Hydrogen fuel cell

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Beccara

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#1064786 13-Jun-2014 11:28

Overall i think your aiming for something thats going to be complicated and difficult to setup. Is there a reason you dont want Solar? 900w's is 3-6 panels depending on what space you have, Battery bank for that 50w load is like 2000ahr so 6 x 12v cells.

Any kind of fuel cell system is going to be costly upgront, The Efoy's start at $5k NZ min

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wellygary

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#1064795 13-Jun-2014 11:47

Looking again at the pictures of NIWA's setup and doing a bit of Googling, They are using an EFOY 1600,

raytaylor

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#1065035 13-Jun-2014 16:44

Beccara: Overall i think your aiming for something thats going to be complicated and difficult to setup. Is there a reason you dont want Solar? 900w's is 3-6 panels depending on what space you have, Battery bank for that 50w load is like 2000ahr so 6 x 12v cells.

Any kind of fuel cell system is going to be costly upgront, The Efoy's start at $5k NZ min

Ended up deciding to abort on the plan and just stick with solar.
All solar panels are always a 120 watt from a specific supplier, and batteries are a sealed 12v 120AH @ C100
The reason for this is so we can standardise everywhere using the same equipment. And some sites are very hard to access so solar panels and batteries need to be able to be replaced by one person and a quad bike.

So although it is possible to do, I think this project will be a bit of a pain so it might just be better to trench in a mains cable from a nearby pump shed.

Ray Taylor

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Beccara

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#1065135 13-Jun-2014 19:09

raytaylor:
Beccara: Overall i think your aiming for something thats going to be complicated and difficult to setup. Is there a reason you dont want Solar? 900w's is 3-6 panels depending on what space you have, Battery bank for that 50w load is like 2000ahr so 6 x 12v cells.

Any kind of fuel cell system is going to be costly upgront, The Efoy's start at $5k NZ min

Ended up deciding to abort on the plan and just stick with solar.
All solar panels are always a 120 watt from a specific supplier, and batteries are a sealed 12v 120AH @ C100
The reason for this is so we can standardise everywhere using the same equipment. And some sites are very hard to access so solar panels and batteries need to be able to be replaced by one person and a quad bike.

So although it is possible to do, I think this project will be a bit of a pain so it might just be better to trench in a mains cable from a nearby pump shed.

You may have to rethink that long term, 120ah batteries are tiny, given you dont want to discharge below 50% thats 60ahr usable, If you aim for a no-sun-stays-up time of 7 days (which should be the min really) then thats 8.5ah/day, A 4.2watts load. Not even enough for a a RB + Radio or some UBNT units.

Standards are good until they create unnecessary complexity to projects. If you need 1kw a day then have a high power standard with 250ah+ batteries and bigger panels. Lots of panels and batteries create wiring problems, Correctly sized solar either means high current or higher voltage and need cable to suit - That can get costly when you gotta string 10+ batteries together

andrewNZ

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#1065145 13-Jun-2014 19:27

raytaylor:
Beccara: Overall i think your aiming for something thats going to be complicated and difficult to setup. Is there a reason you dont want Solar? 900w's is 3-6 panels depending on what space you have, Battery bank for that 50w load is like 2000ahr so 6 x 12v cells.

Any kind of fuel cell system is going to be costly upgront, The Efoy's start at $5k NZ min

Ended up deciding to abort on the plan and just stick with solar.
All solar panels are always a 120 watt from a specific supplier, and batteries are a sealed 12v 120AH @ C100
The reason for this is so we can standardise everywhere using the same equipment. And some sites are very hard to access so solar panels and batteries need to be able to be replaced by one person and a quad bike.

So although it is possible to do, I think this project will be a bit of a pain so it might just be better to trench in a mains cable from a nearby pump shed.

There's definitely something to be said for keeping things standard. Especially if you plan on keeping spares, or want to be able to swap parts between sites.

Niel

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#1065228 13-Jun-2014 21:49

Use LiFePO4 batteries. Much lighter/smaller for the same capacity, and their charging efficiency is close to 100% compared to about 65% for lead. Also many more cycle life, and does not get damaged when not fully charged (cannot understand why they still sell lead for solar). I've got a very simple scheme for how to charge them without a BMS or balancer, been doing it for some time now and guaranteed to keep the cells 100% perfect balanced. Let me know if you are interested, too tired to write it up right now.

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Beccara

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#1066959 16-Jun-2014 19:34

Have Lipo's come down enough in price yet? Last time I looked production modules were $13/ah(20% DOD) compared $5/ah (50% DOD). Lead's never this side of 2000 had a charge efficiency of 65% unless your talking about the 85ish% to full efficiency but 0% to 85ish% is normally 90% efficient for AGM/SLA

raytaylor

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#1066978 16-Jun-2014 20:03

Am using 120ah SLA batteries.

Is that LifePO? word meaning lithium?

I have looked at lithium and like the idea but the cost per amp hour doesnt make sense yet.
Perhaps in another 3 to 5 years when its time to replace batteries the price may have come down enough then.

But then again, people say lithium is awesome, yet my laptop battery only lasts 15 minutes when a year ago it lasted an hour.

Ray Taylor

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Beccara

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#1066987 16-Jun-2014 20:17

Yeah LiFePo are safer battery due to decreased likely hood of thermal runway due to overcharing, Dont swell as much with cycles meaning less change of bursting and if the pack is speared by something less change of bigass fire.

At the cost of slightly lower cell voltage (3.3 vs 3.7) and as a result slightly lower watts/kg density

gzt

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#1067383 17-Jun-2014 12:22

Is the load constant? If not maybe a mixed system to kick in when demand is higher.

raytaylor

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#1067392 17-Jun-2014 12:32

gzt: Is the load constant? If not maybe a mixed system to kick in when demand is higher.

Yeah its pretty much constant.

For the cost of anything extra like wind, I would be better to just spend that money on batteries I have decided.
If I was to spend $3k on wind, I could just get another 6 batteries instead and reduce the overnight discharge from 10% to 5%
Or something like that

Ray Taylor

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