Power generation is not simple. With mains power, all the hard work of keeping it running 24/7 is invisible to the end-user, who takes it for granted - until it fails. Then, sooner or later, “they” fix it.
When power generation is devolved on the end-users, as well as the sheer expense, they need to know enough practical electrics to effectively troubleshoot and maintain, if not repair, the system. To repeat my original statement, its a can of worms.
Your interest or rather insistence on a PV solution seems to be more religious or even animistic in nature rather than coldly objective. The technical name might be " Heliolater.and as cults go, that one is rather benign. There may be a complementary term for willingness to engage in excessive expense, complexity, risk, and ritualistic periodic maintenance. Ergo, a solar hobby. Or solar headache.
Anyway, Bradanovic has supplied a dollop or two of wisdom and you now have a path for objective assessment for how to approach a solution for backup power.
For the electrical demand that you outlined there in Maule, you might be paying about 28,000 CLP monthly. Your PV with storage concept may run around 10,000,000 CLP for initial investment plus recurring costs and without consideration of the time value of money… Useful life of components is unknown but should be factored ---- ten year useful life? . Such a system may never reach payback, so for PV you may be paying for a theoretical reliability/availability luxury. .
Much to consider. Suerte.
thanks Findes, excellent synopsis, Many viable options have been offered and I will consider them all. Thank you for your contributions, including the humorous and creative use of metaphors. Being coldly objective is not my strong point, that is why I wrote this post. When you realize you are lacking in one area, you turn to those who have an excess of that attribute. And I do not want luxury, just reliability and survival if the big grid fails indefinetly.
thanks, am at the pondering/researching stage, will ponder some more
If the big grid fails in an Armageddon-like manner, then a personal PV system is just an ephemeral candle in the wind. Knowing how Chile has progressively degraded its capacity and willingness to recover from major disasters, and the tendencies of the great legions of unwashed hooligans to run roughshod over defenseless homeowners, you may wish that you had laid in a month’s worth of victuals and secured the permit for a rifle.
I agree, Findes, and if that day comes, I don’t want to survive. But a month long outage, would like to weather that. Will keep you all posted on any new quotes I get. And yes, there is also the generator but I treasure the silence out here. Had a generator in the aftermath of the fires in 2019. Dreadful sounds emanated whenever it was ignited. . But budgetary restrictions may lead me back to those gas guzzling noise machines,
RE power budget for sizing battery backup/storage.
Your mileage may differ but a neighbor who installed a submersible well pump in a 30 meter hole said that it ran at about 700-1000 watts but needed 3000 watts for starting that pump. So when you start developing your calculations, be sure to deal with someone familiar with the precise nature of your appliances, including those startup or inrush numbers.
If you were familiar with the basics of the electrical code in Canada, you’ll remember that the conductors, the wiring, need to be rated for 125 percent of the highest continuous load. That applies to the conductors for your battery bank as well. Although you may not currently (no pun) care for a genset system, you will need to know the continuous running rating rather than the advertising label which may be peak or intermittent if you are running directly off that genset, with no battery bank. And I would recommend that your genset continuous running capacity be 20-30 percent higher than your highest continuous load.
Hybrid system:
Some people will use a sort of hybrid system, with a decent capacity battery bank capable of supplying power needs for several hours, then a small genset can be used to recharge the battery bank for short periods. That way you can have a comparatively smaller, cheaper, and quieter genset and you don’t have to run it all the time during your occasional apagón condition. Depending on the power needs you might only run the genset for only a couple of hours during the day, and have silence at night. Such a system can be made to turn on the genset automatically, or manually (e.g., never run it at night).
This can be expensive due to the potentially large battery bank, but if you cherish your quiet time during those occasional apagones, it may be worth it.
Here is another variant, that will satisfy your PV/solar cravings by using a small panel set for trickle charging to keep the battery bank charged, and then the smallish backup generator for occasional charging of the battery bank when extended apagón duration draws down the battery storage. Not necessarily recommended but an illustration of possible configurations if you feel the need to have PV/solar play a role . The small and relatively quiet generator is only needed during extended mains outage.
The “Yeti 150” is just a commercial packaging of a battery bank, which can be tailored according to specific local power needs.
If you want to see what 3.3 million CLP can get you in Chile in a household battery backup system, here is a link. I know nothing about them. And we know nothing about your well pump electrical characteristics and other power demands.
This solution is what we ended up doing. However we used a larger Yeti 3000 and a smaller Yeti and had the deep freeze chest freezer and one fridge on the large yeti all the time. We bought a few spools of 40m extension cords and could tap into the large yeti from anywhere else or we could move the smaller yeti easily to where we needed it. We only ran the diesel generator to recharge the yetis when solar couldnt keep up. Saves a TON on diesel instead of just mindleslly running it constantly regardless of the draw.
The well pump and the fridges/freezer will be the biggest draw and a yeti 3000 or yeti 6000 can keep up with that. Maybe using a large yeti for the house and a seperate yeti for the well pump with solar and grid topoff would be best
It would be pretty easy/safe to get a large Goal Zero Yeti and have it installed with a transfer switch on your house. Installation costs are basically nothing except for the transfer switch install to the mains
