Wind/Solar Electrics ???

After much thought and ponderance, I've come to the conclusion that to
electrify the hangar using Pacific Gas & Electricity (PG&E -- Pigs, Goats,
and Elephants) isn't clever. By the time you get them to hang a meter
($5k), trench from the power pole to the end of the row of hangars, conduit
romex to 35 hangars at a cost somewhere around $50k ($1500 per hangar), and
then pay the monthly electric bill, you could buy a hell of a wind/solar
system and perch it on the (flat) hangar roof.

Before I flail about gathering data, has anybody on these ngs actually
installed a design whereby a hefty solar panel charges a hefty battery to
run a hefty inverter? It doesn't have to be absolutely "clean" sinewave
power as all we are running are fluorescent shop lights (about 400 watts
worth), every now and again a small compressor, a small drill press, a small
grinder, but none of these last few at the same time.

My hit on it is that a 2 kW inverter would be more than enough to handle the
AC side of it, and a bank of 12 volt truck batteries would work for the DC
side of it, but there are the problems of parallelling large batteries, how
to combine the outputs of solar cells and wind generators, and a reasonable
source for all this stuff.

There are issues around protecting the solar cells from hail, which we do
get from time to time, battery acidic gases inside a hangar where a very
expensive lump of aluminum is sitting for months on end, sizing the solar
cell and wind generators, and other considerations along these lines.

Comments appreciated.


Jim

"Hefty" solar panels don't come for cheap.

Do you have regular enough winds to use for battery recharging?

On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 15:02:56 -0800, "RST Engineering"
wrote:

After much thought and ponderance, I've come to the conclusion that to
electrify the hangar using Pacific Gas & Electricity (PG&E -- Pigs, Goats,
and Elephants) isn't clever. By the time you get them to hang a meter
($5k), trench from the power pole to the end of the row of hangars, conduit
romex to 35 hangars at a cost somewhere around $50k ($1500 per hangar), and
then pay the monthly electric bill, you could buy a hell of a wind/solar
system and perch it on the (flat) hangar roof.

Before I flail about gathering data, has anybody on these ngs actually
installed a design whereby a hefty solar panel charges a hefty battery to
run a hefty inverter? It doesn't have to be absolutely "clean" sinewave
power as all we are running are fluorescent shop lights (about 400 watts
worth), every now and again a small compressor, a small drill press, a small
grinder, but none of these last few at the same time.

My hit on it is that a 2 kW inverter would be more than enough to handle the
AC side of it, and a bank of 12 volt truck batteries would work for the DC
side of it, but there are the problems of parallelling large batteries, how
to combine the outputs of solar cells and wind generators, and a reasonable
source for all this stuff.

There are issues around protecting the solar cells from hail, which we do
get from time to time, battery acidic gases inside a hangar where a very
expensive lump of aluminum is sitting for months on end, sizing the solar
cell and wind generators, and other considerations along these lines.

Comments appreciated.


Jim



...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

"Jim Thompson" wrote in
message ...



"Hefty" solar panels don't come for cheap.

That's true, but they are about half the price that they were about ten
years ago. That said, a small Honda generator when you really need a couple
of kW and a few watts of solar panel to keep the aircraft battery batting
and the keepalives on the radios keeping may be the hybrid way to go.


Do you have regular enough winds to use for battery recharging?

Well, we are at 3000' on the west slope of the Sierra on the top of a small
hill with nothing (literally) between us and Japan except for a wire fence,
and it's down {;-) We get some decent winds, but nothing you can count on.
Today, for example, the peak wind was somewhere around 7 knots and the
average somewhere around 3 or 4 knots. Then again, last week we had a
howler come through here at 40 knots and last for a day. Nothing
dependable.

Jim

"RST Engineering" wrote in message
.. .
After much thought and ponderance, I've come to the conclusion that to
electrify the hangar using Pacific Gas & Electricity (PG&E -- Pigs, Goats,
and Elephants) isn't clever. By the time you get them to hang a meter
($5k), trench from the power pole to the end of the row of hangars,
conduit
romex to 35 hangars at a cost somewhere around $50k ($1500 per hangar),
and
then pay the monthly electric bill, you could buy a hell of a wind/solar
system and perch it on the (flat) hangar roof.

Before I flail about gathering data, has anybody on these ngs actually
installed a design whereby a hefty solar panel charges a hefty battery to
run a hefty inverter? It doesn't have to be absolutely "clean" sinewave
power as all we are running are fluorescent shop lights (about 400 watts
worth), every now and again a small compressor, a small drill press, a
small
grinder, but none of these last few at the same time.

My hit on it is that a 2 kW inverter would be more than enough to handle
the
AC side of it, and a bank of 12 volt truck batteries would work for the DC
side of it, but there are the problems of parallelling large batteries,
how
to combine the outputs of solar cells and wind generators, and a
reasonable
source for all this stuff.

There are issues around protecting the solar cells from hail, which we do
get from time to time, battery acidic gases inside a hangar where a very
expensive lump of aluminum is sitting for months on end, sizing the solar
cell and wind generators, and other considerations along these lines.

Comments appreciated.


Jim


Seems running a generator would be simpler and cheaper.

With a small solar panel to keep the continuous load going, not a bad way to
go.

Jim

Seems running a generator would be simpler and cheaper.

The generator can provide battery charging capability should the sun or wind
let you down.

"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...
With a small solar panel to keep the continuous load going, not a bad way
to
go.

Jim

Seems running a generator would be simpler and cheaper.

Jim,

Check out http://www.realgoods.com/renew/index.cfm They have a store near
you and also catalog that is very informative on sustainable, off-grid
living and systems.

Mike
MU-2


"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...
With a small solar panel to keep the continuous load going, not a bad way
to go.

Jim

Seems running a generator would be simpler and cheaper.

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 04:34:35 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote:

Jim,

Check out http://www.realgoods.com/renew/index.cfm They have a store near
you and also catalog that is very informative on sustainable, off-grid
living and systems.

I've had my reservations about RG ever since they endorsed those
piezoelectric washing-machine tablets.

More than anything though, CE/UL-approved grid-connect inverters (ok
AND EU subsidies, especially in Germany) are helping to increase cell
and panel manufacturing capacity. Which is essential to driving down
cost. I think off-the-grid is fine for hangars and folks in Idaho
with acres and acres of acres, but grid-connect is where the volume
is.

Don

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 05:00:15 GMT, Don Tuite
wrote:

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 04:34:35 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote:

Jim,

Check out http://www.realgoods.com/renew/index.cfm They have a store near
you and also catalog that is very informative on sustainable, off-grid
living and systems.

I've had my reservations about RG ever since they endorsed those
piezoelectric washing-machine tablets.

More than anything though, CE/UL-approved grid-connect inverters (ok
AND EU subsidies, especially in Germany) are helping to increase cell
and panel manufacturing capacity. Which is essential to driving down

There have been several "breakthroughs" that could *potentially* cut
the cost of the solar cells to less than half of current and at the
same time increase the efficiency by a substantial margin.

There were a lot of weasel words in the press release so ... who
knows. IF, how soon, and how much.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
cost. I think off-the-grid is fine for hangars and folks in Idaho
with acres and acres of acres, but grid-connect is where the volume
is.

Don

On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 15:33:27 -0800, "RST Engineering"
wrote:

With a small solar panel to keep the continuous load going, not a bad way to
go.

I recently talked to a guy down in Florida, where the sun is more
direct and shows up much more often than here in Michigan. He said a
decent solar powered system to run a medium size (what's medium size?)
house was about $20,000 for the installation.

You can plan on replacing lead acid batteries about every 3 years or
so. Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) are about the same, except the car
manufacturers are claiming much longer life using computer controlled
charging. Time will tell.

Solar panels are still darned expensive. Using a mix of solar and
wind you charge different banks with solid state regulators and
switches.

The inverter only needs to be sized large enough to handle the
expected load. As long as you are not running electronics the wave
form is not much of a problem...except... for radio interference. Some
switching supplies (which are very efficient) are very noisy.

You can get one whale of a nice liquid cooled Honda Generator that
runs quiet and will supply enough juice to run a good size house
continuously. I have a 9,500 Watt continuous generator that will
power our whole house on about a gallon an hour. Maybe a tad less. It
burns way less than the little 4400 watt portable I used to have and
it is *much* quieter. Unfortunately I spend $1,200 and it's not a
quiet Honda. OTOH fortunately I purchased it from Lowe's a couple of
weeks after the Y2K fiasco. People had cleaned them out and were then
returning the "unused" generators. They finally said "No more". Some
of those "unused" generators looked like they'd been sitting out in
salt spray for a couple of months. Mine was more than 50% off and it
was still in the box. It was one of the few that they hadn't sold.
They had a lot of them cheap for a few months. The one store here in
town must have had 50 or more although most of them weren't 9500 watt
units.

Currently Home Depot has some 15KW "home generators" complete with
transfer switch that will do an automatic transfer, as well as
exercising once a week. They'll run on Gas, Natural Gas, or LP gas
and come in a small enclosure that looks like a whole house air
conditioner. I'd like to try one of those, but my wife says I spent
more than enough on what we have and we can drag that heavy cable out
to the generator shed for a lot less than $2,200 :-))

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com



Jim

Seems running a generator would be simpler and cheaper.



Roger