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I am putting aquaponics in my off-grid greenhouse. My current pumps I'm running during cycling are 15 watt, 120 vac but the power factor on these pumps has been measuring like 0.37-0.40. With 2 systems, that's an almost 2 kwh effectively off my battery bank each day just to run the pumps! Ugghh.
I have found a DC pump that will move the same amount of water (same height conditions) with a published 11.5W@24V. I assume that being it is a DC pump the power factor is defined as 1. For two systems, that's just 0.5-0.6 kwh per day to operate.
Rather than running a seperate 24v feed from the remote panel/battery/inverter setup, it appears I can convert my existing feed in the greenhouse back down to 24v to run these pumps and be better off even if I have only ~90% efficiency at each inverter. Are my AC pumps just THAT bad? What am I missing?
I have found a DC pump that will move the same amount of water (same height conditions) with a published 11.5W@24V. I assume that being it is a DC pump the power factor is defined as 1. For two systems, that's just 0.5-0.6 kwh per day to operate.
Rather than running a seperate 24v feed from the remote panel/battery/inverter setup, it appears I can convert my existing feed in the greenhouse back down to 24v to run these pumps and be better off even if I have only ~90% efficiency at each inverter. Are my AC pumps just THAT bad? What am I missing?
I'll be pulling a DC line.
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