Big Offgrid System Request for Guidance [RE-wrenches]

Jeff Clearwater, Village Power Design jeffc at villagepower.com
Mon Apr 14 17:04:05 PDT 2008


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Hi Allan,

Yes I would definitely do a whole systems & load analysis and see 
what you can meet with direct renewables such as passive cooling (and 
heating) by design (earth couple the building, super insulate, 
install ground heat exchangers, etc.) or solar direct air 
conditioning or refrigeration assist (look into the new aDsorption 
chillers) as Kurt suggested.  Super insulate the walk-in cooler, etc. 
I did an energy conservation & renewable energy plan for Sunrise 
Ranch Community in Colorado and we came up with a menu of 110 energy 
conservation strategies to reduce thier KWH load 40% before applying 
PV or Wind.

Usually the limiting factor is willingness to rethink the original 
building design or willingness to do the work to do conservation 
rather than just throw big bucks at PV.

Then as Jay says I'd definitely look into the Sunny Island system. 
Especially if you might have the chance to input multiple sources of 
PV (and perhaps Wind or seasonal Hydro?) into the 240 backbone 
anywhere you want.

But the bottom line is - what's the purpose of the Lodge and does all 
that Pb through the years really worth it and in line with their 
mission???  Get them to think green systems design rather than supply 
side fix with PV, show them the huge economic costs of the system and 
the huge environmental bummer of lead-acid batteries and then they 
might be open to more whole systems/conservation design thinking in 
the first place.

Hope that helps.

Best,

Jeff Clearwater
NABCEP (tm) Certified Solar PV Installer
Village Power Design




>Wrenches,
>We have been tasked with designing, supplying and installing an
>off-the-scale power system for a high-end lodge. No ground has been broken
>yet, but plans are in place and the project is real. It will include one or
>two generators.
>
>Very preliminary load profile is estimated at well over 300 kilowatt-hours
>per day before system losses. Actual load profile will likely be less, but
>not significantly so. Two preliminary quotes (design time all to be billed,
>yes) is 1) all load supplied by PV with emergency use of generator, and 2)
>50% gennie to load.
>
>Obviously, this is well above the normal scale of off-grid systems, and thus
>larger than the systems we have done to date. As such, in those few cases
>where these kinds of questions have come up on the list, I haven't saved the
>messages. So my request for help is focused on these questions:
>
>1)	Whose equipment is capable of this kind of load profile? Xantrex XW
>appears to limit at 18kW, Outback at 36kW. What else is out there that
>works? It must be monitorable by satellite internet.
>2)	Mechanicals could end up being over 1,000' from the lodge. This is a
>long distance to run AC. Who makes higher-voltage equipment, such as 480V
>(hopefully nobody, but I need to know the range of options)? As an
>alternative, how is single-phase 240VAC best carried long distances - that
>is, is big wire better than a pair of transformers?
>3)	What are the keywords or dates that would let me search Topica
>archives for past relevant posts?
>4)	Who has done this before, that would care to contact me off-list
>concerning serving as a paid consultant on this project at key points in the
>design development and installation?
>
>Thank you,
>Allan at Positive Energy
>
>Allan Sindelar
>allan_(at)_positiveenergysolar.com <mailto:allan at positiveenergysolar.com>
>NABCEP certified solar PV installer
>Positive Energy, Inc.
>3225A Richards Lane
>Santa Fe NM 87507
>505 424-1112
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
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-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeff Clearwater
Village Power Design
Sustainable Energy & Water Solutions for Home & Village
http://www.villagepower.com
gosolar at villagepower.com
NABCEP (tm) Certified Solar PV Installer

Voice: 413-259-3776
Fax: 413-825-0703
65 Schoolhouse Rd
Amherst, MA 01002
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`~


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