According to a friend of mine "Anything can be built."
We have several solar sites, and when they have enough battery and
panels, they are every bit as reliable as utility power. In fact, one
site we have had installed for 4 years without a single power issue. Our
older sites have had some relatively minor issues, as we learned how to
do it.
But first, I would guess that your power requirements are closer to 90
or 100 watts just doing a rough mental calculation.
Take the number of watts you really need (say 100 watts in your case).
You need that 24 hours a day, so multiply that by 24 for 2,400
watt-hours per day. Multiply that by 10 (now 24,000 watt-hours). That's
how much "battery" you need. Because batteries are rated on 100%
discharge, you then need to double that amount (now at 48,000
watt-hours). Size your batteries according to that. You want ~~ 48,000
watt-hours of battery (close to 4,000 amp-hours if using 12 volt batteries).
Then decide on how many watts you can get out of your solar panels on
the worst day (generally December 21). You want your panels capable of
fully recharging the batteries in about 1/2 of the solar time you have
on that worst day. Where we are south of San Francisco, we get about 5
good hours on December 21 (37th parallel). You're at the 27th parallel,
so you probably get another hour or so.
Just one more anecdote, we have numerous neighbors that live "off the
grid". When the big storms hit, they are usually the only ones that
still have power.
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 9/10/2015 6:00 PM, Paul McCall wrote:
OK, so I am working with a grounding expert today, getting some
opinions on a couple difficult towers, and one of the first
suggestions he has for me as I mention that I am looking to do fiber /
DC up this tower is� �Have you considered going solar up the tower?�
(to eliminate power surges completely from going up the tower)
Hmmmm�
So my brain starts wrestling with that� Is it practical?
Say on a tower with a Netonix DC powered switch running at 48v or 24v,
powering 6 ePMP APs and 2 320APs, 2 Mikrotik Bhs, and a small
Mikortik router.
Would be about 50 watts maximum according to my quick calcs.
Not knowing anything about solar, has battery technology developed
enough that it would be practical (size wise) to have enough batteries
and a charge controller up in a box on a tower? And what size solar
panel would I need to drive that?
Paul
