Going over to solar for lighting/security

[Arthur]

It's a new-school four-quadrant meter. Measures imports and exports.

 

[supersunbird]

A similar setup as above should do the trick.

For the solar pannels, you should be paying around R11 per watt. About 1.5kW in panels should do the trick, assuming 4 hours a day average of usable sunlight that'll get you about 6kW.hr.

A 12 V 100Amp.hr battery is equivalent to 1.2kW.hr. (P = V*I ; P.hr = V*I.hr), so you need about 5 deep cycle batteries (if you can get your paws on a Nickel/Zinc - they're not too common yet), but if you get a lead-type, you'll only want to drain to about 50% to extend life of battery, so you'll need about 10 100A.hr batteries.

6kW.hr should give you 12 hours of usefulness.

As for OP, you need 10 batteries at least. If you go the lead/crystal route, then you'll need about 20 100A.hr battereies.

Mmmm, maybe I can just do the outside lights (200W), there is no way I'm spending R71 000 just on batteries.

 

[richjdavies]

Also if you're doing that - maybe change your lights. 200W is a lot of lighting nowadays. You can get some very good LED floodlights even.

 

[supersunbird]

Also if you're doing that - maybe change your lights. 200W is a lot of lighting nowadays. You can get some very good LED floodlights even.

With 12 current light fittings, that averages out at 16W per fitting, its already a lot of lighting

I like a well lit yard...

 

[AchmatK]

With 12 current light fittings, that averages out at 16W per fitting, its already a lot of lighting

I like a well lit yard...

I invested in some LED floodlights. They are 20w. I was skeptical at first and not sure if they would provide enough light.

The one over the driveway is 10w. The other two are 20w.

 

[richjdavies]

I'm blliiiiinnd!! That's some very bright light! Are you sure those lights aren't spec-ed for football fields? As it looks like you can read a newspaper out there.

Possibly the angle isn't really wide enough -- you have some very bright bits, and bits in shadow.

 

[AchmatK]

I'm blliiiiinnd!! That's some very bright light! Are you sure those lights aren't spec-ed for football fields? As it looks like you can read a newspaper out there.

Possibly the angle isn't really wide enough -- you have some very bright bits, and bits in shadow.

They are standard 20w LED floodlights. The two on the left of the pic are on a switch and the one on the driveway is 10w on a sensor.

When the carport is up there will be another 10w installed to cover the dark spot around the corner. There is another 10w on the left side of the pic that is not on as it's also on a sensor.

I have another 10w and 20w which are both in sensors at the back. The one at the door is a normal cfl light.

 

[scienide]

Wow. And here I lived with no lights on outside. Hahhaha

 

[Beachless]

Also, how can your microserver be using 100W????

For the love of electrons man, get a Pi and external hard-drive bay setup. My one averages 8W and maxes out at 40W.

It was just a guess but my understanding is that they run at about 70W but mine is full of drives and the GPU if I remember correctly uses 20 something watts on its own.

I have a PI somewhere but its too slow to take over from the MS.

 

[Ho3n3r]

Where is the most affordable place to look to acquire something like this? Very interested.

 

[Gaz{M}]

How about a 2 stage approach. Use the best 11W CFL's for your lighting needs or even the 8W Philips are bright. Then install some 20 or 30W sensor LED's to switch on for movement. That way you get general "dimmer" lighting and then bright spots for any movement, which is also an alert that something is out there (probably just an animal).

For every bit of power you save, your backup system cost plummets by R100's. It is after all a 'backup' system and not meant to be 100% as good as grid power.

Then, spend as much as you can on buying the best, highest lumen LED/CFL bulbs for all your light fittings. Reduce every Watt you need before backing anything up.

Finally, consider wiring in two lighting circuits in your house so that each room has two separate feeds and two switches. One circuit will be grid power, while the other is grid but backed up by UPS. Put a low wattage bulb in these sockets in each room. If the power goes, each room has at least 1 low wattage bulb for good enough illumination.

Twin and earth cable is cheap (the white cable with red and black and earth wire inside used for all wiring), so running a few extra legs to your DB is much cheaper than a higher power solar setup.

Now that you have separate, low wattage lighting circuits on your DB on it's own circuit breakers (also cheap), you can backup just these circuits.

Boom, you've saved thousands and now can afford a smaller solar/battery setup.

PS: I imagine the solar panels are there to charge the batteries if you have no grid power, but have you considered just buying a battery charger, inverter and batteries and forgetting the solar panels to save cost. I haven't done the calc's but it may be cheaper to do this and just recharge on grid power. You would need 4 days storage though.

PPS: I just checked your needs again. Your gate motor has its own battery backup, so drain should be low on your backup system. Also, your electric fence should have its own battery backup too. That should reduce your power needs considerably. Maybe see if you can get a better power requirement from the fence and gate motors by looking at the backup battery and how many hours it will provide. Also, you aren't opening the gate continuously, nor is the fence on permanently - it pulses every few seconds.

PPPS: More thoughts: You only need "continuous" power for 12 hours for your bare minimum outside lights. Then, just a couple of hours for 8 or so inside lights which surely you will switch off when not in the room, then you go to bed. Your storage needs are much lower than 600W x 12 hours in other words.

More like 8W x 12 bulbs = 96W ouside x 12 hours = 1.152 kWh (just over 1 battery).
Then inside say 8W x 8 bulbs x 5 hours = 0.32 kWh (less than half a battery).
And then some spare capacity for the other things like gate and fence and some laptop or cellphone charging. Call it 3 batteries total per day of backup power.

 

[The_Ogre]

Wow. And here I lived with no lights on outside. Hahhaha

Me neither. I've got zero lights outside, my dogs are my lights

On the topic at hand.

Do not use a 12 volt based system. You'll need very thick cables; not only that, you will significantly cut down the risk of fire! Stay away from 12 volts if you have the choice.

For your requirement of 1250w, I'd think you'll need around 24 105AH batteries and then create a 24v system. That should be good for about 10 years

 

[supersunbird]

So I have done some work. With a few changes I could take my possible peak load down to 1000W.

The average load for first 3 hours of an evening would be around 450W.

The base load for the other 9 hours would be 200W. During the day just the miniscule security systems load.

Nice lights signates, I will be using a 5 of the 20w floodlights, 1 to light the front yard which as the furthest corner from the house, the other 4 to light the veld at our back wall. The rest are bulkhead half-lid fittings (as below) which houses 11w Philips CFLsm which are pleasant and have a more cosy feeling.



As to other comments, I like to move around the darkened house and be able to see what my dogs are barking at in the yard or why the electric fence went off.

 

[HavocXphere]

Whats munching all that juice?

Gate motor can run off a built in battery so thats not hectic. Lights...minimal watts. And then elec fence...not sure how much that uses but can't be that much.

So where is the 1000W going?

 

[upup]

They are standard 20w LED floodlights. The two on the left of the pic are on a switch and the one on the driveway is 10w on a sensor.

When the carport is up there will be another 10w installed to cover the dark spot around the corner. There is another 10w on the left side of the pic that is not on as it's also on a sensor.

I have another 10w and 20w which are both in sensors at the back. The one at the door is a normal cfl light.

You are the first to show us his house on here.

 

[upup]

Also, allow around 15-20% loss in transmission and inversion. You might get away with 8-10% in practice, but build in some margin as the cost increment is insignificant.

Make sure your MPPT/regulator and DC cabling can handle 30-40% more amps than the pv panel nominal rating. The edge-of-cloud effect can spike current production rather dramatically, and you don't want this to overwhelm your DC circuits and cause a fire.

Lastly, remember to run a Cat6 cable while you're cabling in the panels. This will allow you to add a cam and sensors to keep an eye on things, including panels, which have been known to grow legs.

(I run a 12kW array on 48V into a 12kW inverter and 24 batteries.)

So you invert back to 220VAC.

Is your batteries in a special room. What batteries and charger do you use.

 

[supersunbird]

Whats munching all that juice?

Gate motor can run off a built in battery so thats not hectic. Lights...minimal watts. And then elec fence...not sure how much that uses but can't be that much.

So where is the 1000W going?

The peak load if every single overhead light fitting in all 18 of the rooms (that's 24 fittings in total) and the 12 outside lights are switched on, is 1000w

The gate motor is on a battery but if power is out for 5 days? Fresh electric fence battery lasted about 20 hours with my Sept power issue...

 

[supersunbird]

You are the first to show us his house on here.

Ill gladly show my house with the solar lighting when done...

 

[HavocXphere]

The gate motor is on a battery but if power is out for 5 days?

Planning for an apocalypse/revolution by chance?

Can't you plan for 75% of the lights being on? Dunno about your place but generally I've got <25% of the lights on even when on the grid. At my parents place (big house) its likely closer to 10%. Outside obviously needs to be on yes.

 

[maumau]

18 Rooms??? Good god you must live in a mansion.