Solar.. But different

[Sideshow Bob]

Hi,

My farm is solar powered only... Many people think you've power to burn but I can assure that's not the case.
I do run 240vac to the house and environs via an inverter and the Solar plant is a 24vdc system.

What recommendations for a large scale (up to commercial size) do people suggest. I obviously do not want a pump or pumps/s running 24/7.
I have looked but can't find if the CHOP system (which IMHO is an elegant piece of design!) runs its sump pump constantly.

I am ready to build a plant out of recycled parts but am needing to know the most energy efficient style of system.

I have read the threads pertaining to the Yandina setup and am saddened to hear of its slow decline despite the best efforts of a few saints. The system design is of great interest to me, but again, does the pump run full time.

Also does anyone have any experience in running a media based/NFT/DWC combo. I have read the Maleny thread as well and think that will work for me in a commercial sense (i.e. Best of all worlds) But again, what are pro's/con's of this style. Does a conglomeration of system designs in fact add robustness to a total system? In terms of filtration it must surely be the ducks n$%ts?

So many questions, so little time!!

If you got this far I thank you and I look forward to hearing from the community,

Regards,

Sideshow Bob

[Murray]

Hi Sideshow Bob.
Yes in a chop system the pump runs 24/7.
In a commercial system of any sort the pump will run 24/7

Combo systems run very well, for example, It is common to run a DWC trough on water that is pumped out of the sump, water that has already gone through the gravel grow beds. There is still plenty of nutrient in the water to grow lettuce and the like.
With any DWC or NFT system there is the need to run the pump continuously unless you used a larger pump to raise the water to a header tank of some good volume and ran the water out of that to the DWC or NFT by gravity.

Some others may have a plan.

As I like to imagine.....AP would be wonderful if we could do away with the pump.

[Sideshow Bob]

Thanks for the info Murray,

I know what my plant is capable of supplying (solar plant that is) so I notice in the Yandina system you have a 60w pump which would be 1440 Watt/Hours per day. In terms of my plant that's starting to become a bit of a reach!! Especially with weeks of clouds... like now. I do have a generator back up.

What size (wattage) pump is the Maleny system running? Just so I know what I'd be up against.

I've also read that you yourself prefer 240VAC pumps over 12/24VDC due to quality issues with the DC style, since you wrote that have you had the occasion to find any good quality DC pumps. I only ask because running direct 24VDC is more efficient for the plant not resulting in efficiency loss through the inverter and I'm not skimping on the purchase price of my pump/s so I'd like to go with what the pros think.

I do have a steep hill handy... in fact I'm not in short supply of steep hills. Have you installed the Large Capacity header tank idea in any of your systems before? What size pump would you envisage running in a system the size of maleny with the LHT idea? Sorry to pester you with questions but if it's any consolation, your company will be who I'm going with at the end of the day!!

Thanks for your time,

Regards,

Sideshow

[dufflight]

I'm putting together a new system what will have solar running most of it.
If you work on just using airpumps and keep the system level then DWC might be okay. What do you want to grow.

[Sideshow Bob]

Hey there Dufflight,

Basil, Curley Leaf Parsley, Rocket lettuce, chives, oregano, thyme, tomatoes (Roma mainly) is just the start plus nutrimetics crops like aloe vera (still waiting to see how that goes in AP).
I've a good sized market for all of this ready, I just need to produce the goods as it were!!
Plus all the other crops for home, corn, capsicum, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower etc...
This why I am interested in a 'combination of styles' system.
I thought bubblers at first but thought you needed more water movement in terms of filtration. But hey, I've been wrong many times before.
I may be able to get around solar as a power source later as I've a friend who is India working on biogas plants using animal waste ala methane so building a small scale biogas plant to provide electricity may be an option for me as well but until he gets back to share the knowledge I won't be going down that path.
I'm keen as to get up and running asap.
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!
Cheers mate!

Regards

Sideshow Bob

[dufflight]

You can grow a lot of that stuff in DWC on floating rafts. Then have some gravel beds for the larger plants and use a pump on a timer to remove the solids. Airlift to move the water between the ft and DWC tanks.

[Sideshow Bob]

Airlift...

I'm sorry but I've not come across this concept. Can you expand on that one?

SB

[dufflight]

An air stone moves the water through to the tank with the rafts. Water is kept at the same height in both. You can have the DWC tank on a built up area or sink the FT lower. If you used airlift to push water into a swirl filter first it could remove the solids. Then you flood and drain the gravel gbs from the swirl filter.

[Murray]

Melaney system is running a 750 watt pump.

In the end the water has to be moved somehow and watts are a representation of work done. Some types of pump are more efficient than others to be sure, but in the end the water has to be moved.

The Yandina system pump/s have been up-sized a bit to 80 watts each so that the system can be run on one pump only. The two smaller systems run on 60 watt pump each.
At one time we were running the smaller systems on 40 watt pumps but we found they were just too small.....not enough water flow at all.

If I were living in a coastal area I would have a good wind gen set and a windmill or two to lift water to a large header tank and run my system/s in that way.

I feel in the end, to become sustainable in an energy sense, we need to think around those kinds of concepts.

[RupertofOZ]

Tend to agree with Murray to some extent...

Wind powered (if constant enough)... windmill pumping to a header tank is a possible solution....

You can certainly utilise airlifts to supply DWC raft style growing... and I've even seen it done to supply NFT.... (in limited configurations)...

But you still need to supply power to a suitably sized air pump... probably a minimum 140W...

But if you're intending to supply "normal" NFT style tables via solar panels... then I think you'd need a 60w panel per table...

I can tell you from much experience... that failure to supply water/nutrients... to an NFT operation, especially during summer... for more than an hour... will result in either permanent damage/stunted growth... or death of plants...