Check out my new battery!

[greenmojo]

We were finally ready with the property to install the new battery for the off-grid power system. The plan is to finish out the room in drywall as well as mud/tape, prime and paint. I'll remove the temporary battery bank this weekend, and get it all cleaned out and ready to finish.



It's a 1600Ah, 48v battery bank made up of 24 2v cells. It is 5,500 pounds as it sits on the concrete floor. Was a monster to assemble, but I am super stoked.

~Moses

 

[groundcover]

Going to be tough getting that under the hood of the Deere ! Are they gel mat ?

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

That's a serous battery! Telecom grade.

 

[k0ua]

We were finally ready with the property to install the new battery for the off-grid power system. The plan is to finish out the room in drywall as well as mud/tape, prime and paint. I'll remove the temporary battery bank this weekend, and get it all cleaned out and ready to finish.

View attachment 475979

It's a 1600Ah, 48v battery bank made up of 24 2v cells. It is 5,500 pounds as it sits on the concrete floor. Was a monster to assemble, but I am super stoked.

~Moses

That is about the same size and identical to the one in the last Telephone Central Office I worked in. I bet that cost's a couple of bucks.

 

[greenmojo]

Going to be tough getting that under the hood of the Deere ! Are they gel mat ?

Yes it would! And yes, they are glass matt batteries. One had a small leak (or had leaked at one point) when they arrived, they said it isn't an issue for the short term and are going to ship a new one. No fun to replace one, each cell weighs 222 pounds.

That is about the same size and identical to the one in the last Telephone Central Office I worked in. I bet that cost's a couple of bucks.

I ordered them from OutBack Power Systems, but I didn't realize until they arrived that they are very common batteries for high output power storage systems like telecom, etc -- like you mentioned.

We've only had a day or more on them and everything is running smoothly. We have 48 265 watt solar panels, and just finished mounting the first 24 on the first rack. Here is a pic of the rack while we are still working on it.



~Moses

 

[Western]

:shocked: Not your grandfathers watch battery!!!

 

[dragoneggs]

Very cool Moses... please continue to post pics of your set up! Curious as to why you are setting up totally off grid... by necessity? BTW... you are near my favorite places to poke around at wineries. Enjoy Red Mountain and Horse Heaven Hills.

 

[greenmojo]

Very cool Moses... please continue to post pics of your set up! Curious as to why you are setting up totally off grid... by necessity? BTW... you are near my favorite places to poke around at wineries. Enjoy Red Mountain and Horse Heaven Hills.

Power is available, but the local PUD engineer (read salesman) was an arrogant jerk and told me I wasn't capable of designing a power system that would work for what I needed. He told me I'd be back in two years, paying more than what he was quoting to run power to my property.

When complete, I'll have 250 amps of off-grid power and never pay a PUD bill.

This is the first 4 VFX inverters installed and operational, the next 4 go to the right of it (this is in the same room as the battery).



I ran ethernet cables from the electrical building to the house, so I have the control interface for the system close by. Makes everything a lot more convenient.



As you can see, I still have a few circuits to connect and we are just finishing the mudding/taping, next week we will be priming and painting.

~Moses

 

[JRobyn]

I'm very jealous!

 

[Barry 1]

What did the battery cost??

 

[greenmojo]

What did the battery cost??

$20k

This is a screenshot of Outback's OpticsRE system. Live data is sent up to their cloud system for monitoring. This is with only the first 12 panels connected.



I am really impressed with the AGM technology, the battery seems much more stable and I have less voltage fluctuations with this larger battery. The generator hasn't run once since I connected the new battery.

Most people would be very surprised to find that their actual power consumption isn't that high, and that a small to medium sized system would completely replace their power company.

I have it configured that anything over 4,000 watts for more than 60 seconds automatically fires the 30,000 watt diesel generator to take the load and charge the battery while running. It automatically idles and shuts off when the load drops back down to 3,000 watts.

~Moses

 

[greenmojo]

Someone might ask how I am heating water, and since I only want to use LP for cooking, it means I must use an electric water heater.

Electric water heaters are a big NO-NO on off-grid systems, so I have been told over and over again.

In the face of everyones advice, I did some searching and bought a Stiebel Eltron Accelera heat pump water heater. It uses an energy efficient heat pump to heat water, with a backup heating element for high demand or emergency needs.

I haven't connected this smart feature yet, but it allows for connectivity to my power system, and the power system can communicate and tell the water heater when there is excess solar power to use the backup heating element as the primary heat source.

So far, its been incredible.



~Moses

 

[Barry 1]

How many charge controllers does it take to run that large of a system? I only see one Outback in the pictures.

 

[oldpilgrim]

with all you're doing, it looks like a long time for your ROI.

 

[greenmojo]

How many charge controllers does it take to run that large of a system? I only see one Outback in the pictures.

One charge controller per string of 12 panels. They are really easy to connect, and I'll just attach them to the Flexware chassis as I connect each string. I ordered most of my stuff from Northern Arizona Wind and Sun. These guys answered all of my questions and are the most knowledgable people I found in my 4 years of research and execution.

with all you're doing, it looks like a long time for your ROI.

I made up my mind early on that I wasn't concerned about the cost. I wanted a completely autonomous, off-grid system with as little maintenance as possible and did NOT want to be concerned with how many lights the children leave on or the sound of unwatched televisions in distant rooms. I wanted a full-size regular refrigerator, etc.

PUD wanted $60k to set poles and connect power, and up to $100k to trench and connect power. And I'd still have to pay for power... Grrr.

I have about $65k to $70k invested in it as it sits (including parts still in boxes), and the expense curve is a lot shallower now if I decide to expand even larger.

I don't want to scare anyone away from this, everything is modular (which as a software guy, this appeals to me) and systems don't have to be very large to work great. I am more than happy to answer any questions as well, and provide any of the real-life knowledge I've gained from putting it together.

~Moses

 

[murphy1244]

So it would cost you 160k to get the privilege to buy power?

 

[greenmojo]

So it would cost you 160k to get the privilege to buy power?

$60k was the estimate to connect power using poles from the nearest power poles, only 400 yards from my property.

$100k was the estimate (could go higher if they have to use explosives) to trench power from the same source.

What a privilege huh?!

~Moses

 

[greenmojo]

So it would cost you 160k to get the privilege to buy power?

It really feels like a scam. He told me that the Douglas County PUD was broke. He said that they'd been charging about $1200 for power connection with almost no distance maximum for many, many years.

However, he said since the early 2000's they've been running fiber-optics to homes at no charge and they are basically broke now, and are now requiring all new power customers to pay the entire cost of connecting power, from wages, to fuel, to nuts and bolts.

It was a matter of principle at this point. I thought to myself, if I'm spending the money, I'm going to get to do things my way and I'll be darned if my cash is going to go install fiberoptic lines for free to everyone in town.

~Moses

 

[oldpilgrim]

what do you do for telephone and internet?

 

[greenmojo]

what do you do for telephone and internet?

About 1,500 yards away is a group of radio and cellular towers for the valley below us, so we get amazing signal up here for mobile phones.

Internet was a pre-requisite for purchasing land. I am in the software / security world and am addicted to Internet access. A local company here in central Washington has a system they call SkyFi, and I was lucky enough to have line-of-sight on two of their high frequency dishes. We chose the closest one, lined it up and I get about 60 megabit for $100 or so a month.

~Moses