Aloha from a Solar Newbie in Hawaii

[solar pete]

Email sent, I have emailed a couple of other people but it will take some time for a reply, just so you know I am in Australia I emailed the sites owners about this and one of them was reading the thread at the time and suggested we see what we could do to help you out, so I am going back to re read this thread again as you may have already given most of the info we need but in a nutshell we need to know

1. Load requirements or a loads analysis, how many watt hours or kilowatt hours does the system need to deliver to run your radio equipment as I dont envisage building a huge hybrid (on grid and off grid system) I am assuming this will be a separate stand alone system to keep the radio gear running
2. Where is the system to be installed on your house, on your shed, in another building somewhere else

I had a look at your website and see you have some golf cart batteries so you may be further down the track that I first though but either way think we can help you out, cheers

[WH6FQE]

Hi WH6FQE I think its time Solar Panel Talk stepped up and did something for the greater good. If you are prepared to work with me I am prepared to sponsor (pay for) your system. I can get all the equipment to you BUT it must be planned properly for SPT to be involved. I am going to send you an offline email and I am going to call on the assistance of a couple of the experienced people here, Mike and SK come to mind AND I want a experienced pro to put the system together with you, I believe I can arrange that, check your email, cheers

I will be watching my email.

[WH6FQE]

Panels do not generate interference, switchers do. Bruce Roe

That what I was thinking, which is going to definitely be a problem. I could have created some shielding between the panels and my antennas with them being on the opposite side of the house from each other, however the solar controllers and radios are in the same room. Ouch.

[solar pete]

Hi WH6FQE I think its time Solar Panel Talk stepped up and did something for the greater good. If you are prepared to work with me I am prepared to sponsor (pay for) your system. I can get all the equipment to you BUT it must be planned properly for SPT to be involved. I am going to send you an offline email and I am going to call on the assistance of a couple of the experienced people here, Mike and SK come to mind AND I want a experienced pro to put the system together with you, I believe I can arrange that, check your email, cheers

[WH6FQE]

OK.

Two propane fed 2200 watt generators are about $450 each, from Walmart (so you can get them there.) Get a few rebuild kits as well...

Would you happen to know where off hand I can order the rebuild kits from? I ordered 2 of the generators from Home Depot when WalMart canceled my order, along with the connection kit in case I need to connect them together for 4400-watt generation for anything, but I plan on only running them one at a time. I like the idea of keeping a spare set aside as a backup.

I am hoping that I will be able to get away with solar during the day and if I have to propane at night if the batteries can't handle it. Along with all of the other emergency supplies that I stock up, I would want to have a 21 day supply for the generator, which would basically be 21 tanks since according to what I read about the generator shows that a tank would last about 13 hours. That's a crapload of propane in the garage. I am already nervous about the single tank I have down there now for the BBQ grill, lol.

[bcroe]

Ok, will be a few weeks before the panels get here, so I am just in a holding pattern until then I suppose.

Will the interference be coming from the panels or the controller? I could possibly rethink my antenna /
panel / controller setup to place the majority of house between the interference and the antennas, possibly.

Panels do not generate interference, switchers do. Bruce Roe

[WH6FQE]

Do not use optimizers, which turn each panel into an interference generator. From the description,
you have no need for them anyway. The equipment can be quieted, more on that when you get that
far. Bruce Roe

Ok, will be a few weeks before the panels get here, so I am just in a holding pattern until then I suppose.

Will the interference be coming from the panels or the controller? I could possibly rethink my antenna / panel / controller setup to place the majority of house between the interference and the antennas, possibly.

[bcroe]

My antennas do not shadow my roof at all. I have no shadows anywhere on my roof except for shadows from the east/west roof itself

Yeah, thats the part that is worrying me now. I may be doing all of this for nothing if it interferes with my radios.

Do not use optimizers, which turn each panel into an interference generator. From the description,
you have no need for them anyway. The equipment can be quieted, more on that when you get that
far. Bruce Roe

[WH6FQE]

Good to hear that you were successful.

I don't know what your antennas look like, but if they shadow your roof, solar won't work very well. (And yes, even if they only shadow a little of your roof. Any crystalline panel loses most of its output if even a fraction of it is shaded.) You can get around that to some degree with things like DC optimizers, but that won't restore capacity, just make the remaining (unshaded) strings work better.

If that's the case you would probably be better off installing on a neighbor's roof and using the DC from them. Or (again) installing a generator.

My antennas do not shadow my roof at all. I have no shadows anywhere on my roof except for shadows from the east/west roof itself as the sun moves across the sky. My house is the tallest structure in the area, and even our palm trees will take many years to even reach our roofline. We have lived in this house for 17 years now and in that time they have grown less than a foot tall, so at that rate, I will be dead and gone before I have to worry about them causing shadows on my roof.

Also you are going to want to see how all the EMI from the solar stuff interferes with your system. Unfortunately solar arrays are pretty good antennas for the crud that gets back onto the array wiring from the MPPT.

Yeah, thats the part that is worrying me now. I may be doing all of this for nothing if it interferes with my radios.

[WH6FQE]

Hi All,

I just find it hard to believe that there is not a warehouse somewhere in Hawaii thats full of solar panels battery's and inverters, CC's you need to make this happen, surely if you called the biggest solar installer in Hawaii and explained your situation they would be able to point you in the right direction. It seems Sunking is busy with a new business venture but I am sure he will help you design a system that will meet your needs.

Seriously I suggest the OP calls the biggest privately owned solar installer in Hawaii, so not vivint or sunrun or any of those clowns a real electrical business, explain your situation as you have here and I am sure they will be able to help you, let me know how you go, cheers.

There are lots of warehouses full of solar panels here in Hawaii, along with lots of solar companies that want to come and install the system for you, that is the problem though. They won't just sell you the panels. They want you to LEASE the system from them. And I do not want anything to do with their grid-tied system. Almost everyone in the neighborhood has those systems, and everytime the power goes out at night they are screwed because there is no battery backup in their houses. The system is tied into the grid so that in the daytime you are feeding electricity into the system to HECO, but when an outage occurs, you are just like everyone else that doesnt have 30 panels or so on their roofs.

I want this system completely separate from HECO. I am not asking HECO for their permission to have a solar system and getting on a waiting list now because they have reached the immaginary cap that HECO set for our area.

I'm not feeding inthing into HECO, if they want power they can generate their own. Mine will only be generating for my use.

[azdave]

azdave,
I can tell from that comment that you clearly are not a ham radio operator...

Clearly, but I'll go silent now.

KC7GET 73's

[jflorey2]

I still have strict limits on my antennas, but they are working with me on them now. We are also working with other HOA's on the island to teach them about the importance of amateur radio operators and their need for antennas to try to get other HOA's to loosen up antenna restrictions here, which we are starting to have some success with several of them.

Good to hear that you were successful.

I don't know what your antennas look like, but if they shadow your roof, solar won't work very well. (And yes, even if they only shadow a little of your roof. Any crystalline panel loses most of its output if even a fraction of it is shaded.) You can get around that to some degree with things like DC optimizers, but that won't restore capacity, just make the remaining (unshaded) strings work better.

If that's the case you would probably be better off installing on a neighbor's roof and using the DC from them. Or (again) installing a generator.

Don't get me wrong, I think solar is great. I have a 10kW system on my house and two other arrays (built as shade structures) that I play with. And I currently have two battery systems - a LiFePO4 backup system for the house and an external second-life EV battery system for load shifting. But I've made a lot of the mistakes that are common with new solar users over the past 20 years and you look like you're headed down the same road. I can almost see the first problems you will have, and can even see how your seemingly good decisions will lead you right into those problems.

As others have said, start with a realistic load estimate. Get a power monitor, plug everything essential into it, and run for a day with a traffic load similar to what a disaster would see. Use that as your baseline. That's the most important starting point. And if your minimum load is really 1300 watts average then solar's just not going to work without a huge (and costly) system. But if it's 400 watts overnight and 1000 watts during the day? That might work - IF you can get a open-sky mount for your solar array, and you have a generator as backup.

Some other ideas - pluggable hybrids are basically generators and batteries on wheels. A Prius Prime (on sale in Hawaii; I checked) will give you a 9kwhr battery and ~1000 watts for days via a 12V inverter. And you can stockpile gasoline for at least medium amounts of time (12 months or so.) And when you're not using them for running your setup during a disaster they are pretty useful for other things (like getting you to work.)

Also you are going to want to see how all the EMI from the solar stuff interferes with your system. Unfortunately solar arrays are pretty good antennas for the crud that gets back onto the array wiring from the MPPT.

[WH6FQE]

Makes sense now, thanks. I understand the difficulty of getting hams to volunteer for things like this. At California OES we have ham employees and in-house and mobile HF stations ready to go, but these hams are paid and the equipment is purchased by the state, so it's a little different. Does Hawaii have anything like that? Agree with Ampster BTW ^^^

We do have hams that are paid by the state for emergency comms, they are the idiots who designed the VHF/UHF internet linked repeater system which the repeaters do not even have backup power except for one of them, and that one is not automatic switching, someone has to drive up the mountain and crank up the generator to power that repeater back up.

As for the HF side, they completely ignore the amature side of it and are only concerned with their new SHARES toys from the DHS. Unfortunately traffic from evac shelters and such are not allowed to go out over that system so they rely on the amateur side. They even got rid of the microwave linking between the islands and opted for an internet based repeater linking system, which fails at least once a week even when we do not have a disaster, lol.

Hawaii is a joke when it comes to disaster preparedness. We are in for a world of hurt and a rude awakening when the next big disaster visits us.

[WH6FQE]

We are lucky to have people like you.

Thank you, I am happy to be of service and do my part.

[solar pete]

Hi All,

I just find it hard to believe that there is not a warehouse somewhere in Hawaii thats full of solar panels battery's and inverters, CC's you need to make this happen, surely if you called the biggest solar installer in Hawaii and explained your situation they would be able to point you in the right direction. It seems Sunking is busy with a new business venture but I am sure he will help you design a system that will meet your needs.

Seriously I suggest the OP calls the biggest privately owned solar installer in Hawaii, so not vivint or sunrun or any of those clowns a real electrical business, explain your situation as you have here and I am sure they will be able to help you, let me know how you go, cheers.