jolondon
New Member
Greetings. I am relatively new to solar so sorry if my terminology is not correct.
I am installing a 6.3 KW EG4 inverter with 4 EG4 100 AH batteries for an off grid location in Costa Rica. The site is relatively remote, forested, and extremely humid. Getting install/repair people here will be extremely difficult.
I need to install a pump for my well that will feed a 2500 liter tank that will then gravity feed a small house.
We sized the system so it could support a well pump.
Now in researching pumps I see that I can either run them AC, off my batteries, or a dedicated DC "Solar Pump" system.
For AC I followed the recommendation here and looked into Grundfos pumps. They aren't sold much here but I can bring one down from the USA easy enough. For my sizing it would consume around 1 KW. Am I correct that with the Grundfos SQ line there is no separate motor or controller needed? A brand that is sold here is Franklin Electric, and at least the models that are sold here require a separte motor and control box . I am a little worried about making things more complicated, particularly given what the 85 percent humidity can do to electronics. I dont know what the power consumption is on those.
The other option would be to add another 550 watter panel and directly wire a DC pump from companies like RPS Solar Pumps. They have an option for a DC to AC converter so that the system could switch to AC (from my batteries) if DC isn't available (no sun). I expect there would be several days without sun every month. Again this requires a separate controller and the cost would be around $1,000 more than going with a Grundfluss due to to another panel, additonal wiring, etc. The company gets good ratings for responsiveness. I believe Franklin Electric also has a solar option with a solar controller.
Does anyone have a view on whether I should use my AC infrastructure (EG4 Inverter/batteries) to power the pump or use a dedicated solar pump system from someone like RPS? In general I like to keep things simple so extending the given architecture witht the batteries seems maybe the most logical. But I am new at this so any thoughts would be appreciated.
I am installing a 6.3 KW EG4 inverter with 4 EG4 100 AH batteries for an off grid location in Costa Rica. The site is relatively remote, forested, and extremely humid. Getting install/repair people here will be extremely difficult.
I need to install a pump for my well that will feed a 2500 liter tank that will then gravity feed a small house.
We sized the system so it could support a well pump.
Now in researching pumps I see that I can either run them AC, off my batteries, or a dedicated DC "Solar Pump" system.
For AC I followed the recommendation here and looked into Grundfos pumps. They aren't sold much here but I can bring one down from the USA easy enough. For my sizing it would consume around 1 KW. Am I correct that with the Grundfos SQ line there is no separate motor or controller needed? A brand that is sold here is Franklin Electric, and at least the models that are sold here require a separte motor and control box . I am a little worried about making things more complicated, particularly given what the 85 percent humidity can do to electronics. I dont know what the power consumption is on those.
The other option would be to add another 550 watter panel and directly wire a DC pump from companies like RPS Solar Pumps. They have an option for a DC to AC converter so that the system could switch to AC (from my batteries) if DC isn't available (no sun). I expect there would be several days without sun every month. Again this requires a separate controller and the cost would be around $1,000 more than going with a Grundfluss due to to another panel, additonal wiring, etc. The company gets good ratings for responsiveness. I believe Franklin Electric also has a solar option with a solar controller.
Does anyone have a view on whether I should use my AC infrastructure (EG4 Inverter/batteries) to power the pump or use a dedicated solar pump system from someone like RPS? In general I like to keep things simple so extending the given architecture witht the batteries seems maybe the most logical. But I am new at this so any thoughts would be appreciated.
