Texas-Mark
Solar Addict
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2021
- Messages
- 1,284
New member here, but not new to solar power. let me give a brief description of what I have and what I need some suggestions on. This is a little long, so please bear with me.
I live in rural TX and had a DYI grid-tie system for about 15 years. This is made up of 15 100w panels. I also have a battery bank consisting of 5 deep cycle batteries and a 1500w pure sine wave inverter. Note: Everything is 12V. This was set up to power the grid-ties inverters all of the time, but if need be, I could switch the panels to charge the battery bank and use the sine wave inverter. Mainly I just wanted to offset running my pool pump 24/7. This worked well for about 14 years. At the time I set it up, the electric company knew I had it and did not care. Going the grid-tie route was ideal because i was able to utilize all the power generated. it required zero intervention.
Then about a couple of years ago, the electric company got involved with selling their own solar power systems. Well, at least sub-contracting it. All would have probably been fine, but one day due to a fluke of perfect conditions, I produced more than I was using. Due to the smart meters, the electric company saw it and called me and said I now had to have everything approved by them. I looked over all of the paperwork and requirements and decided it was not worth the hassle or cost to rebuild what was working fine for 14 years. So I ditched the grid-tie portion.
So now, I run the pool pump off of the sine wave inverter and use the panels to keep the batteries charged up. This causes some issues. As I had it originally, the pool pump would switch to the inverter at about 3:00am. This of course discharges the batteries. Then when the sun comes up, the batteries start to recharge and the panels also will power the pump. The pool pump switches back to grid power at 1:00pm. This gives the panels enough time to finish topping off the batteries and I am ready for the next day. There is still some wasted power generation toward the end of the afternoon, but that is because the batteries are nearly charged and the charge tapers off.
Now the problem is that my scenario above relies on cloudless days every day. Of course that never happens so I had to adjust my timing of things. I have the pool pump switch to the inverter at 7:30am. This way the batteries are not discharged too much and if it is cloudy, they may not fully charge by the end of the day. Now, if there are a lot of consecutive cloudy days, the inverter will shut down when the batteries get too depleted (and the pump auto switches back to the grid). Note: I do not rely on the inverter's low voltage shutoff, but instead have my own device that I have set for 70% discharge (to prolong battery life).
Anyway, my issue which should be obvious is I am wasting a lot of potential energy when the sun is out every day. Anyone else have a similar situation? Any suggestions to utilize more of the power when it is available? I have my system fully automated and would like to keep it that way. I don't want to have to go flipping switches or whatever every time it gets cloudy. Should I just let the pump run longer so the panels will always be charging them even if it could potentially bee a week or more before they get fully charged?
I live in rural TX and had a DYI grid-tie system for about 15 years. This is made up of 15 100w panels. I also have a battery bank consisting of 5 deep cycle batteries and a 1500w pure sine wave inverter. Note: Everything is 12V. This was set up to power the grid-ties inverters all of the time, but if need be, I could switch the panels to charge the battery bank and use the sine wave inverter. Mainly I just wanted to offset running my pool pump 24/7. This worked well for about 14 years. At the time I set it up, the electric company knew I had it and did not care. Going the grid-tie route was ideal because i was able to utilize all the power generated. it required zero intervention.
Then about a couple of years ago, the electric company got involved with selling their own solar power systems. Well, at least sub-contracting it. All would have probably been fine, but one day due to a fluke of perfect conditions, I produced more than I was using. Due to the smart meters, the electric company saw it and called me and said I now had to have everything approved by them. I looked over all of the paperwork and requirements and decided it was not worth the hassle or cost to rebuild what was working fine for 14 years. So I ditched the grid-tie portion.
So now, I run the pool pump off of the sine wave inverter and use the panels to keep the batteries charged up. This causes some issues. As I had it originally, the pool pump would switch to the inverter at about 3:00am. This of course discharges the batteries. Then when the sun comes up, the batteries start to recharge and the panels also will power the pump. The pool pump switches back to grid power at 1:00pm. This gives the panels enough time to finish topping off the batteries and I am ready for the next day. There is still some wasted power generation toward the end of the afternoon, but that is because the batteries are nearly charged and the charge tapers off.
Now the problem is that my scenario above relies on cloudless days every day. Of course that never happens so I had to adjust my timing of things. I have the pool pump switch to the inverter at 7:30am. This way the batteries are not discharged too much and if it is cloudy, they may not fully charge by the end of the day. Now, if there are a lot of consecutive cloudy days, the inverter will shut down when the batteries get too depleted (and the pump auto switches back to the grid). Note: I do not rely on the inverter's low voltage shutoff, but instead have my own device that I have set for 70% discharge (to prolong battery life).
Anyway, my issue which should be obvious is I am wasting a lot of potential energy when the sun is out every day. Anyone else have a similar situation? Any suggestions to utilize more of the power when it is available? I have my system fully automated and would like to keep it that way. I don't want to have to go flipping switches or whatever every time it gets cloudy. Should I just let the pump run longer so the panels will always be charging them even if it could potentially bee a week or more before they get fully charged?
