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Power Burst = Mini Grid

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justsomeguy:
This subject quickly came out of a "Anyone tried propane"? question I posted in the Alternative Fuels area, that, by the way, no one answered.  It did evolve in to all sorts of other discussion though. So I'm moving it over here in an attempt to stay on topic.

I'll be brief:

Have a 6/1 Lister?  Off grid?  Wish you were on grid every time you plug in the air compressor so that 4HP motor would start a little easier, and not blink out the lights?  Wouldn't it be great if your inverter and Lister could "gang up" and give a burst of energy to start large loads?  Wish you didn't have to have a precisely controlled governor?  Wish you could use an induction motor as your generator head, and not worry about RPM, or voltage?

Have your cake and eat it to.  All the benefits of being grid tied, combined with all the benefits of being out in the middle of nowhere, miles from the grid.  Use a Sunny Island to build your own little mini grid.  With a little creativity, (means: Hacking)  an auto-start Lister could be built and hooked up to the Sunny boy controller, and start/stop as the batteries/inverter command without human intervention.

http://www.solarsales.com.au/sunny_island.html

There's a picture, (worth a few thousand words) at the bottom of the page.

Discuss!     :)

cujet:
What is the cost of that thing!

Chris

justsomeguy:
Cost?  Don't know.  I'd assume it to be close to other "smart grid tie" inverters, but I have no real idea.  Just thought I'd toss it out there for others to explore.  It might be wonderfull. It might suck.  I don't know, because I've never dealt with one. But I have read quite a bit about them.

An inverter that keeps a mini-grid supplied with power, and can instantly inject or absorb KW from mini-grid to a battery bank to maintain frequency stability, while providing voltage support... welll.... It seems like it would solve a few problems all at once!

Rather than trying to deal with generating AC power with a Lister and having tight frequency and voltage control, plus surge ratings to handle large loads, and dealing with battery charging, then switching to inverter power when the Lister is turned off, and having surge capacity in the inverter, this kind of is the best of all worlds, is it not?

I do know that they're used in remote off grid places though.  I've read many such articles in various renewable energy trade magazines where they've been used as the corner stone of "the grid" to provide stable 24/7/365 power to/from battery banks, and various 'grid tie' solar inverters and 'grid tie' engine generators and 'grid tie' wind generators, and/or micro hydro supply the energy. 

All of the loads were typical grid loads, and all of the generation was grid tie.  But instead of the grid being "everything on the utility side of the meter" the grid was actually a pile of inverters and a large battery bank.

-Jerry

GerryH:
Hi justsomeguy,
I am planning to retire in 5 years, or less ;D and this is exactly what I have planned to do.
This is not cheap. "free"energy is not free, and hydrogen won't run the world til we find free electricity to make it.

However, this is my way of looking at it.
If I go and buy a new Dodge diesel pickup in Canada, I can spent $45000. As soon as I take ownership I have lost 20% in Value, in 5 years I have lost 50% in value and it goes downhill from there. BTW, thousands of people do this every year.

If I take the same dollars, and invest in a combined solar, wind, and diesel system to charge a battery bank, in 10 years it will have paid back $16800, (or else I will pay this, in todays prices, to the utility.) that is discounting the possiblity of a rate increase. Do you think power will stay at this rate?
The sum of $45000 will build you one Jesus honking big system. $20,000 will build you a deluxe system. The batteries, if you are going to do this right, are going to be one of the biggest costs out there.
If I do this now, befor I retire on a fixed income, it will pay me in my later years, instead of me paying them.
That's why I bought a Lister, and thats why I am building a wind plant.

Gerry

Tom:
Hello Gerry,

Actually the batteries are rather cheap. Unless you want something fancy like sealed ones. I'm in the process of building an off-grid home and here is a general break down of the costs 3.2kw of PV modules $15K, complete power panel with 2 5.5kw inverters $9K and 40 350 amp hour batteries at $8K.

The Xantrex inverters will do almost every thing the above mention system does except for the 3 phase power. In addition it when when the gennie is running it will power the loads and charge batteries at the same time.

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