Water shed

[armandodiaz]

I have a water shed, I built for my home. Inside I have a well and reverse osmosis system.
Currently I have 2 electrical feeds going to it...
1. 220v 30amp for the well pump.
1. 110v 15amp for the reverse osmosis system (ROS).

I am focusing more on the ROS since it's given me issues since it was installed.
Electrically, it consists of 3 pumps and a UV light. However, if I plug this into the same circuit it pops the breaker. So right now, I have an extension cord running across the yard (about 75ft away), to split the load. So, my thought is, instead of digging up the ground (again) and running another line, how about I make it solar? My idea is to totally disconnect the outlets from the electrical line and connect it to the solar system.

So, first question is how big of a solar system will I need? Should I start pulling numbers off of the pumps and start adding them?

Thanks in advance,
Armando

 

[Steve_S]

1) Get the Make, Model and Power Specs/Requirements for your components. Volts/Amps/Watts.
2) Need to know how long each runs and how often (Pick the busiest time, likely weekend with all family at house type of thing)
3) A Kill-A-Watt meter is excellent for use to measure how much power is used. There are 120V & 240V models, I am not away of any with both modes supported (it is possible, but kill-a-watt is well trusted)
Link to ALL Kill-A-Watt variants (Company Home Site) http://www.p3international.com/products/energy-savers.html

For Battery Backed system, one must account for bad weather (clouds or storm etc) and as such many people choose a 3 Day Reserve BUT that depends on YOUR REGION, some have crappier weather while others have great sun year-round.

NOTE a Hard Reality.
Most likely NONE of these pumps are Soft-Start which means they will have a Large start surge which can be anything from 3 - 5 times more than the standard running draw. 120V/15A = 1800W, 3X=5400, 5X=9000W

It is generally recommended NOT to exceed 250A from a battery system.
12V@250A=3000W, 24V@250A=6000W, 48V@250A=12,000W (Uncorrected for inverter losses or inneficiencies)

There are TWO general types of Inverters, High Frequency & Low Frequency. (Magnum Reference Article HERE)
Anything with Motors like Fridge/AC Compressors & Water Pumps and such operate More Efficiently with a Low-Frequency Inverter. Please read the article linked. NOTE: Some Armchair wizbangs will tell you HF is fine, engage Critical Thinking, there are too many Youtube University Couch Surfing "specials" here like everywhere else.

FYI: High-Freq. Inverter/Chargers & AIO's (All In Ones) are cheaper as they use MOSFETS and no Torrodial Core ($$$) and they generally have a higher stand-by consumption (Some are actually pretty good but Tier-1 ONLY, more $$$). ALL Systems have "Operational Overhead" and that must be factored for or you'll be a tad short.


Hope it Helps, Good Luck.

 

[Rednecktek]

1) Get the Make, Model and Power Specs/Requirements for your components. Volts/Amps/Watts.
2) Need to know how long each runs and how often (Pick the busiest time, likely weekend with all family at house type of thing)

This is where the math starts getting ugly, and expensive. We can help you through the math but there is likely going to be a point where "dig up the ground" is the better option.

Just for napkin math reference, 15a @ 110v = 1650w.
A 100Ah LFP 12v battery is 1200Wh.
1200wh / 1650w = .72Hr, or 45min of run time on a fully charged battery.

You're really going to need to figure out running wattage on the RO system, either by Kil-A-Watt or amp-clamp or something before you delve too far into this.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Having said that, this will be interesting to noodle out if nothing else.