What equipments do I need to connect my current well to Solar?

hmongsolar

We recently bought an orchard. The well is powered by a Gas Generator and it gets very expensive to feed the generator a month. 
Proposed idea is, can we install an off grid solar system to power our current pump to prevent any further expenses. 

To the best of my knowledge;
Pump Info:
240v 
2HP 

How many Solar Panel, Batteries (In case I need water at night), Type of Charge Controller and Power Inverter because I am having a hard time finding a Power inverter that has a plug that can fit my well. If I have to hard wire it, then which inverter? 
Thanks. 
Anything I am missing please add on. 
We really do not want to replace the pump if possible. 

mcgivor

Perhaps the better approach would be to use a solar pump inverter with the appropriate pump rather than trying to adapt the existing pump.  This would eliminate the need for batteries and charge controller, batteries also have a limited lifespan whether used or not, so that should be figured into the equation.

Such systems are widely available, all that's needed is the array which would be sized according to the pump capacity, they are basically a MPPT controller with a 3 phase inverter that begins pumping as soon as the array can provide enough energy.

There are also brushless DC pumps which operate within a wide range of voltage, they are connected directly to the array again sized appropriately, the downside to both however is neither will work at night and have reduced capacity on cloudy days.

mike95490

What are your water requirements?
 GPM required
 Depth of water and pressure your above ground system needs ?
Daylight hours only or 24/7 ?

Often wells have the handiest, large pump that makes the greatest profit for the driller, installed.   This pump is not always the right size that is actually needed.

Would pumping to elevated storage be feasible ?

hmongsolar

mcgivor said:

Perhaps the better approach would be to use a solar pump inverter with the appropriate pump rather than trying to adapt the existing pump.  This would eliminate the need for batteries and charge controller, batteries also have a limited lifespan whether used or not, so that should be figured into the equation.

Such systems are widely available, all that's needed is the array which would be sized according to the pump capacity, they are basically a MPPT controller with a 3 phase inverter that begins pumping as soon as the array can provide enough energy.

There are also brushless DC pumps which operate within a wide range of voltage, they are connected directly to the array again sized appropriately, the downside to both however is neither will work at night and have reduced capacity on cloudy days.

How about this, is there such Inverter like you said that I could connect to an auto start generator? That way, I can leave the water on all day, then when sun goes down, it switches to the Generator before I come turn off the water. Either way, on cloudy days or night time It will automatically start the generator when I switch it on. Is this possible? Eliminating the Batter and charger and extra wiring too. 

I hope there is a technology that works how I think out there. 
We have a Water Reassure Bladder that pushes the water throughout the orchard. 

mcgivor

Almost anything is possible with the correct controls be it commercially available or otherwise, my thoughts, based on the original premise of liberation from carbon based power due to inefficiencies, would be to look into alternative means of storage.

Pumping to a holding tank or reservoir is much the same as charging a battery if rainfall is not sufficient, I too am involved in agriculture with a very high water demand, rice in particular, currently my rain fed storage capacity is sufficient to support the current requirements, but climate change has reduced the natural runoff to the point others are needing to pump from ground water to meet their needs. Personally I've had to reduce the land use to a fraction  of what was cultivated 10 years ago,  concentrating on high yeald on a smaller area to conserve water

How much water is needed for the orchard ? Generally trees are not high demand, what type of trees are being cultivated? Just curious.
 

MichaelK

I'm pumping all my orchard's water via solar as we speak.  To help you out, we'll need some numbers from you besides the voltage.  You have a 2hp pump.  The data we need on that is what is the running amp draw, and what is the starting amp draw?  You can get these values with a clamp amp-meter like this.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/UNI-T-UT216C-600A-Digital-Clamp-Meters-NCV-LCD-Test-ACDC-Auto-Range-Multimeters/303565373786?_trkparms=ispr=1&hash=item46ade8015a:g:RggAAOSwJ65euj7q&enc=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&checksum=3035653737869471edc866ac47458ddfe264e5162931

When this meter is set to AC amps, and "inrush" is selected, it will measure the startup amperage that your pump draws.  I'll guestimate though that a pump of your size will draw ~55amps right at startup, the first 1/2 second or so.

The second number needed is the running amps, which is easy to get.  You simply reset the clampmeter after getting the inrush, and read the running amps, which I would guestimate in around 13amps.

Finally, we'll need the number of gallons your pump produces per minute, and the total amounts of water you'll need over a period of time, say 7 days.

With these numbers we can design a system to meet your needs.

For now, let's use my guestimate numbers to construct a formula.  When you have your own data, you can change the numbers to match your real-time data.  The formulas stay the same, just the real-world numbers change.

So, let's say your pump runs at 13A X 240V = 3120watts.

To produce 3120W, I'd say get ~6200W of solar panels.

If you don't want to drain your battery at more than 1/10C, with C=battery amphours you need...

(3120W / 48V) X 10 = 650AH

Something like these Rolls batteries would put you in that amp hour range.

https://www.rollsbattery.com/battery/4-ch-23p/

These are 4V batteries, so you'd need 12 of them to make a 48V system.

These batteries need to power a split-phase 120/240VAC inverter that has to handle at least 3.2kWh continously and a startup surge of 55A X 240V = 13200W or 13.2kW.

The one inverter that I think could handle this startup surge is Outbacks GS8048 Radian

https://ressupply.com/inverters/outback-gs8048a-01-radian-invertercharger

It has a 100ms surge of almost 17kW.  Alternatively, a somewhat smaller inverter, like Schneider's XW+ 6848 might handle the surge.  One advantage of both the Radian and the Schneider is that they can be paralleled to double output.  Both the Radian, and the Schneider produce split-phase 120/240VAC that will run your pump.

The last major item to add into your system is the charge controllers.  With this many watts of panels you'll need at least one 80Amp controller, though with this many panels it's better to have two.  If you end up getting two parallel inverters to handle your load, you should have two banks of batteries and two sets of solar arrays, so two controllers fit into that nicely.

If you put your 6000W of panels on rotating mounts, you can rotate them to the left to face East in the morning, and rotate right to face West in the afternoon.  In my experience, a tracking system like this could power your pump from about 8am to 4pm, assuming unobstructed sun the whole day.  You don't have to have a fancy automatic tracker.  I go out each morning and rotate my arrays by hand.  I then make 3-4 periodic adjustments throughout the day to keep the arrays more or less facing directly at the sun.

mike95490

this is why we need to understand the pump requirements.   If your pump is oversized for your needs, you have to oversize the inverter, batteries and solar PV to support the pump.

mcgivor

Above is one way to operate with a generator or solar without the need DC to AC inverter or batteries, it would require a new pump which comes with an inverter. The price of these are reasonable I purchased a small 0.4hp DC only with a MPPT controller included yesterday for $180, the larger 4hp were under $600, they are submersible types. The price quoted is what's locally available at a home improvement store in Thailand.

To automate the generator start a DC rated  auto transfer switch could be used using the auxillary contacts to start the generator, here is an example https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Dc-Automatic-Transfer-Switch-Automatic-Transfer_62328907522.html?spm=a2700.7724857.normalList.1.e26663acMAa8p8