Newbie from Philippines with a 300W setup

[workpod]

@Sunny Solar
Yep, I thought of that too. Making a DIY UPS project with separate battery charger, large battery and an inverter. Sunking's suggestion is actually more feasible.

Since I already have these equipment I might as well use it until I get my next bill and see how everything goes. With having been off grid for 7-hours yesterday and 9-hours today, and continue the 9hour day off the grid until the next bill, there's bound to be a decrease in my electric bill. Then continue going offgrid every 7:00AM to 4:00PM until June 2014 and compare my bills before I went solar.

If my current setup proves to be unreliable by that time then I'd go for Sunking's suggestion. By now i'll start saving for it.

I'll make use of my inverter and UPS though. I don't have to buy another set of batteries and inverter if I ever to scrap my solar setup.

Besides if I myself failed to believe in saving money by going solar, why should I sell my setup to someone who does and make them suffer the frustration like I did. Isn't that like scamming people to buy something they believe that you know yourself wont work? Nope, I wont do that. Instead I'll take my losses and share the experience.

[Sunny Solar]

Yes there will be a decrease in your electric bill ,but you have to look at what its cost to get that reduction and the cost of replacement batteries every few yrs.
A self assembled UPS is hard to beat for reliability,as many of the components that are in a bought UPS are missing..There is never the possibility of switch over failure as you are always operating off the battery/ies and inverter.

If any of the congressmen find a way of increasing their corruption income by having the country go grid tied solar the country will embrace it a heartbeat.

[Sunny Solar]

SUNKING POST

There are a lot of telecom surplus 24 volt battery rectifiers out there for cheap. Look or search
Lorain 24 volt Rectifier
Reltech 24 Volt Rectifier
Surplus Telephone 24 Volt Rectifier
24 Volt Float Rectifier

This mabe true for USA but doubt you will have same success here in Phils.
If you import them you could be up for import duty of between 10% to 100% of the customs office value.. The DONT go by the attached invoice.

[workpod]

Yes there will be a decrease in your electric bill ,but you have to look at what its cost to get that reduction and the cost of replacement batteries every few yrs.

Yep, I'll keep that in mind.

...
Do a much more reliable simple system like I use.
1 X 1000 w 12v TSW invereter
1 x 25a 12v battery charger. (one with at least 4 steps of charging)
2x 12v n100 truck batteries. (about p6000 ea motorlite are best)
...

So on your current setup, did you manage to reduce your bill with your current setup compared to not having the setup before?

Also, have you already replaced your batteries? Can you give a hint on how many years before I'll be replacing my batteries in case I follow your setup?

Thanks

[workpod]

...
A self assembled UPS is hard to beat for reliability,as many of the components that are in a bought UPS are missing..There is never the possibility of switch over failure as you are always operating off the battery/ies and inverter....

If I go for this setup, might as well buy a grid tie inverter and upgrade my setup, plug a rectifier or battery charger to the mains and continue charging my current batteries to my current inverter to supply my workarea.

For the grid tie setup not to go overproduction and avoid exporting power to the grid, it's just a simple circuit perhaps connected to the inverter feedback that disconnects the grid tie inverter from the mains via a delayed-off relay that once triggered it will stay triggered (disconnecting the grid tie inverter from the mains) for a period of time like maybe an hour or a couple or more until the batteries would reach a percentage or maybe 80% capacity which the batteries are also connected to another simple circuit to force release the triggered relay to the grid tie inverter and therefore allow the grid tie setup to run its normal operation.

Expenses will soar up but will still reduce my bill and keep my setup fluctuation free. Who knows, my bill could be drastically reduce to 25%. When that happens, I'll be glad to buy a couple of aircons and cool down the house during the whole summer or hot days.

[workpod]

...
If any of the congressmen find a way of increasing their corruption income by having the country go grid tied solar the country will embrace it a heartbeat...

I wont even bother with politics as for me it's like an entertainment for the press and the politically minded people that's more like a reality show that you can compare to the Game of Thrones TV series to the Philippine politics which the characters have their own schemes and backstabbing techniques to protect their interests or push their way into controlling a kingdom out in the open or behind the scenes.

[Sunking]

might as well buy a grid tie inverter and upgrade my setup, plug a rectifier or battery charger to the mains and continue charging my current batteries to my current inverter to supply my workarea.

Not going to work. A grid tied inverter is a different animal than a battery inverter. A grid tied inverter is a current source, not a voltage source like a battery inverter. A grid tied inverter shuts off when power fails and will not come back on until commercial power is restored.

Your best option is a Dual Conversion UPS like John and I have been telling you.

[paulcheung]

To the OP, if you want to keep the current setup, make sure to find out if your consumption is less than what you produce. If not get a battery charger and equalize the batteries at least once a month and full charge the battery when they drain down. Especially in cloudy days. I know how you feel about solar, I feel the same way too. since you have it already just make sure try not kill the batteries too early.

Cheers.

[Sunny Solar]

Workpod its almost impossible not to be exporting power to the grid.. How are you going to use exactly a varying solar production?

My setup saves me less than nothing.I also run all our lighting from the same set up but have a 400w MSW inverter for that. I wanted it for exterior security lighting mostly. You cant measure security of yourself and wife in dollars/pesos..As for batteries I use 2xN100 Motorlite truck batteries.(each comparable to a 100ahr deep cycle battery) Where my house is in the provinces its almost impossible to buy genuine deep cycle batteries. The batteries get discharged to about 60%each night. I replace the batteries every 2 years at a cost of p12,000 .
This gives me "savings "of power bill in the following way.. If used grid for lighting cost about p300 per month that's p7200 for 2 yrs .Plus running computer aprox p4000 from grid it would be higher but is supplemented by 240w of solar panels..
Savings on lighting is p7200. The grid charging of batteries when computer used and just recharging when rain for two or 4days. cost p4000
Cost of solar panels imported from Australia 6yrs ago p124000.inverters bought in Aus no import duty as brought in in luggage 1x2000w TSW p32000 and 1x 400w MSW grid battery charger 25a p12000 Solar charger p11000 .. total outlay p176000.. to save about p6000 a year...Looked at this way my time just to repay the initial system would take about 28 years ..!!!! but you have to add in that 28 yrs 14 sets of batteries at todays price of p168000. LOSS .. See savings just impossible.

I only do it because security is very important and having hard drives die because of "brownouts"is hard to live with.

[Sunny Solar]

Something I forgot to say was a grid tie inverter ONLY works when the grid power is working. // NO grid No output from solar panels and grid tie inverter. If you look back about 2 posts Sunking has also told you this.. For your situation that system is less than useless as you will have nice panels sitting on roof in bright sun producing NOTHING when grid is down..100%waste of your money..
If you have money to waste on something useless please instead consider sending some of it to be used by the needy that have lost everything from super typhoon Yolanda.

[workpod]

@Sunking
@Sunny Solar
Yes I'm quite aware that the grid tie inverter is different from a battery inverter and when the grid goes down, so does the power to the grid tie inverter thereby not supplying electricity to the mains and not exporting power to the grid, even though the sun is up and skies are clear. This is more of a safety measure that in case of power maintenance and the grid is off this will prevent electrocution of maintenance personnel working on the power lines.

What I meant was if I ever upgrade my setup to a grid tie setup, I'll have my grid tie inverter connected to the mains thereby "tying" my setup to the grid and thereby producing power to the house while there is commercial power.

Then I'll connect the rectifier or battery charger to mains and constantly recharge the batteries to the battery inverter with safety measures of course. Like if the rectifier or battery charger has no built in charge controller, I'll put in a charger controller circuit between the rectifier/battery charger and the batteries. And have the battery inverter supply power to my computer setup and the house lights. Maybe include the fans.

So that when the grid power fails I'll still have my computer setup up and running until either the batteries have insufficient power to energize my computer setup or the commercial power comes back on. Once the grid power comes back on, the rectifier/charger will again be charging the batteries.

Now the problem with having a grid tie setup in the Philippines is that we have to "register" our grid tie setup and checked up so that we can be allowed to export power to the grid and have our bills discounted for the excess power we produced. Which some of the solar enthusiasts here in the Philippines wont bother but just connect their grid tie setup to the grid and micro manage their power production to not overproduce and export power to the grid. This is probably because of the hassle of filing application, paying for the "registration" which by the way is about US$100 more or less, having the setup inspected and if the setup is not compliant to their standards the grid tie owners have to upgrade/fix their setup until approved.

So if I were to have a grid tie setup, I might be among those who wont bother to "register" my setup to the power company. But instead of micromanaging my production, I'll probably cook up some relay circuits to disconnect my grid tie inverter from the mains/grid automatically and resume the connections after some time.

Most probably I'll have a grid tie setup enough to produce a third or half of what I'm actually consuming. And use a Dual Conversion UPS to supply power to my computer setup so there wont be any power interruptions when I'm using the computer. I'll probably as well connect my house lights and perimeter lights to the UPS.

@paulcheung
Yes I'll do that. I'll be buying another set of voltage and ampere meter this weekend to monitor the current drawn by the inverter from the batteries.

[workpod]

...
If you have money to waste on something useless please instead consider sending some of it to be used by the needy that have lost everything from super typhoon Yolanda.

I have that covered. I already donated since the call for donation was announced by the local TV stations. I even donated my 3KVA generator.

Besides what I have now and what I'm thinking of setting up is not useless because I'm still making use of it. A useless something is something you totally cannot use, perhaps have no purpose. Perhaps the panels are in stand by until those become in use, those are not useless. Besides solar panels as roof decoration is not useless. I think they're grand. A waste of money perhaps but not totally 100% wasted and definitely not useless. It's like owning a car. Perhaps it's a waste of money since you could still ride a public transportation to take you places. But your car is not useless if you don't use it because it will cost you less when you ride a public transport. The right term might be "not in use" but not useless. Since you are definitely going to use your car at some time.

If you say having a grid tie hybrid equipment is useless you are like saying everybody with this setup in this forum are actually foolish enough to install a useless setup. Probably a waste of money in setting up this kind of installation but not useless. Each to their own purpose why have that kind of a particular setup.

Come to think of it. My 3KVA generator was not always in use until the Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan came. It was not useless. It become very useful to some when I donated it to those affected by the typhoon. Now isn't that a total waste of money? Buying it for more than P25,000 (about US$581) use it a few times and just give it away.

[workpod]

@axis11
@paulcheung
You were right. I'm consuming more than I'm producing. My battery is at 12.3V after yesterday and leaving it overnight to provide power to the house lights. I'll buy the voltmeter and ampere meter this afternoon instead of waiting for the weekend. I have to know just how much I'm drawing current from the batteries.

[workpod]

Okey, day 3 on my off grid setup.

I bought another set of volt meter and ampere meter and connected it between the batteries and inverter as suggested by axis11 and paulcheung. It was already past 6:00PM when I did the following readings:

Draw readings:
12V 2A+ -- No load (inverter on with no loads connected)
12V 6A -- House lights only. All lights turned on at the same time including garage, terrace, laundry.
12V 12A -- Living room with TV, satellite receiver, electric fan
12V 22A to 30A -- Work area with my desktop computer, dual monitors, modem/WIFI, speaker, electric fan, light (ampere meter needle jumping between 22A to 30A)
12V 18A -- Living room and House lights
12V 28A to 32A -- Work area and House lights
12V 32A to 48A -- Work area, Living room, and House lights

In watts:
No load -- 24W to 36W
House lights -- 72W
Living room -- 144W
Work area -- 264W to 360W
Living room and House lights -- 216W
Work area and House lights --236W to 384W
Work area, Living room, and house lights -- 384W to 576W

Compared to what I'm producing at the following period:
6:00AM - 0W
7:00AM - 48W
8:00AM - 120W
9:00AM - 208W
10:00AM - 240W to 260W
11:00AM - 250W to 270W
12:00NN - 270W to 280W
1:00PM - 260W to 270W
2:00PM - 230W to 270W
3:00PM - 208W to 214W
4:00PM - 125W to 150W
5:00PM - 48W
6:00PM - 0W

Which means the only possible area that I'll be connecting would be the living room and the lights.

Which means if I want to have my work area on solar, I have to have at least 600W of solar power producing panels.

But for now, I'll have the living room and house lights on solar and leave the work pod to the mercy of the mains. And heed Sunking's advise on the Double Conversion UPS setup.

Thanks guys. You have been a great help. I cannot express my full gratitude in gaining this experience.

[Sunking]

OK what the numbers tell me is you have a problem to figure out

1. Problem one is battery capacity. with 12 volts @ 200 AH gives you 2400 watt hours of capacity. For max battery life only gives you around 500 watt hour of usable energy each day, or if money is no object and do not mind replacing the battery once a year you can use 1000 watt hours per day.

Problem 2 is panel; wattage with PWM controller. With a 300 watt panel and PWM controller you can only realistically generate up to around 750 to 800 watt hours at very best . None on cloudy or rainy days.

3. Inverter uses 36 watts. If left on all day will consume 864 watt hours. That means just the inverter you have if left on will consume every bit of your power leaving you with NOTHING.


So you say you want to run the living room or burn 216 watts. Where is that power going to come from. How long do you intend to run the living room and lights. On paper you run them about 3 to 4 hour search day if you start with a full charge. Watt Hours = Watts x Hours.

Well now you can put the accounting axe to work. If there was a way to utilize every avaialble watt hour your system can generate will save you .8 Kwh/day. So how much does a Kwh cost you?