Its going to be a cold long dark winter.

[Britguy]

......... maybe not so much about zombies.

Zombies for sure, I'm collecting swords to destroy their brains.

 

[Britguy]

If this is for SHTF, do you anticipate the broadcasters also installing solar/wind power?

I've got 12TB of movies, TV shows, music, books on my NAS. No need for broadcasters. It's not as if they've made any movies worth watching in the past ten years.

 

[Rednecktek]

I've got 12TB of movies, TV shows, music, books on my NAS. No need for broadcasters. It's not as if they've made any movies worth watching in the past ten years.

Psssh! Beginner! ? I've got 30TB including TV shows.

 

[eXodus]

Order of operations about any renewable SHTF energy system:

1. Know your needs (Energy Audit)
2. Reduce your needs
3. Revaluate your needs
4. Reduce your needs
5. Plan a system for the reduce needs
6. Be shocked about the cost
7. Reduce your needs
8. Plan another system
9. Build a prototype system to learn the technology
10. Build the full scale system

90kwh/day are way to much to support. In a SHFT you should eyeball for about 5-10kwh per person per day to live in comfort.
Everything above that is unnecessary luxury.

 

[eXodus]

-220V single phase for SEQ well pump
-1 horse sewage ejector.
-1/2 horse sump pump

Do not design for your current items, replace with more energy efficient technology. Reduces your power bill today and makes planning a system a lot easier and more affordable.

Replace with:
48V DC Well pump (variable speed controller)

48V DC 170W Sump pump

 

[Bobert]

In my opinion disaster planning is usually flawed. If everything as we know it comes apart all you really need is companionship, shelter, food, water and air. Electricity is a convenience Most of the world still survives without reliable power and note worthy numbers of people in the US prosper without using electricity for daily life and do so by choice for religious reasons not preparation for coming disaster. For me disaster prep is one of the lesser motivating reasons to go solar. Similar category to solar is cool, ( it is cool but what does that matter in the final analysis of life) solar will save money (it might but probably not) and solar is fun. If disaster prep is your only reason for solar you will probably be disappointed.

 

[Hedges]

90kwh/day are way to much to support. In a SHFT you should eyeball for about 5-10kwh per person per day to live in comfort.
Everything above that is unnecessary luxury.

Although production, even of 90 kWh/day, is feasible. Battery storage is the least economical and shortest lived (unless you go out of your way to buy electronics that will fail quickly.) Refrigeration and water would be among the fairly critical applications, but not good if an electric well pump is the only way to get water.

You can reasonably purchase 5kW to 20kW of panels.

These do have degradation mechanisms, including due to exposure to light, voltage bias (cells either positive or negative relative to frame may be worse depending on cell type), moisture. In a normal world we would buy the array we want and maybe a few spares. For TEOTWAWKI, you could keep a second array stored in a dry location out of the light. Good panels should last 25 to 40 years with some degradation, but many do not.

Electronics can die in a very short time or last 10, 20, 30 years. Heat, temperature cycling, and voltage bias contribute to wear-out. Electrolytic capacitors dry out. Many parts area heated by the I^2, the square of current, so running near full power shortens life of what would otherwise be longest lasting parts. Something like each 10 degree increase in junction temperature cuts life in half. Quality electronics can give long life, but take note if they start running hotter due to plugged air inlets or fan failure.

Batteries, we know some lead-acid have about 10 year life and some 20 year with shallow cycling. Various lithium we hope for 10 to 30 year life but don't have the track record yet. Plenty of experience with short life probably due to being kept 100% charged in warm conditions.

If the electronics supports it, you can have AC power while there is sunshine without batteries. That could be useful especially for refrigeration.

 

[MichaelK]

I was never expecting to build a system to power our consumption of 90kw per day on average

All I need to make life easer on the farm is to have power for the well, sewage ejector, sump pump, blower for furnace fan on our oil / wood furnace.

Wish list is to include a fridge, freezer.

This is where the details become very, very important. Suppose you sent the wife into town to buy some reloading components. You asked her to get 1lb of IMR4831. She comes back with 8lbs of Alliant Bullseye, and she says "well, gunpowder is gunpowder, isn't it?".

Let's take your statement above and go into the working details of it. The problem with saying I just want to run one well-pump, or one sewage ejector is the scale of what you are working at. People completely new to solar can make serious mistakes in terms of scale.

Imagine you have your cell-phone charger, your computer, and your well-pump to run. Your charger needs maybe 10W, your computer maybe 100W, but your well-pump is likely to be >1000W and 240VAC on top of that. A system that could charge your phone isn't going to run the well-pump, and the system scaled to run the pump would be strikingly excessive for charging the phone.

You seem really resistant to the idea that you need to put in the effort to do the math to determine your own needs. I have my own homestead to manage, and don't have the time to work out every single detail for you. So, suck it up and get it done. I've already given you a system design (in US$) that will work. If that doesn't seem to meet your needs, then do it yourself. If you don't follow my guidelines and it doesn't work, then it's not my problem.

 

[schmism]

Imagine you have your cell-phone charger, your computer, and your well-pump to run. Your charger needs maybe 10W, your computer maybe 100W, but your well-pump is likely to be >1000W and 240VAC on top of that. A system that could charge your phone isn't going to run the well-pump, and the system scaled to run the pump would be strikingly excessive for charging the phone.

1000w 240v pump would be a 4-5a pump. Thats unlikely. They are typically in the 10-15a (2400-3500w) with 5-10x startup peak (thus previous comments about soft start VFD)

To OP. Im over a year into running my 5500w PV 6kw inverter. I thought IT would be enough to skate through SHTF however Its going to be way easier to extend my PV to the full 8kw that the inverter will support than it will be to pair the consumption down to something we would be comfortable with. And that's with no 220v well pump, or 220v AC.

If your serious about your list of electrical needs your going to need to consider 12-20KW of PV and 10-12kw of inverter as ball park.

 

[Hedges]

Which is just about what I have. Actually 2x as much inverter, but just because I could not because I needed it. What I don't have is enough battery for real off-grid living.

You could buy 2x Sunny Island for $3000 each.
2x Sunny Boy $1700 each (new model), possibly as little as $500 each (old model, maybe used maybe new old stock)
15kW (STC) of panels, $3500 to $15,000 depending on new/used/condition/brand.
Rack mounts can cost as much as panels, or scrounge DIY materials.
Batteries are the expendable and expensive part.

 

[MichaelK]

1000w 240v pump would be a 4-5a pump. Thats unlikely. They are typically in the 10-15a (2400-3500w) with 5-10x startup peak (thus previous comments about soft start VFD)

The 1000W example above was really only for illustrative purposes of scale. Here is a pump chart that another member Mike94950 previously supplied. I like to cut and paste it into discussions like these.

Too many people here make guesses about what power requirements are. That is one of my pet peeves!!! In terms of water pumping, I think I did my homework, and got a clamp meter that measures "inrush current", which gives a real-world measure of what the actual startup values are. My values were 10.0A/38.0A for running/starting of my 1hp pump. Which works out to be around 4X, rounded. Mike's table match my measurements to a fraction of an amp.

BTW, here is an important factoid about sine-wave inverters. Running on generator power, my pump draws 10.0A at 240VAC and pumps 275GPH of water into my tank, measured over an 8 hour period. Running on inverter power, my pump draws 9.5A at 240VAC and pumps 305GPH of water, measured over an 8 hour period.

One of the important points that doesn't get mentioned much here is that my Schneider inverter makes "cleaner" AC than does the generator, which translates in the real-world as more water for less total power consumed. I assume that this might also mean the pump is likely to live longer getting cleaner watts, though I have no way to actually measure this? I would suspect that you might see a similar relationship comparing the Schneider to some of the "budget" inverters mentioned on this site.