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Our tiny little UPS

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hafa

hafa

Member
​
Joined
Apr 19, 2003
Location
A tiny dot in the middle of the Pacific
After much time, work and effort, we've finally finished the installation of the new UPS for our home/office:

ups1.jpg

ups2.jpg

Specs:

  • 4400 Watt continuous true sine wave inverter, 12,000 watt peak
  • 3200 amp hour Rolls Royce Battery Array
  • Controllers and remotes
  • Steel reinforced concrete housing; aluminum louvered doors pending
  • 6000 watt backup generator with autostart

Coming soon:

2000 watt solar panel array

This ought to keep the lights on :santa:. So nice to have peace of mind. We can now leave our servers running without any concerns. Once the arrays are in place, we'll do a year-long test run, and then we'll hopefully be off the grid completely.

Don't even ask about the economics here, as they make no sense whatsoever. It's all about reliability and green power, nothing more.
 
that is absolutely nuts. will you be putting energy back into the grid with those solar panels? that might help the economic case.
 
djrussell said:
that is absolutely nuts. will you be putting energy back into the grid with those solar panels? that might help the economic case.
Click to expand...

Given the state of the grid here, I don't think so. Maybe if they can manage to stabilize it and/or get their act together for net metering. The primary incentive for the adoption of an independent power system was the lack of reliability of our grid power.
 
djrussell said:
that is absolutely nuts. will you be putting energy back into the grid with those solar panels? that might help the economic case.
Click to expand...

you can actually get paid for putting energy on the grid so it will eventually pay for itself and then earn you money!
 
I forgot which company it is, (Lost all my bookmarks) but they are hoping to have the cost down to a dollar per watt for their solar panels with their lower cost manufacturing processes. So if you need more power in the future it might be considerably cheaper.

Edit: NanoSolar

Extremely nice setup you have there.
 
Say if there is a brownout(voltage goes low) it keeps it normal, and if theres a total blackout theres still elec.
 
Elluzion said:
What does that do exactly?
Click to expand...

JamesXP said:
Say if there is a brownout(voltage goes low) it keeps it normal, and if theres a total blackout theres still elec.
Click to expand...

For now, that's essentially it. With 9.6KWH of usable storage capacity, I calculate that we will be able to run 24 hours on a charge at current consumption levels, longer if we conserve. The system actually does far more, however:

  • Allows input from multiple sources:
    • PVA
    • Wind turbine
    • Water turbine
    • Grid power, or
    • generator.
  • Balances the charging load from both directions, preventing overdraw and overcharge.
  • Provides instant automated programmable switching for charging the battery bank between multiple sources

There's actually more to it, but I'm still reading the myriad manuals that came with the system, so won't list more here.

The point of all of this is independent power from the sun. No connection to any utilities whatsoever. I'm looking forward to the day when I present the utility with our disconnection notice!

schismspeak said:
I forgot which company it is, (Lost all my bookmarks) but they are hoping to have the cost down to a dollar per watt for their solar panels with their lower cost manufacturing processes. So if you need more power in the future it might be considerably cheaper.

Edit: NanoSolar

Extremely nice setup you have there.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link, schismspeak. That's pretty exciting stuff, but will probably come about too late for us, as I don't want to put off implementation for an unknown time. Our current cost will be $4 per watt; if only NanoSolar were ramping up earlier, we'd be all over it.
 
Last edited:
over here if we were to install a system like yours we would get a rebate on the parts used and seeing that you will eventually be putting back into the main grid, do you get such rebates there
 
EmAn said:
you can actually get paid for putting energy on the grid so it will eventually pay for itself and then earn you money!
Click to expand...

was that a comment or a question cause that's what i just said and you quoted?

hafa said:
...The system actually does far more, however:

  • Allows input from multiple sources:
    • PVA
    • Wind turbine
    • Water turbine
    • Grid power, or
    • generator.
  • Balances the charging load from both directions, preventing overdraw and overcharge.
  • Provides instant automated programmable switching for charging the battery bank between multiple sources
Click to expand...

huh. so it's kind of like a motherboard for your house. overclock it!!!

hafa said:
The point of all of this is independent power from the sun. No connection to any utilities whatsoever. I'm looking forward to the day when I present the utility with our disconnection notice!
Click to expand...

lol :D

hafa said:
That would certainly be welcome, but no, Australia is far ahead of us in that regard.
Click to expand...

teh suck. they'll be profiting off you if you're producing more than you're using/storing. is there a way to "turn off" solar cells. not using them once all the batteries are full would extend their lifespan. if it can't be done electronically, maybe you could partially cover the unnecessary panels. automatically of course. :)
 
I wanna see pictures of the solar panels hen their up. Looks like you could finish a couple of rounds of gaming in a balckout with that rig!
 
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