Off Grid Living / Camping > Off Grid Living / Alternative Housing
Power Logs
ChrisOlson:
--- Quote from: rossw on April 02, 2012, 01:55:43 am ---Unfortunately where I am here inland in Australia during winter we FREQUENTLY get days (often several in a row) with thick fog that doesn't lift at all, and no wind whatsoever. Some of these days I see 40 watts out of my 3600 watts worth of PV, and absolutely nothing all day from the turbine.
--- End quote ---
We get those kinds of days, Ross, in the winter where we will get nothing from solar for weeks at a time. Because of that I've gone overboard on wind power, just because I can. And because the wind blows like a banshee here in the winter time.
But going overboard like that on wind power hampers what my solar can do at other times of the year. This is an example that I just snapped to show you - the wind is carrying the total load here and 2.7 kW of solar power is doing absolutely nothing - has produced .1 kWh on a bright sunny day.
Meanwhile the wind system has the bank right up to the stop at 30 volts and the solar controller is stuck in absorb at zero output and the panels idling at 71 volts:
Edit: I should explain better how this system works because with these Classic controllers things are a bit different than most wind systems. The Solar 1 Classic operates a 2 kW water heater element with the Aux 1 output. In the above photo the controller is in its countdown mode, according to a delay I have set in the controllers menu before it activates the water heater. It activates the water heater when ever the available panel power exceeds what is needed for the charge stage. So it applies this extra 2 kW (240 volt element power by inverter) load to keep the panels "throttled up".
Except that what happens on a day like today, the MPPT wind turbines are screaming up against their voltage clippers because the power from those is not needed for bank charging. The voltage clippers are three-phase AC and they also heat water with power direct from the three-phase output of the turbines.
When the timer expires on the Solar 1 controller for the Aux 1 output, and the 2 kW aux load comes on, the solar still doesn't produce anything, except for maybe a few watts until things stabilize. What happens is that the wind controllers "see" more load on the bank so they simply load the turbines down and the power, instead of going to the clippers, goes to the bank.
The Waste Not Hi Mode in the Solar 1 Classic works good when there's limited wind to heat water by using the excess power the panels can make. But when we got good wind the solar basically can't do anything.
Coming up with these schemes to harvest this "extra" power is more of a challenge than anything else. But when both 55 gallon water heaters get up to 180 degrees we're all done and stuff has to be shut down because there's no place else for it to go.
In the long run, when I get one more MPPT turbine built, I'm going to drop to three turbines instead of four. The power from these MPPT machines is absolutely ridiculous on a good day. The wind is blowing at 25 gusting up to 33 and I got 51 kWh already since midnight. The water heaters will be approaching a low boil by lunch time, and then I'll shut 'em all off except for one machine, and let the solar fill in the difference.
It's nice to keep building until you have "extra" power. But it's also a PITA on a good day because you have to dream up ways to control it and use it.
--
Chris
Wolvenar:
Our spring as gone a bit different also. Our spring was normally windy with little to no sun in early spring, then everything clears up, the sun comes out, and we get a heavy rain or two, everything tries to flood out, and we get a couple weeks of windy sunny days. It has been predictably similar to that way pretty much every year for as long as i can remember.
This year we are are getting a partial day of sun every so often, then dull drab drizzly days plus wind LOTS of wind.. for a couple days.. Then this is followed by clouds and no wind for a week or so, Rinse... and repeat >:(
I have my solar setting on the side of the garage until I find the time to get a way rigged up to get them on the roof and tracker I have ready to get up there. All sunny until I had them ready to do something, since we have had just a couple days of full sun, and a few partial. I swear if we had a wind alt online right now there would never be wind hear either.
ksouers:
Thanks for the additional information, Chris. It puts a little more perspective on the data from the logs.
By the way, what do you use for logging? I know the Classic does it, but how did you do it before getting the Classics?
Thanks,
Kevin
ChrisOlson:
--- Quote from: ksouers on April 02, 2012, 04:46:50 pm ---By the way, what do you use for logging? I know the Classic does it, but how did you do it before getting the Classics?
--- End quote ---
Doc Wattson meters with external shunts.
--
Chris
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