New here and have lots of questions

[Gary Vanderwalker]

Hi all,

Let me first thumbnail the project I have in mind. I have a small, unheated barn that I need lighting for the winter months. The building is unpowered now so I can be very flexable in the amount of energy that I need. I plan to use a 12 volt AGM deep cycle battary with LEDs for light. Since I have animals in the barn, a 12 volt water heater element would be nice to keep the stock tanks from freezing during the coldest times.

I have looked into building a HAWG to produce power the system since I due have an adquit amount of wind most of the year. I am a little afraid of building a 30+ foot tower and was wondering if a shorter tower, say 10 foot (3 meter) tower would work for the mininal energy I need? Could the water heater element be used as a dump load for this type of system? With my fear of building the tall tower, as well as trying to keep peace with the nieghbors, would a VAWG be a better option? I understand the inherant draw back to the efficiency of a VAWG but with the amount of energy I would need would it be enough? A small solar set up is also a possiblity. The site get about 4 to 5 hours of full sun during the winter months. Would that be able to recharge the battary enough?

Now the biggest question of all: Am I on the right track or am I off in left field. Any suggestions from anyone that has had a similar project/problem would be helpful and welcome.

Thanks, Gary

[Andy Rhody]

Hi Gary and welcome to the board. This is a great place.

I'm a big fan of wind and "Rob" our webmaster helped me to do a 2000 watt grid-tie wind mill system but for what you need to do, solar would probably work better because it would probably work more consistantly and be more cost effective.

A 10 foot wind tower is pretty low but with a 12 volt system, you could add it even later to help out a bit.

I rececently did something like that. My family had an off grid cabin for 20 years but I had installed a CB radio and powered it with a 3 1/2 volt solar panel and two 12 volt car batteries.

This Spring I updated the system with 60 watts of solar and a 1500 watt inverter which runs lights and a few outlets. Because the former 3 1/2 watt solar panel only "trickle charged" the battery system, I never had to worry about overcharging the battereis but with 60 watts of solar, I needed to get a "controller to disconnect the batteries form the panels when they were fully charged. I chose the Morningstar Sunlight because it opperates at temperatures below Zero F. Most others in that class don't.

Anyway with 60 watts of solar, I can run 3 CFL lights for 4 hours and the system still keeps going. If you use LED's, you'd even do better. I can even run a small saw and do all my trimming with a weed eater. Amazing.

Here's some photos.

Two 30 watt solar panels "hidden under the eaves" to avoid snow.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e295/andy47bottles/Science/003-1_zps6b7bebb7.jpg (http://s41.photobucket.com/user/andy47bottles/media/Science/003-1_zps6b7bebb7.jpg.html)

Here's the controller and inverter.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e295/andy47bottles/Science/004_zpsf2a5698d.jpg (http://s41.photobucket.com/user/andy47bottles/media/Science/004_zpsf2a5698d.jpg.html)

[Rob Beckers]

Gary, welcome to the Forum!

Regarding HAWT vs. VAWT: For the most part, if you want to make energy get a HAWT. If you want "kinetic art", get a VAWT. It's urban legend that VAWTs do better at low towers than HAWTs, both do equally bad on a short tower. Most VAWT designs are inherently less efficient than the average HAWT though, and those that are not still need quite a bit more hardware (and thus are more expensive) to equal a HAWT in production.

Since you're looking for energy in winter, a turbine may work better than solar PV. Then again, PV is cheap these days and you can install quite a bit of solar PV for what a little wind turbine costs. If this is in a truly windy place (in winter) then a turbine may be in order. Trouble is that almost all people will vastly overestimate the amount of wind their location actually has, such is human nature (we remember the windy days, we forget the many days without wind). You should be able to get an idea of what the winds are (objectively) like from meteorological records from a nearby station (airport, met-station etc.). Whether a short tower will work will depend on just how windy your place is as well. Generally, turbines on short towers do poorly. The places where they are successful tend to be extremely windy with almost no obstacles (few trees, few houses).

I've written an article on wind turbine site selection that you can find over here (http://www.solacity.com/WindBasics.htm).

You mention you want to keep some water tanks from freezing: When it comes to heating of any kind with renewable energy that's a tough nut. Heating tends to require a whole lot of energy (in comparison to for example some lights that are only used a few hours a day). How much energy this takes would largely depend on ambient, and how well those tanks are insulated (or not), so that's hard to say.

Given all the unknowns I would start small; get a few PV modules, a 12V battery, and a charge controller (particularly important for AGM batteries, they do not handle overcharging well!). See how far this gets you. If you're convinced it's windy, add a little turbine. I think you have to see it at least partially as a hobby, to tinker with a system like this. Keep the expectations limited.

Please let us know how things progress!

-RoB-

[Gary Vanderwalker]

Thanks for your suggestions Andy and Rob.
I was able to do some local investigation on my ideas. The results aren't as good as I had hoped. Because I was needing this system operational in a relitively short time, I ran into some snags with the possibility of using a wind turbine. Due to insurance and the local authorities need to regulate building codes, I found that the use of a wind turbine would take from weeks to years to get approval for the tower and the liability insurance would make the cost so high that I would be able to run electricity from my house the quarter of a mile to the barn at half the price. I was able to get ahold of a PMA for the turbine but maybe able to use it as a back up system in another form.

So, my other option is solar. I have looked into that a little more closely and have figuire out how I can make it work. The idea of using the 12 vdc water heater element was as a dump load from the wind turbine, a nice addition, but not at all necessary. It still leaves me with a few questions for the cold weather.

Battaries don't preform at their best as the tempature drops. This fact leaves with a slight worry due to the fact the building isn't heated and the tempatures can get to -10 to 15 degrees below 0f during our coldest part of the winter. Do you have any suggestions on how to keep the battary preforming good at these kind of extremes? I was thinking about using passive solar air panel with a small fan to move the air to an enclosed, insulated battary box to at least raise the tempature during the day to help off set the cold. Any thoughts on that idea?

I have seen at other places in the forum discutions of LEDs and CFLs. It seems most of the current advice is to lean toward CFLs. I have never found that florecent lighting works well in colder temps. Have they improve the CFLs to the point of reasonable function in a cold application? Being that I am planning on staying with 12vdc, would automotive lighting, with reflector and defussers be a more practical solution? I figuire that the lights will be used for about a maximim of 4 hours a day and usually much less.

As far as my PMA, I thought I might be able to hook it to a small gas motor to charge my battary if needed due to lack of sun for several days straight. What's your opinion?

Again, thanks for your advice. It was very helpful on keeping me from making a very costly mistake.

Gary

[Andy Rhody]

Hi Gary, where are you located? It seem like the regulations are killing you.

I may be wrong but if you keep a charge in the batteries, I'd expect them not to freeze. They might still perform at an acceptable level. My batteries lasted 13 years at my cabin without any problems except a bit of corosion which I stopped by coating all the connections with vasline petrolum jelly.

I had all CFL lights in my garage last winter and the temp went down to 10 sbove zero F and they did take a couple of minutes to come up to full brightness when they were cold but it was no big deal. CFL's right now are cheap compared to LEDs but the LEDs are coming down in price so I'd be looking for LEDs someday for an update.

You might have less problems than you think. My whole system probably cost less that 500 US dollars.

[Gary Vanderwalker]

Hi Andy,

I am from western South Dakota. As far as I can tell, the state isn't so much into reulations, they leave that up to the local government. It's the city and the county that really make it hard and every area is different. The area I am in is very conservative and not really interested in new ideas or change. They can put on such a burden that most people just give in. The insurance companies are not strictly regulated making them a problem as well. As it was put to me, if I were to construct a tower, it would need to have a special policy over and above the regular home owners or renter insurance. When I looked into it, I was quoted around $300/ annually. I was also warned if I didn't insure it, the landlord's policy would be canceled. I asked about putting it on as a rider policy and they said sure, for about $250/annually. Of course, the landlord wouldn't go along with that, and I sure don't blame him. I mean, those kind of rates to light a 16 x 16 outbuilding is a bit outragous. But when it comes to solar, they have no problems with insurance or the local zoning laws. That's why I decided solar would be my best option. I figured The system should cost me around $150 plus battary to install myself. Since I know how accurate my figuring can be, it will probably be around $300 plus the battary.

As far as using CLFs, I have only had experience with 120 vac lighting in the cold of a Wisconsin winter where it can get below 0F quite often. My experience was that they didn't light past a dim flicker for hours. Granted, that was sometime back and was the early models of CLFs. I am sure that the industry has made great advances since then, but I just have avoided them because of my first bad experience.

Shopping around locally, it seems that the LEDs are coming down in price. This is encouraging, but our supply of options are very limited (the stores carry very few fixtures and vitually no knowledge of products exists). Online, I have found it to be very confusing. Everyone has their own ideas and most of what I find for advice and guidance is nothing more than a sales pitch. All I want is a simple system to light the barn without costing a fortune. That shouldn't be hard, right? That's not what I've found online in general.

The main reason I joined this forum was to try to settle on a path to take and get answers( and support , hopefully) to be able to do it right the first time. One thing I can honestly say is that I am surprised with this site and all it has to offer along with the advice that you and Rob have offered me. I will keep you up to date as this project as it continues and will be checking back to see what other ideas can be offered. When it is done, I'll include picture of how it turned out.

And thanks for all the help and ideas.

[Andy Rhody]

Everybody wants at least a little "wind" but they seem to be making it so hard up there.

Gary said:

The area I am in is very conservative and not really interested in new ideas or change.

I'm here in Central Pennsylvania which is considered to be the Alabama of the north so I can appriciate what you mean.

Keep going and asking us questions. You can make some solar work!

[Joe Blake]

Mention was made of automotive lighting. I've got a solar power recumbent tricycle which I needed to fit lights to, and although the motor is 24 volts, it has 2x12 volt batteries in series, so I can put a couple of wires across one set of terminals to run an LED automotive turn signal globe. I found that the light was too bright to look at directly, and annoyed other road users, so as a diffuser, I simply took a white ping-pong ball and cut a suitable size hole in it to take the globe.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j245/saxeharp/ping.jpg (http://s82.photobucket.com/user/saxeharp/media/ping.jpg.html)

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j245/saxeharp/trike/light03s.jpg (http://s82.photobucket.com/user/saxeharp/media/trike/light03s.jpg.html)

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j245/saxeharp/lights02.jpg (http://s82.photobucket.com/user/saxeharp/media/lights02.jpg.html)

I made a bracket from PVC pipe to hold four lights.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j245/saxeharp/lights.jpg (http://s82.photobucket.com/user/saxeharp/media/lights.jpg.html)

This is the four globes without the diffuser.

Depending on which size globe you use it can draw as little as .8 watts.

Joe

[Joe Blake]

Although I live in sunny Western Australia, and have no personal experience with ice and snow (other than the occasional hail storm) I'd agree with Rob's comments about heating being a tough nut to crack. Perhaps look at moving away from high-tech high-tech to high-tech low-tech and consider plain old fire.

I bought one these Biolite camping stoves last year as an emergency back up.

http://strayoutdoors.com/wp-content/uploads/biolite-campstove.jpg

They've been designed for use by people who have to cook with fuels such as cattle dung and have a thermo-probe which conducts heat to a Peltier generator which runs a two-speed fan, to blow up the flames, so the stove will burn almost anything, such as pine cones, gum nuts etc. Since you're not attempting to boil water, but simply stop it freezing this may generate sufficient heat to achieve this. (As a bonus, it can generate power to recharge a mobile phone via a USB socket.) When the water is melted you can then take it back inside and continue cooking dinner on it.:D

Joe

[Gary Vanderwalker]

After checking locally with a few firms concerning solar power for the barn, I found that my ideas would be more costly than was reasonable for the task. one of the major concerns was that I was dealing with an unheated building that would be subject to great tempature extremes. One of the local firms suggested that I bury the battery in a pit within the building. That is how this company dealt with this problem before. Their price tag for my simple problem was between $1000 to $1500 using my labor to install the system. I felt that that was a bit steep for a rental barn lighting system that I would need for about 4 months per year. I thought I could buy a LOT of flashlight batteries for that kind of money. All I need was light to see to feed the animals.

Dejected, I started to look at some small type security solar lights. I found a commercial product that seemed just what I needed. I purchased 2 outdoor security light with motion sensors, each powered by a small solor panel charging a 9 volt replaceable NiCaD battery with a 60 unit LED light. This solution cost less than $75 US delivered to my door. I installed the panels on the roof of the barn and ran the wiring under the rafters to the most convenient places to mount the lights. The set up worked just as I had thought. It provides the light I need without costing me an arm and a leg. And one other bonus is that I can take them with me by removing a total of 8 screws if I ever move. I have had one small issue since I installed them. We had a freak blizzard on the 4th of October whiched dumped some 2 feet plus of snow on us which covered the solar panels. The snow quickly melted within a few days, but one of the systems did run down to the point of the battery could not power the LEDs. I am reconsidering the placement of the panels onto vertical poles rather than the relitively flat roof to keep this from happening again.

If nothing else, this small prodject has re-ignited the self sufficiency bug in me. Believe me when I say, I will be checking back from time to time looking for new ideas for some of lifes many problems. Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

[Dayton Johnson]

I had a similar situation..too far from hydro source to light a shed. I bought two solar powered lighting kits fron CTC,installed the panels on the side wall to avoid snow buildup and with light,switch,wiring all included it was an easy fit.
What about a 12 volt boat bailer installed into your water tank? Works like a bubble system.Could be wired into a timer I suppose to save on the 12V battery life. A small solar panel, inverter and a trickle charger should keep the battery charged.

[Joe Blake]

How about a small 12 volt battery (would gel be less susceptible to freezing I wonder) and put it inside a polystyrene drink cooler to stabilise temperature

http://www.bigcatch.co.za/bigcatch/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Cooler-box-Syrofoam-C058.jpg

and a solar car battery charger. They don't need an inverter and they are so low powered they are unlikely to overcharge the battery.
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR-yhRqQUK_5KHOEicA8mH98Pk9TFvoe0O8LwXU44ihtp-1JX5qHA

Joe

[Rob Beckers]

Regarding batteries in an unheated environment: What people typically do is build a battery box and line it with 2" XPS. While the batteries will still get cold, they will follow the average temperature rather than the nightly extremes, and you should be fine with that. A full battery can handle very low temperatures, even a 50% discharged battery (and for deep-cycle batteries you should not get lower than that on a regular basis) will be fine up to -23C (-10F). I don't know where you are located Gary, but there are not a whole lot of places that see average temps under -23C sustained in winter.

Gel and AGM batteries (the sealed type) can go much lower. They are not very sensitive to freezing and are used in outdoor locations for that reason. They are twice as expensive at half the useful life-time though.

-RoB-