Backup solar for gas station

davidwillis

I live in a small town, and the owner of the local gas station is asking me about what it would take to keep his led lights on, his cash register, and gas pumps running when the power goes out.

My original idea is to use a magnum PAE 4400 inverter with 4 200ah AGM batteries, with 6 250 watt panels.

However when I started looking at his electrical panel, he has a sub panel that runs his pumps, and it connected to a 100a breaker.  He only has 4 pumps, but they don't all run at once.  But how much power do these pumps take?

Obviously the magnum inverter won't work, because it only has a 30a ATS.  So I would need to get a 100A ATS.  But will the magnum 4400 watt inverter run a pump, and how long do you think 9600 watt hours will keep things running?

I didn't think those pumps would really take much power, especially since they don't run much, but maybe I am wrong, I was suprised by the 100a breaker, and I think each pump had a 30a breaker.

Thanks!

westbranch

First you need data on the pumps....  the pump motors are probably the greatest load and what is the likely hood of them all being started simultaneously?

BB.

Service stations may have some pretty stringent electrical safety requirements (explosion proof boxes/devices) and certification of pumps (local weights and measures).

Anything is possible--And setting up for only one or two pumps to run on backup system can help....

-Bill

davidwillis

Thanks.  I will see If I can find some data on the pumps.  I have contacted sinclare, hopefully the will get back to me.

mike95490

Why solar and not a manual start generator (diesel or propane) on a pad with manual transfer switch ?  Is he expecting week long outages ?
Or just a grid charger .

bill von novak

mike95490 said:

Why solar and not a manual start generator (diesel or propane) on a pad with manual transfer switch ?

Or a gasoline generator?  They are cheaper and he has a lot of it, and he won't have the problem of "the gas degrades with time" since he can just pull from his own tank.

davidwillis

That is probably what he will end up doing.  I originally thought it would only take a little power to run his 200 watts of lights, his register, and a pump once in a while (seems like overkill to have a generator running full time for just that).  But if those pumps need 100 amps, then it will be better to just run a generator.

Estragon

It's hard to believe the pumps would take anything like 30a. A lift of 10-15ft and flow of say 10gal/minute shouldn't take much of a pump.

Even so, if outages are fairly rare, a generator is likely to be cheaper than a solar/battery backup system.