24/7 water pump

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System
System Posts: 2,511 admin
in Off Grid Solar & Battery Systems #1
i have zero experience with setting up these things, so go easy on me...
i am setting up an off grid aquaponics system and i need to run a 45 watt 120 volt water pump 24/7 and i need to run it on solar power. Is there anyway i can set up a solar panel to run the pump and store excess energy, say on a battery, during the day, and then draw from the stored power to run the pump at night? please respond i need help :confused:
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
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    Re: 24/7 water pump

    Welcome to the forum.

    The short answer is "yes". :D

    What you're looking at is 45 Watts for 24 hours or 1080 Watt hours per day. Not difficult to achieve.
    Because the power draw is small, this could be done with a 12 Volt system. It would require about 100 Amp hours which means at least a 200 Amp hour battery. A couple of 6 Volt "golf cart" batteries would be around 225 Amp hours and a fairly inexpensive method of getting the power.

    Then you'll need a lot of solar panels with a controller to recharge them. As a target you're looking at around 400 Watts of panel, depending on what amount of sun you can rely on. Three of the Kyocera 135 Watt panels might be a good value there. And the charge controller needn't be anything fancier than a 30 Amp PWM type.

    Also you will need a small inverter. There's quite a few to choose from that will meet the 45 Watt requirement. Depending on the type of pump motor a true sine inverter may be in order. In the small size they're reasonably priced.

    You may also need some type of back-up power or perhaps a good redundancy factor to make up for cloudy days.

    This is merely generalization, of course. Does it sound promising?
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  • mike95490
    mike95490 Solar Expert Posts: 9,583 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    Re: 24/7 water pump

    So, about $2,000 in parts, or is a trench and extension cord a possibility to get power to the system ?
    Powerfab top of pole PV mount | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
    || Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
    || VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A

    solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
    gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister ,

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