Backup Systems

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Back-up in country

Water Storage - Power Back-up

Generator back-up

Getting prepared now for Beyond Y2K Problems

Back up Batteries

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Back-up in country
© Copyright 1994 "Ask Mr. Solar" For 1979 - July/August issue Back Home Magazine

Dear Mr Solar -

I just finished reading your article in the winter issue BH. You were discussing backup electrical systems. My husband and I are now living somewhat further out on the grid than had been our prior custom. I grew up on a farm and are aware that the farther out on the grid the longer it will take to restore power. Also, plugging into the sun has certain financial advantages. We are seriously discussing backup power with the idea that if it cuts our power bill, great.

Since we are in the planning stages, we can make some arrangements and purchases to make it work better. You mention that the 1/2 horse power AC pump requires a large surge to begin pumping. Since I consider water a necessity, I want the emergency power to work the pump. So I ask you Mr. Solar, if you were having a new well drilled and a new pump installed, what would you get and how would you make it work with photovoltaic or another alternative power source? Would having a 55,000 gallon potable water storage tank in place be useful?

Sincerely ,Name with held as requested - from Southwestern Ohio

Hi -

You are very wise to "look ahead" as well as plan ahead so that you will be prepared for the coming move to the country. We enjoy our life style and am sure that you will.

Yes pumping does take a large surge to start the pump, however if you were to install a 1/3 to 1/2 horse power AC 110 volt pump then you need to get a special one. Grundfos makes a 110 volt pump with a Franklin motor that has three wires from the control box to the pump in the well. The purpose of this is to start the motor in stages and therefore it doesn't have the large surge that is required if you are going to use the normal "cheepie" pump. You will have to insist on the above type to be installed in your well. Your well driller may try to talk you out of it as they are more expensive, and he will tell you that it is out dated. But for your needs, the possibility of operating on solar using an inverter for power then you need this low surge motor. Also you do NOT need to pump 10 to 50 gallons a minute only 5 gallons a minute will be sufficient for your home use.

I am assuming that you are going to have a small electrical back up system. This will include a good a small set of deep cycle alternative energy type batteries and a charger/ inverter such as the Heart which have an excellent charger built into them. As you may know this will last you for several hours or a couple of days without any solar charge capacity, however you may wish to have a propane low RPM generator so that you can charge your battereis quickly, say in a couple of hours. Someday you may wish to invest in some solar panels to give you the ability to operate for longer periods of time with out the grid, this can be added to your system very easy as you have the moneys available.

If you choose not to have a small electrical back up system then you will need to install a solar pump in your well rather than using the Grundfos makes a 110 volt pump. This will entail using a set of solar panels, photovoltaic system at your well. If it were me I would go with the 110 VAC pump rather than the solar type pump as they tend to have MUCH more maintenance than the 110 VAC ones. You see the solar ones are operated with a diaphragm inside them. The cheaper ones require that you pull the pump every year and replace its internal parts. Even the better ones require that you replace the internal parts every 3 to 5 years. This is unnecessary work if you have a back up power system.

We use a 15,000 gallon water storage tank located about 20 feet above our house on a hill. We pump this about every two weeks from our well which is located about 1/4 mile south of our tank and there is a total lift of 300 feet from the well water to the tank. We do this with a small gas generator and a 1/3 HP pump. This gives us all the surplus water we need for our livestock and garden as well as house. For pressure we use a automatic 12 VDC pump set up with a diaphragm tank. This pump turns on at 40 pounds and off when the pressure reaches 60 pound, just like our "city " friends have become accustomed to using.

Thank you for telling us about your move and again I say that you are very wise to plan your move well in advance.

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Water Storage - Power back-up
© Copyright 1994 By Charlie Collins From "Ask Mr. Solar" Column Published January 2, 1994 Daily Spectrum

Question: I recently moved to southern Utah from California. I am planning on building a home west of Cedar City and would like to incorporate solar electricity in it. I have a couple of questions and would appreciate your input. I am wondering if it is economical to pump water into a storage tank and then use the water under gravity pressure to generate electricity. Would I need batteries, or could I operate directly from the electricity generated from the falling water?

Eric B., Cedar City, Utah

Mr. Solar: Jim, yes it is possible to store water in a pond above a hydroelectric power plant and then use this stored water to generate electricity. This can be done with wind to pump the water to a elevated tank and then use that created pressure to generate electric power. Normally the best set up is to store the power is storage batteries. If you have enough water to place in an elevated container, such as a pond and then when you wanted electricity then you could have an automatically operated water turbine to generate your electricity on demand. This form of storage would be better than using storage batteries as there would be no maintenance or replacement of your batteries.

The generation of electricity from falling water has a very low efficiency conversion. What I would recommend is that you have the storage of water at least 100 feet above your turbine. This elevation will give you approximately 50 pounds of pressure that you can use to generate your electricity. We would recommend that you use the pelton type of turbine. This wheel has cups to catch the water and drives an alternator which generates electricity. If you have 10 gallons per minute then you would generate approximately 75 watts of power. At a delivery of 50 gallons per minute you should generate approximately 500 watts of power. We have helped install a couple of these in this area and they work well when there is adequate water volume and pressure. You would also need a small bank of batteries to handle your surge from your inverter. A surge load is created when you start electric motors. However if you only want lights, you could operate them directly from your turbine. Eric, as you see it is possible to use falling water to generate electricity, however if you do not have a stream, I don't think that it would be the economical way to generate electricity. However there are a couple of other options that you may want to consider. One would be to generate electricity with a wind mill and use this electricity to brake down water into hydrogen and store this for future use. This system is very completed and is not recommended at this time for home use. Another system you may want to consider is to store compressed air for future use. This system also has serious draw backs, however it would work with an adequate storage.

Your system should be designed by solar professional, one that lives completely on solar and understands your needs as well as it's limitations. With a properly designed system you will find that you can use all the toys that you have become accustomed to using in the city, but you will not have any monthly bills.

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Generator back-up
© Copyright 1994 By Charlie Collins From "Ask Mr. Solar" Column Published JANUARY 9 1994 Daily Spectrum

Question: I recently moved to southern Utah from California. I am planning on building a home west of Cedar City and would like to incorporate solar electricity in it. I have a couple of questions and would appreciate your input. In the solar electric system that I am considering I am wondering if I should incorporate a generator as a back up? If so what type of fuel should I consider and what other options should I consider.

Eric B., Cedar City,UT.

Mr. Solar: Eric, I use a couple of back ups for my photovoltaic solar system. A properly designed system should be designed so that you have at least five days of stored power to use in cloudy or windless days. During the past winter we experienced about 18 days that we had no sun or sufficient wind to generate ample electricity. Therefore we use our gas generator to generate electricity and store it in our batteries. We use a slow 1800 RPM generator and we feel that the long life of this type of generator outweighs the increased cost. You will find that you can purchase a 5KW generator for about $1000.00, however we feel that you will be lucky to have it last over a couple of years. We purchased a low RPM generator 18 years ago and used it for 16 years and then had it overhauled. We expect to continue using it for a long period of time. Another advantage of the low RPM type is that it uses much less fuel per hour, and therefore during the life of your using it the fuel cost will be less. You can expect to pay about three times more for this type of generator than the 3600 RPM, but we feel that it is well worth it.

You asked about the fuel to use. I feel that you will most likely have propane at your home which you will use for cooking and possibly heating. Therefore we would strongly recommend that you buy a propane generator and have it connected to your main propane tank. You should also consider having your generator connected to your solar system so that when your batteries are low due to low sunlight the generator will automatically start. This can easily be done by a solar professional and will give you electrical power at all times.

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Getting prepared now for Beyond Y2K Problems

Dear Mr Solar-

What should we do - in the past we have been without electricity for a few hours every few days. Now I have the understanding that this will be a very real problem after the Y2K change due to the fact that the government has decided to shut down all of the atomic power plants which provide our country with 20% of their power. It is our understanding that things will be real bad, like a third world country, after the first of the year due to short term power outages. I recall last summer that many cities had to "ration" power meaning that they gave power to some neighbor hood for a few hours and then cut them off so that they could give power to others, and on and on through the "hot" weeks of summer. Now what can I do - I understand that solar power is VERY expensive, costing over $0.60 per Kill watt hour compared to the local grid costing us under $0.08 per KWH. The cost of a solar system equal to yours would cost us over $30,000.00 I cannot afford that amount of investment BUT we need to operate our refrigerator as well as have a few lights and enjoy our home entertainment center. What do you suggest?

Barbara W., Boston Mass.

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Hello Barbara -

I understand how you feel and your concern. While nobody is really certain what will happen after the first of the year, there is really an easy solution for you which will cost you less, from a few thousand dollars upward, depending on length of time that you want your power to operate off the grid mode.

I feel that if you installed an automatic "back up system" in your home that will give you power for 8 hours per day and depend on the grid for the other 16 hours a day. This is probably a worst case set up, as the grid will probably be available for 20 of the 24 hours.

This system which will give you 5000 watts of back up power will consist of the following: Automatic inverter charger with built in transfer switch Set of batteries (L-16's which require maintenance or NiCads no maintenance) Remote meter (such as an E-meter) located in your kitchen

This system can easily be installed by your electrician using our free installation instructions. You will have your refrigerator, home entertainment center and a light in every room that will operate directly from your inverter and the rest of your home will operated direct from your local grid.

What this system will accomplish for you is when you have grid power for at least 4 hours then your inverter/charger will automically use this power to charge your batteries as well as let the power pass through your inverter to your refrigerator and other selected items. Then when your grid goes down then your inverter will automatically take the stored power from your batteries and use it for your selected items. Actually your refrigerator and other selected items will never know that you are without power as it is so automatic and fast in switching over.

What you need is a good inverter charger rated at about 1500 + watts. I recommend the Heart 458 series inverter/charger costing under $1000.00. This 1500 watts is the total amount of power that you will have available at any one time. Then you need a set of batteries. I could easily write a long article on just batteries, however to make it condensed you have 2 choices, either the industrial type L-16 lead acid batteries or alkaline pocket plate NiCad batteries.

We recommend the US batteries over other ones as they are 15% heavier as they have more lead per battery than their competitors, which means higher capacity. There is maintenance in checking them as well as being sure that you do not overly discharge them. Actually for long life you should use only 30% of their rated capacity. These will cost you approximately $1800.00.

If you choose the alkaline ones then you do not have to be concerned about over discharging them as they like to be fully discharged. According to Nick Finney, of Saft Inc. These actually cost less as you need less storage due the fact that they are 100% usable and they come with a 25 year guarantee as well as you never to have to be concerned about replacement or maintenance. They are known as the ultimate in batteries. A set of these will cost you approximately $1,650.00.

In addition to the inverter/charger and batteries you will need some form of metering, interconnect wires and fuses, which will cost you an estimated $700.00.

Barbara, after you have reviewed the above please let us know how we can help you with your system and of course it can be increased in size at any time.

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Back up Batteries

Dear Mr. Solar

I am interested in setting up a bank of batteries at approximately 1800 AH as a backup system when my AC power fails. Mainly wanted it to run a few lights, ham radio and probably an inverter for the refrigerator. I wanted to know if you could make a recommendation as to a brand or type for this particular application. These batteries would sit probably float charging and only be used during a power failure.

Richard

Hello Richard -

This is a very timely question as we now should be looking beyond the Y2K date and planning for short as well as long-term outages.

I am assuming that you are interested in a total usable of 1800 amp hours at 12 volts.

First let's look at the batteries available and consider that you should use only the top 30 percentage of your battery using the lead acid wet cells (L -16) or 50 percentage of the lead acid Absorbent Glass Matt (AGM). However you can use 100 percent of the NiCad ones. The following chart is an estimate of the differences.

Type	Brand	Life	Maintance	est. cost
Alkaline	NiCad	25 years	Nonw	$20,000.00
L 16 HC 26	US Battery	10 years	Average	$4094.00
L 16 HC 28	Trojan	10 years	Average	$5,040.00
AGM(100A-75)	Absolyte II	25 years	very low	$12,673.50

The L-16 price difference is due to the fact that the US battery has more capacity (415 vs 395) -- also, US battery is on sale for this month on our page. Normally we sell them for $179.00 delivered, however this month they are only $155.00 delivered (shipping included) anywhere in the lower 48 states.

Please go to our battery page: http://www.mrsolar.com/catalogue5.html and go to the US Battery / Trojan L-16 Batteries comparison chart to better understand the differences between these fine batteries. Delivery is currently under 2 weeks on these.

The Absolyte batteries are being used in telephone companies for their back-up as they have to have power to operate when the grid is down. These come with a 25 year pro-rated guarantee for float charging usage. The delivery is currently running about 6 weeks.

The NiCad alkalines, in my opinion, are by far the best as they have a 5 year warranty and an additional 20 year pro-rated guarantee, which is by far the best in the world. As you know, they can be fully discharged without any problems, therefore in the long term they may actually be the cheapest. The delivery is currently running about 8 weeks.

So Richard, what do I recommend? It depends on your short as well as long-term outlook of your needs and requirements. The L-16 are very good to start with, however if you want a battery system that will last for a quarter of a century without maintenance, then go with the NiCads.

Have a good day :-)

CharlieC