Assisting transition from GTI’s to Independant supply in a cost effective way.

[ClockmanFRA]

Assisting transition from GTI’s to Independent supply in a cost effective way.

Hi Guys,
Stay with me on this, its roughed out here below, its one of my stories. I need to write it for a book publication.

The Philosophy of going Green and Sustainability.

Even here in France the self-consume electric has arrived big time.

Yes, the French government even have laws that allow individual properties to make and consume as much electricity as they want. And even use the grid as virtual batteries without injection. BUT you are not allowed to sell it to anyone, except 3KW max to the Governments EDF utilities.

However, there is a big crunch happening here, with just absolutely no 'non-commercial independent' information.

The so called RE retailers/wholesalers here in France don’t really know what they are doing.

AS we are Non Comercial & Independent and have been doing what we are doing for over 20 years now, you can imagine i keep a low profile in our local area. At first the locals thought us ‘mad’ with solar trackers, PV and Wind Turbines, now, even they have come around.
Here in our locality when asked, i have tried to help self-installers and self-consumers and the going green folk who want OFF GRID, and have asked us for our independent advice. However, its become a nightmare.

Why is it a nightmare, well most of Europe and especially France is mostly Urbanised and folk here have a consumer mentality and the PLUG and PLAY concept to everything today.

They also believe in what the slick middle men and dodgy marketing commercial people say and tell them.

These are normal size households with teenagers etc, What I general see is this..........
They want total independence, they have 5KW of PV, a standby second hand generator, a Chinese cheap PWM battery charger, 220ah 96v gel batteries, a cheap Chinese 96v Inverter to 220vac max output at 3Kw. Cables to important bits are way undersize in thickness and connections are real bad. Generally the Chinese stuff runs a few years and develops faults then becomes unserviceable.
The household manage for a few years and struggle in the Winters, with the generator running most of the time.

I also see the Grid tied folk with Hybrids, but again the hybrid and little battery pack just does not cut the mustard in the winter months.

I also see households that also want 3 phase to drive the comercial woodworking etc machines, yes, thats a challenge.

Can i help them with impartial independent advice, and cost-effective solutions?

Now where the heck do i start.
Firstly, i realised I am up against the social culture straight away. Now, these folk that ask me are what i would call ‘ECO warriors’ type. But i find that their Philosophy of what they are doing clashes with reality of a long term stable independent electric supply for their house.

So, I do A4 size handouts in their language for the other folk in the household to understand why certain things are necessary and to operate the changeover switches and generator battery charger etc. I had to do those A4 handouts sometime so in a sense they are good info for anybody.

The blokes in the household understand to a certain extent and want to learn but there is a point when even there eyes just Glaze over.
I go with the mentality of best cost, best quality, and a 20 years life span.

And as my Mrs says to me “Your OzInverter is great but it’s just too complicated for ordinary people to fully comprehend” , I wrote a A4 handout and she made it readable how to properly start a ‘OzInverter’ in sequence. But still the teenagers pressed the Control board restart button inside the case, while the OzInverter was operating oh dear!

Depending on the abilities of the Household, I now recommend 2off simple ‘Victron Phoenix’ 5KV, they have toroid’s, a Dutch company stuff made in INDIA, with RJ45 connected as they can be sequenced for 50HZ, also getting a third also means you can have 3 phase supply. Although I hate software, this Victron stuff is not difficult to implement and plenty of info on the WEB etc.

As a good quality and proven PV to battery charger I recommend the ‘Midnite Classic 200’, USA made. As most modern PV panels have a higher voltage than the old PV. It can handle input 200vdc at 78 amps so can run nicely on 15KW of PV.

Batteries I still recommend Lead acid, ‘ROLLS’ or forklift type ‘OPZ’ and about 1200ah 48v that’s about 60KW. I normally recommend 3 banks at 400ah 48v each.

240v Generators are a pain as they always want to be top dog and getting them to link with an inverter HZ is never really successful long term. So, I recommend a changeover switch system, that links to the generator and also links in the generator charging the split battery bank individually, (stops any shit feedback from the second-hand battery chargers and generator, getting at the Inverter and PV Chargers).

AC coupling, for the ‘OzInverter’ its no issues its totally automatic with its H Bridge design. For the ‘Victron Phoenix’ also has toroids, there is a function in its software that will allow the machine to back feed AC to the battery bank like the ‘OzInverter’ does.

Once over 15KW PV, and in the winter months you never have enough PV, then I get folk to do separate PV arrays that are directly linked to Old/second hand toroid GTI’s and to the 240vac MINI GRID the main inverter is creating. What this does is to direct feed the 240vac Min Grid. For the OzInverter it can take 11KW of GTI AC Coupling back feeding through it direct to the battery. You will need to use the auxiliary contacts on the ‘Mindnite Classic’ controller to shut down the GTI’s when the batteries are fully charged and you are not using the GTI’s to produced power.
Please use small GTI’s max 2.5KW as above this there are surge issues, but having the arrays say 50 meters away, then voltage drop on the cables becomes very useful.

If you have 48vdc output Wind turbines and these are direct connected to the battery bank as a load, then you will need ‘Tristar’ USA made, Diversion controllers, these can also be used to divert excess AC Coupling feed back that gets to the batteries. 240vac Wind turbines can be connected to the 240vac Mini Grid with a suitable GTI, but you will probably need a Load for a 240vac Wind Turbine.

I trust this information helps you.

[ClockmanFRA]

Been asked on other forums about the change over switches.

Below is what i use.

I Much prefer and recommend this type of rotary change over switches as they are ON to OFF to ON.

Kruas & Naimer are the Rolls Royce of change over switches. The one in the first photos below, is 150amp at 240vac and yes it can actually handle that.

They are still made in IRELAND but are readily obtainable all over the World as used/ second hand. I have looked at other manufacturers of change over switches and nothing compares to Kruas & Naimer in Quality of build, its internal mechanisms are very well made. The actual ratings are true and even have a good excess percentage.

No 2 photo shows a Hybrid installation where certain circuits in a house can be switched in or out depending on available power. The big one is 100 amp, then a 30 amp then the rest are 20amp.

No 3 and 4 photo shows a 90amp Rotary change over switch on an individual building.

[billi]

Well , simply one needs a Battery and a Battery Inverter ... victron hast a Lot of scenarious portrait how to so that
.... A Lot hast been Said about AC couppling and or Charge Controllers , i still Stick to my wird's years ago , that a Splitt Idea of both nicht BE best