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Calculate solar size for my deep well pump and other appliances

Delroy

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Joined
Oct 12, 2020
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Hello friends, I'm wondering what size of solar system could power my deep well pump aswell as a few lights and plugs to charge my cellphone and laptop.

This is the pump I will be using:

Grundfos 5SQE05-180 - 5 GPM 1/2 HP SQE-Series Deep Well Submersible Pump (180' Rated Head) (2W - 115V) (Soft-start)

The pump will move water to a pressure tank so it won't be in use everytime i turn on water.
 

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Love to help, but I can barely read English, let alone French. Vast majority of contributors on this forum seem to be English speakers, and oddly enough, YOU typed in English, but you linked data in French.

You also mention "appliances," but you only reference the pump.
 
Love to help, but I can barely read English, let alone French. Vast majority of contributors on this forum seem to be English speakers, and oddly enough, YOU typed in English, but you linked data in French.

You also mention "appliances," but you only reference the pump.
The numbers in the pdf are the same in french and english and also :3E9973A7-12FE-42F6-9A1E-A2498A22F1FF.jpeg
 
Those aren't "appliances".

You can't be bothered to get an English datasheet, but you want help? Good luck!
 
Si basically, i give you the details about the pump and the other things i want to power and you are bugging on language? Great ? i appreciate your help
 
It appears the pump has a 1.1 kW rating, so you need a 5 kW inverter to start it (or one that can surge to 5 kW for a few seconds.)
That's assuming the pump has an induction motor. If it is 3-phase internally with an inverter drive (powered by single phase externally), then no starting surge.

It appears this pump can work with a pressure control unit to vary speed and water volume, suggesting does contain VFD and may be very easy to start with a small inverter:


I've had some experience with VFD and transformerless inverter, which wasn't happy with the electrical load it had to feed. You are probably better off with a low frequency transformer-type inverter. Although, I see references to power factor correction which could alleviate the issue.

How long will it have to run per day, to lift the amount of water you want? Turn that into kWh and divide by 4 to estimate how many kW of PV panels are needed to power it. Same kWh math to get panels for the rest of your loads.

Batteries - you need something to deliver the starting surge. Beyond that, I don't believe in batteries; run your loads during the day. But if you need to run something at night, figure out how many kW and multiply by 2 to size your battery (lead-acid). If you want to run a freezer during multiple overcast days, decide how long it will be dark, also determine the freezer's power consumption (much less than label, go by annual energy estimates for the model. Typically averages out to 50W or 100W around the clock.) But install more panels than that - they're inexpensive, and amount of sun varies.

And yes, we do make fun of language. After all, ours is a bastard language made up of all the others.
The French can speak English, they just choose not to.
We Americans can't speak French.
But I always say, "The dollar speaks English"
 
It appears the pump has a 1.1 kW rating, so you need a 5 kW inverter to start it (or one that can surge to 5 kW for a few seconds.)
That's assuming the pump has an induction motor. If it is 3-phase internally with an inverter drive (powered by single phase externally), then no starting surge.

It appears this pump can work with a pressure control unit to vary speed and water volume, suggesting does contain VFD and may be very easy to start with a small inverter:


I've had some experience with VFD and transformerless inverter, which wasn't happy with the electrical load it had to feed. You are probably better off with a low frequency transformer-type inverter. Although, I see references to power factor correction which could alleviate the issue.

How long will it have to run per day, to lift the amount of water you want? Turn that into kWh and divide by 4 to estimate how many kW of PV panels are needed to power it. Same kWh math to get panels for the rest of your loads.

Batteries - you need something to deliver the starting surge. Beyond that, I don't believe in batteries; run your loads during the day. But if you need to run something at night, figure out how many kW and multiply by 2 to size your battery (lead-acid). If you want to run a freezer during multiple overcast days, decide how long it will be dark, also determine the freezer's power consumption (much less than label, go by annual energy estimates for the model. Typically averages out to 50W or 100W around the clock.) But install more panels than that - they're inexpensive, and amount of sun varies.

And yes, we do make fun of language. After all, ours is a bastard language made up of all the others.
The French can speak English, they just choose not to.
We Americans can't speak French.
But I always say, "The dollar speaks English"


Hahaha in my book the dollar speak chinese right now but yes, lets agree to disagree and put politics and language away from this conversation!
Thank you very much for the information you provided, and yes i think that the soft start feature means it won't use the full electric load at start meaning a 3 or 4k inverter might be enough.
 
Everyone else who comes here wanting to drive a multi-HP well pump, we tell them they'll need a big honkin' 10 kW low-frequency inverter to run it, or else pull up the pump and substitute something that draws less power. They're too cheap or lazy to do that, so they're SOL.

Grundfos appears to be the alternative; search that name on this forum, e.g.


You need to decide how many hours run-time provides the amount of water you need, and determine how much sunlight ("insolation") you receive. For my San Jose area, it is 5.5 hours effective sun, of course spread out over the day. From there you can size your PV array.

Because your pump has variable speed capability, you have the opportunity to implement an ideal system consuming power as it is produced, with virtually no cycling of battery. If the control signal is analog, zero to 20 mA rather than a digital protocol (follows my preferred KISS principle), so you could implement an analog (or digital) controller. Regulate battery at float voltage by varying pump speed.

But probably, that's 4 to 20 mA as a noise-tolerant transport for RS-232 or other digital protocol. So you would have to communicate digitally, or else use their pressure-control unit and feed it an analog "pressure" signal.

If you put in an (expensive!) SMA Sunny Island which curtails PV production by frequency shift, regulate frequency to between 60.5 and 61 Hz (or 50.5 to 51 Hz). That will increase pump speed when surplus power is available; above that, grid-tie Sunny Boy inverters linearly reduce their AC output from 61 to 62 Hz.

When I arrived by Chunnel train in Paris, taxi driver offered ride to hotel at a price in Francs which worked out to $80. "Do I look stupid? Or just American?"

in Lima, hailing a taxi for a ride to restaurant on beach, price was 7 dollars. In soles? 7 soles. (exchange rate was 3 soles to the dollar)

The dollar speaks English, but not speaking the local language I have to part with considerably more dollars to get by.

Yes, I'm concerned about future strength of the dollar. It was foreign borrowing that permitted an economic and government boom in the 2000's. With manufacturing moved overseas, we bought cheap junk from China. All that trade surplus gave them money to lend back to the US government, so the government could spend even more money than it had, goosing the economy. Party's over, and our government isn't going to shrink back to its former size. Since the Market Meltdown of 2008/2009, buying power of the dollar has fallen in half (which I predicted, as it was necessary to make banks solvent considering all the underwater mortgages.)
 
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This is a fun thread.

Deep well pump power supplies, (From personal experience with a 175' deep well I am of the opinion that a dedicated 10Kw low frequency 48v inverter supplied with an ample, properly sized, bank of well maintained batteries is the safe bet if you want to insure that you maintain a steady water supply throughout your normal daily routine. Pillow bladder pressure tanks are iffy. Gravity fed large capacity tanks are better with properly stepped-down supply lines and, most of all, make sure all of your faucets are dripless and always COMPLETELY shutoff when not in use ... and do not forget toilet reservoir refill valves, exterior sillcock valves and variousother shut off valves ... I use redundant shutoff systems to insure no pressure losses when not in use.) Dollar exchange rates. The French. The Communist Chinese. Trade deficits. The Fed. Etymology of the English language .... which harks back to 1066 and the Norman Conquest.

I am not sure whether c'est la vie or c'est tout la tête is more apropos when regarding this thread?

I have three wells on this property. Shallow water is not an option. All three supply their own elevated reservoirs although one of the grid tied wells does have an elevated pressure pillow low quantity (40 gallon) tank. Two tanks in parallel actually with a sediment filter between the two. The other grid tied well supplies strictly livestock and garden.

I also have a pond, which I sometimes draw water from using a single panel, a 12v lead acid Interstate deep cycle battery which I bring to the site when needed but is kept topped-off with a marine trickle charger when not in use, and a Harbor Freight direct connection 12v sump pump supplying water through a garden hose.

Water supply is important on this farm.

This is a fun thread.
 
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You should know Pumps have different cord lengths, before selecting a pond pump. You must consider the cord is long enough to connect the pond and plugin far away from the water.
 
You should know Pumps have different cord lengths, before selecting a pond pump. You must consider the cord is long enough to connect the pond and plugin far away from the water.

Why in the world would you place the pond pump close to the house when ... the entire advantage to the pond pump is to place it, and the mobile battery/panel set-up, on the shore of the pond and then run the supply pipe/hose to the house/barn.
 
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