Green Energy inheritance

[MJ Harris]

Hello,
I recently purchased some country property just south of Killeen Texas and inherited a full case of 24 260w solar panels and a large crate containing a 3000w wind turbine with an autocontrollor. I know very little concerning implementing these alternative energy sources but do not want to let them just sit in the barn unused. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

24 Canadian Solar CS6K 260M solar modules, black:
There is no southern roof exposure so the panels would need to be mounted on the top of poles. The property is several acres of mostly wooded land on the south and east sides of a small hill. The ground is (at best) basically a few inches of dirt atop solid rock. There is a rough drawing showing where they planned to install 3 poles for top of pole mounted panels and a pad for the turbine tower.

ALEKO WG3KW 3000w Wind Turbine with a FKJ-A autocontrollor (specifically designed for the ALEKO 3KW/48V):
According to the note attached to the crate, they planned on mounting the turbine on a 50 foot hinged tower.

I started looking into what it will take to install the solar panels and wind turbine just yesterday, so, only after a few hours research into it ....
There are no codes or permits needed in this area.
Power company does not buy but will give 1/1 credit, they will basically store your extra electricity for free.
Everything is electric in both houses and other buildings. Past energy usage for the property can be over 7KW a month (and as high as almost 7.5).
There is a large 500 gal LP tank feeding a generator (and a BBQ grill) for power outages that is hooked to an electric goat/pig pen fence (no goats or pigs) with a few emergency outlets in the house as well. If power goes out, you would have to manually start the generator.
If I want a wind/solar grid tied system, I will still want a battery bank for power outages. I hope not to have to rely on the grid for power at all except for emergencies like problems with the wind/solar system. I also hope to use the LP generator to insure full battery charge each day if needed.
That is about all the pertinent info and ideas I have so far and hope to get some help with the missing parts, ideas, suggestions and directions to make this work.

[Joe Blake]

Hi MJ,

Welcome to the forum. I'm not able to give much advice, without knowing a lot more about your situation, but you say there is no southern roof exposure so the panels will need to be mounted on poles. My own roof top system (Perth, Western Australia) has a total of 3,200 watts (this is a thread describing my set up - http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?t=20783 )

I have the system split into to two independent sets of panels of 1,600 watts each, with separate grid-tied inverters (240 volt AC in Australia) which feed into 24 volt batteries then into the domestic circuit, with the excess going back to the grid. This is partly because the northern side of my roof has a solar hot water system in the "prime" position, so I have one array on the west and one on the east. This means that I get good generation almost all day, starting in the morning and going through till late(ish) in the afternoon.

This Google Earth shot shows my house (I live in a duplex) with my own rooftop panels and solar hot water system showing. (You will see that the northern roof is also not really large compared to the other two faces.)

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j245/saxeharp/General16/googleroof_zpsiakrpvux.jpg

Perhaps you might investigate the cost (and solar efficiency) of putting poles in versus buying an extra inverter and mounting (if possible) on the east/west faces of the roof. My neighbour has his hot water system mounted on the east side, with 3,600 watts of PV mounted on his western roof. (He has no northern exposure to speak of.) He generates slightly more power per day, but not very much.

Hope that smidgen of information might be of assistance. And good luck with setting up.

[Rob Beckers]

MJ, welcome!

Can you post an aerial view (maybe from Google Earth) of your house? Panels don't have to be mounted exactly south, generally anything between east and west works well enough, in particular for grid-tie.

It's a trade-off between the pitch of the roof vs. how much panels need to face south: One extreme is a flat roof, where it obviously doesn't matter, the panels have no orientation. Anything with a low pitch (say about 20 degrees) doesn't make much difference in east, south, or west for PV energy yield, since most of it is made during summer when the sun is high up in the sky. For a steep roof (45 degree pitch) it starts to matter what direction it faces, since more the yield moves towards the fall/spring and possibly winter months when the sun does not get up so high, and does not make as much of an arc.

In short, don't give up on the roof just yet. It's much cheaper and easier to mount panels on a roof vs. on the ground.

The wind turbine will need a tower. I suppose none came with it? Towers are expensive, in fact they generally cost about as much as the turbine, and installing a tower adds more yet. Your turbine is meant for battery charging by the sound of it. It could be converted to grid-tie, though to the best of my knowledge there are no more grid-tie wind inverters available in North America. All the manufacturers of those have stopped selling them.

-RoB-

[MJ Harris]

I see that south facing roof is not required for roof mounts, however, after an exhaustive search, we found what appears to be three sets of ground mounts. The papers for these say POWER-FAB DPW Solar Top-of-Pole Mount for 8 Modules (TPM8) For Module Type D, E, F, G, & H. The Canadian Solar CS6K 260M solar modules would be type G here (39.1 x 65.0 in.) so they should work with these top of pole mounts, if the mounts are complete. There are also several spools of 6/3 and 8/3 UF-B outdoor electrical wire we found in a toolshed.

Looking on-line for information on what configuration and other parts/equipment will be needed to implement these solar modules and the wind turbine is daunting to say the least. I can not help but feel that I am starting this off all backwards since there are existing panels, turbine, controller, etc., i.e., will the existing components meet the assumptions I have and are those assumptions even right to begin with.

Initial Assumptions:

1. Energy generated from the panels and the wind turbine will supply current power consumption needs whenever possible.

2. Any extra energy available is used to charge the batteries (after current power consumption is being met).

3. Any further extra energy available is sent to the grid (after current power consumption is being met and the batteries are full).

4. When the panels and wind turbine are not directly supplying enough energy to meet current power consumption needs, the batteries would supply any extra power needed to meet consumption needs.

5. When the panels, wind turbine and the batteries are not directly supplying enough energy to meet current power consumption needs (i.e., batteries go below a certain percentage), the grid would supply any extra power needed to meet consumption needs.

6. When the panels and the wind turbine are not supplying enough energy to maintain the batteries above a certain percentage AND the grid is down, the LP generator kicks in to guarantee battery charge above that percentage.

Is this even a feasible way of approaching this project?

If so, given the existing equipment, would the basic set up be:

a. Solar Panels are wired to a Grid Tied Inverter

b. Wind Turbine is wired to the Autocontroler and then to the Grid Tied Inverter

c. The Grid Tied Inverter is then wired to the House (for consumption) and to a Big Inverter (to charge batteries)

d. The LP Generator is then wired to the House (for consumption) and to the Big Inverter (to charge batteries)

e. The Big Inverter is then wired to the Batteries

Please let me know what you think I am sure that I am making an azz of myself someplace. Thanks for all your kind help,
MJ

[Rob Beckers]

MJ, by and large it works indeed the way you describe things.

The DPW top-of-pole mounts are nice units (expensive too!). Now all you need is to get some poles in the ground and mount panels. Their Web site has manuals and such in case you need those.

I don't know what kind of inverter you have (or maybe you don't have one yet). That would determine if this is a grid-tie system without batteries, or one involving batteries. For battery-based systems it depends on the inverter if it can feed power back to the grid or not, some do, some don't. In that scenario the panels would connect to a charge controller to charge the batteries, and the batteries power the inverter. In a strictly grid-tie scenario without batteries the panels go to a grid-tie inverter and feed that grid directly (all your local loads will use up power first, only if there's excess will it actually move out to the grid and register on your meter).

-RoB-