New system design! Hydro/solar setup help!

[hyphal_knot]

Hello all! i found this forum recently and have found many helpful threads. I have no equipment so far and need guidance designing an off grid system for year round living in the mountains of far northern california. Our power needs are modest for our small cabin, but I do want to run some power tools. I did snooblers energy audit and estimate needing 14 kw hrs a day. This is a rather gross over estimate and I may go smaller to fit the budget, but would like to be able to expand over time to get to that point.
We have a good year round stream for hydro, in fact a previous owner had a hydro setup (gone and dismantled) using 4" pipe! I am unsure as to whether to skip solar or skip hyrdo and what would be more affordable and easier to set up.
Here is a site description, il try to make it legible..
The hill faces west, or just slightly south of west. I followed snooblers solar irradience link and got these rough numbers:

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
2.86	3.66	4.49	5.23	6.01	6.86
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
7.41	7.05	6.10	4.66	2.76	2.59

The stream is difficult to describe and measure. I believe its in the 100 g/p/m ballpark. The head to the cabin site is perhaps 30-50 feet, with less than 100 ft of power transmission. I have an option to do a longer penstock and go further down the hill, and could have maybe 150-200 feet of head, but this would require sending the power back up the hill to the buildings via something like 500+ ft of transmission line . I am unsure of the efficiencies of this situation, maybe something in between?

The climate of the site is long hot sunny summers and very cloudy rainy winters. It does snow, but only a little. It gets around freezing but not much below.

There are so many options for equipment and design I feel overwhelmed. I don't have the funds to just hire somebody to figure it out for me though.. and feel entirely capable of installation and maintenance if I can just figure out what the right combination of gear is. Im waffling between having lots of solar and a small hydro (like the water buddy), or a large pelton and skipping the solar. and then what inverter/charger/battery combo to use? there are sooo many options. I want to keep it as cheap as possible, but don't want to buy stuff that is trash in a few years either.
Thanks in advance for any input or resources this community can offer! I love finding the right forum for peer2peer learning.

 

[Hedges]

Use both.
Batteries are the most expensive part of a system. Having hydro 24 hours/day minimizes how much battery is needed for nights and cloudy days. Seems like 750W of pelton wheel would supply 100%
PV is cheap and maintenance free. 3 kW of PV costing $750 would on average supply your needs. But go a bit oversize.

Maybe start with whatever small stream generator is cheap and off the shelf, but plan to build more later.
There's a link somewhere around here to a video of a guy in Australia powering his home with a horizontal axis washing machine turned into hydro generator.

 

[hyphal_knot]

Use both.
Batteries are the most expensive part of a system. Having hydro 24 hours/day minimizes how much battery is needed for nights and cloudy days. Seems like 750W of pelton wheel would supply 100%
PV is cheap and maintenance free. 3 kW of PV costing $750 would on average supply your needs. But go a bit oversize.

Maybe start with whatever small stream generator is cheap and off the shelf, but plan to build more later.
There's a link somewhere around here to a video of a guy in Australia powering his home with a horizontal axis washing machine turned into hydro generator.

Thank you! helps put things in perspective. The appeal of fewer batteries by going more into hydro is enticing. Does anyone have any experience with off the shelf pelton wheels? like the suneco 1.1kw? How is the customer service and parts availability ? any other recommendations?
Also I am curious about the phocos any grid 5kw inverter/charger. would this be a reasonable choice? They are very affordable and the simplicity of the all in one unit is enticing. I can buy them locally. But there is not a lot of user reviews out for units like this. I guess the DIY community here is more interested in modular systems with more user design than these kinds of do it all setups.
And for batteries.. there is a place in town doing second life Nissan leaf batteries that are quite affordable. I am a little concerned about low temperature times of year but could probably set up an earth sheltered battery box to keep it warm enough. I want to be able to have enough battery to start up my table saw and that kind of thing.
Again, there are so many options for each piece of equipment, im really looking for some help to sort through all these options.

 

[45North]

The trade-off between hydro and solar depends on your local situation and we can't tell you which is "best" remotely and based on the limited info available.
Do you have access to the previous owner who had the 4in hydro system? It would be useful to know how well it worked and why he abandoned it.

As a general approach this is what I would do:

• treat the whole thing as a science experiment
• install both small solar and small hydro "proof of concept" systems
• over the course of a year observe the functioning of the systems and record the results
• observe the characteristics of the site: solar shading, stream flow, etc...

If you like this sort of thing it will be an exciting project; and if you don't it will be a pita so don't bother.
And if it isn't complicated enough, you also have the option of using a generator sometimes!

 

[hyphal_knot]

The trade-off between hydro and solar depends on your local situation and we can't tell you which is "best" remotely and based on the limited info available.
Do you have access to the previous owner who had the 4in hydro system? It would be useful to know how well it worked and why he abandoned it.

As a general approach this is what I would do:

• treat the whole thing as a science experiment
• install both small solar and small hydro "proof of concept" systems
• over the course of a year observe the functioning of the systems and record the results
• observe the characteristics of the site: solar shading, stream flow, etc...

If you like this sort of thing it will be an exciting project; and if you don't it will be a pita so don't bother.
And if it isn't complicated enough, you also have the option of using a generator sometimes!

I do not have access to the previous owners experience... they abandoned it because of the complexities of the black market cannabis business! all thats left is some disconnected pipe, a pressure gauge, and some wiring in the barn.
My connections locally inform me that hydro is a great option in our neighborhood. lots of other people use it.. even on our same creek. But.. all these systems are decades old at this point. In buying equipment today the options are much different.
Solar is also used in my neighborhood, and our site has a lot of open sky. but the overcast winter of the PNW would mean a lot of batteries. We have a generator but you know.. I don't want to use that.
I have been observing the stream flow for the past few years already.. and using tiny devices like the waterlily turbine and a small solar usb battery bank and that kind of thing.
I definitely like and am excited by the project.. but even spending 2k on the wrong/temporary equipment, is not an option for us. I don't want to buy an inverter and wish I had a different one in three years.

 

[45North]

OK sounds like you've already given it some thought and learning what you can about the site and available technologies.
Keep doin' what you're doin'!

 

[hyphal_knot]

Piecing it together.. Can anyone help with another beginner question? AC or DC transmission.
There are two buildings at my place. my main house is at higher elevation, and the barn is at lower. both are near the creek. If I setup my my hydro power near the barn I need to send it back up the hill to the house. I would like to have 110 AC at both ideally. The length of run up the hill is probably 500-1000 ft. Im hoping to be near 750 or 1000 watts coming off the turbine and I assume a 24 V dc setup, but maybe 48. Would it make more sense to have the inverter at the barn, the bottom, and send 110 ac up the hill? or send 24v dc up the hill and have the inverter/batteries at the house. Ive tried googling it , and mostly ac is used for "long distance" transmission, but Im having trouble finding info that answers my question definitively.
Which would use cheaper wire? which would be safer? Fire danger is very real so having the power line be safe from falling trees and critters is a concern.
also.. i apologize for not having precise figures yet. I need to take some measurements of everything instead of eyeballing!

 

[45North]

AC transmission. Safer and cheaper wire, especially now with copper so high.

 

[Hedges]

Another choice is to step up voltage from alternator, transmit it at up to +/-400V (to keep peaks within 600V insulation).
What voltage you select depends on watts/amps and power loss.
This way regulation occurs at the far end, rather than before a long run.