Powering an existing 3 Phase submersible pump with solar

[Mooney]

Hi, I am new to the forum so excuse if this topic was covered sometime in the past

I do have a 0.55 3 Phase submersible pump in a borehole currently powered by the mains from a farm house about 1km away. The electric cable that is alm 20 years old blew up and need replacement, this is very costly and I am thinking of rather powering the 3Phase motor with solar Panels and a 3 Phase inverter.

The Pump is about 30m below ground and the tank is about 10m above ground. What I need to know is what size inverter do I need to power the 0.55kw motor and how many watts of solar panels do I need.

Hope you can help

[Naptown]

How many gallons per day do you need.
You may be better off using a straight solar pump than trying to set up a system to use the existing pump (read less expensive)

[Sunking]

Replacing the cable is far less expensive.

[Mike90250]

What made the cable "blow up" ? Shovel ? tree root ? 20 years of age ?

A 3 phase motor, from solar, would want to have a VFD (Variable Frequency Drive) controller wired in after the inverter. if it's a .55Kw (550 watts) motor, you would need at least a 700w pure sine inverter to spin it, without overheating the inverter.

Does the pump run on a set cycle? Could it run just daytime ? Is it on a pressure switch, and come on at night when you use water ? The more you stray from daylight only usage, the more batteries you need to power it.

[Mooney]

I think It was just time and maybe one to many thunderstorms with power surges that made the cable unusable.

The pump feed a 5000 liter tank plus 2 sement dams that supply drinking water to cattle, all and all I would say it pumps about 2000 to 5000L per day. It only need to pump in daytime and can be activated with a level switch.

Judging from the response above it seems that a 700w 3Phase 380V inverter with solar panels supplying 700W could do it, given the right installation?

[Wy_White_Wolf]

Forget the pump you have now and get something that can be driven solar direct. The pump will cost less than the inverter and battery bank.

build it solar has some good examples of solar direct systems for watering livestock.

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterPumping/waterpumping.htm#Basics

WWW

[paulcheung]

You get one of this Sun Pumps Submersible Sds-D-128 , it work between 12 to 30 volts dc. you can get 1 or 2 panels that can drive this pump. it rated 7 liter per minutes and can pump up to 70 meters.

Cheers

[Texas Wellman]

Franklin electric, the company that probably made the motor in your well, now makes a solar VFD controller that works with their 3-phase motors. I haven't used one but my understanding is that it drives a normal 3 phase motor using a VFD that converts solar DC into 3 phase AC. It's gonna take quite a few panels to drive it.

http://solar.franklin-electric.com/products.aspx

If it were me I would remove the pump and install a dedicated solar pump such as a Lorentz, Sun pump, or Grundfos.

Good luck.