water heater and gas clothes dryer?
It all depends on how much power is used.
What does your power bill state now for monthly Kw hour useage?

This is for a Minnesota public/private
non-profit 501 C agricultural place
with a proposal out for a 100 kw
combination two-solar array, wind
turbine and battery bank backup with
two goals in mind: Provide enough
power to fully operate the place and
provide renewable energy first hand
information and experience to the
public.

System wise it gets quite complicated
and we are trying to understand it
better in order to explain it to
future visitors and to help answer
questions from bidders as they ask
questions beyond what is written in
the specifications.

Ron, I worked in a place built in the 70's. They had 40 6v Trogan golf cart batteries for 90 minutes of back up light power. One light in each room. It had a charger and inverter. In 10 years the batteries were shot. So they replaced all 40. Ten years later, batteries were bad again. Rarely did we use the back up power. So instead of spending a pant load for batteries the third time, the corporation decided it was cheaper to put flash lights in every room.

After that learning experience, I've never thought about battery back up.