solar questions

caesarsfish

I think I have bought what I need. I'm building a cabin in Alabama (1800 sq ft.) and now installing wiring. About the cabin, I have a fireplace in the great room with forced air ducts and a nice potbelly stove in the dining area. I bought two 18000 btu a/c heat pumps, one for the great room and the other for the bed rooms. Hot water is supplied with an on demand water heater.

Now what I have, 12 200 watt solar panel (intend to add more) two 500 watt wind turbines, 4000 watt pure sine inverter, 100 amp charge regulator and the system is 24 volt. I also have other items that people said I needed. I went with the battery system because of power outages in the area.

Now the questions. Do I hook up the solar system up directly to the 200 amp circuit panel in the house, what I mean is do I tie it to the local grid system. Will this help use less local grid power. I will not be at this house full time, do I need a cut-off system for the local grid power and use just my solar system when I am away. I will probably just have the frig and freezer, a few lights and the alarm system running when I am away.

Can I use 200 amp deep cycle batteries from Walmart and how many do you think I will need or does anyone know a place to buy the required batteries.

I have a lot more questions but this is a good start. thanks in advance. Dwight

mike95490

Re: solar questions

Argh !! You bought first, and planned 2nd. What's still in factory boxes and returnable ?

"On demand heater" - Electric or Gas?

Heat pumps, 110 or 220V

Does your electric utility support "Grid-Intertie" connections, if so you can sell back surplus power, if your inverter supports it. (a 4000W inverter, I don't think so).

What company did the planning on this ?

Asking questions to see how to best salvage this.

caesarsfish

Re: solar questions

I do not think I need to return anything, maybe just talk with the right person, lol.
The water heater is electric, no gas in the house. I am a little leery of gas because my father was killed on the same property because of a propane leak. But you are right about the inverter, not 4000 but 3500 watt grid interactive GTFX and GVFX INVERTER/CHARGER BY OUTBACK. Any help you could give to my QUESTIONS would be appreciated. thanks, Dwight

mikeo

Re: solar questions

The water heater is electric

where you live dump the demand electric HW and consider a solar and wood fired hot water system. You can't efficiently run electric HW from PV solar.

Cariboocoot

Re: solar questions

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

You need a qualified electrician there. One who is familiar with grid-tie solar too.

Basically the place should be wired up as though it were only going to be serviced by the grid. The GT inverter is usually a 'supplemental' connection which back-feeds excess power to the grid through a breaker. Battery back-up allows the AC load connection of the inverter to feed 'critical circuits' (like the refrigerator) in the event of a power failure. The batteries will be kept charged by the grid and solar as needed.

How much battery capacity do you need? You can have up to the maximum amount the charge capability of the invert can handle. More if you have sufficient solar panels. With an Outback inverter, there should be an MX60 or FM80 in your inventory as well as a Hub and MATE to hook it all together. Don't forget; fuses, disconnects, proper wire sizing and array orientation.

The wind turbines will probably turn out to be a disappointing waste of money. They usually do.

On-demand electric water heaters are horrible. They use huge amounts of electricity and are the devil to connect, due to the large current draw. You'd probably be better off with an efficient electric tank & a timer to shut it off at night. If you still don't want propane. Electricity is very inefficient at heating.

I'm sure others here will be able to offer more advice. GT isn't my forte.

mike95490

Re: solar questions

With what you are describing, and what you <dont> understand, about grid-tie, is not going to really get solved over the internet in a couple of days.
You have a mix of stuff that is just not compatible (battery & on-demand electric hot water) 98% of installs dis-functional (wind generators) and not a lot of background to tie it all together.

We can go over your gear list in detail, and sort out much of it, but untill you have an idea of what your local electric company allows for grid tie, that part is not even on the table. But at least the $ are spent, that's often the hardest part to find