Author: jdcharlton

Mission

We are a small family business providing solar power consulting and installation as well as managing a private airstrip (Charlton Strip, 05FL on the Miami Sectional chart), a cattle ranch, gardening and fruit tree cultivation. It keeps us busy. The solar power consulting is my (John) interest as well as application of engineering, technical and… Continue reading Mission

Battery Use Overnight

This figure shows the cycle of one day using battery overnight. Starting at midnight on the left, shows the battery at about 60% after powering the house for from about 1730 to midnight. The power use overnight includes AC, well pumps and hot water heaters. At about 0730 the battery charge reaches a minimum of… Continue reading Battery Use Overnight

Battery Energy Storage

We have 8 Sol-Ark PCC230 Lead-Acid AGM batteries. As stated in a previous blog post on this site, I recommend Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries for new installations. The PCC230 has a maximum of 230 Ah charge storage when discharged over a 24 hr period to 10.5 Volts. We have our 8 batteries configured in 2… Continue reading Battery Energy Storage

Heifers

In 2022 we purchased 10 heifers. We had a lot of fence work to catch up on and worked on building and repairing fence for two weeks before bringing the heifers in. We continue to rebuild fence and as the above photo shows we have purchased a cattle squeeze so we can vaccinate our cattle… Continue reading Heifers

Off Grid Battery Operation

The above screenshot was taken to show the overnight battery depletion and solar panel recharge. The trace labeled SOC is the stored energy (battery) percent. The low point after operating overnight was 42% at 8:00 AM before sunrise and the solar power began to recharge the batteries. Shortly after sunrise we turned on the AC… Continue reading Off Grid Battery Operation

Solar Power Demand

The screen shot shows a typical August day in Florida solar and power demand variation. The green is the solar power input, yellow is the grid power and red is the load. When solar power is not available the grid matches the power demand so the red power demand and yellow grid power become an… Continue reading Solar Power Demand

Lithium Iron Phosphate Batteries

Since choosing the AGM (lead acid) batteries, I have learned that Lithium Iron Phosphate technology has significant advantages over lead acid and Lithium-Ion technologies for solar power energy storage. Lithium-Ion store a higher density of power than Lithium Iron Phosphate but Lithium iron Phosphate is stable and not prone to fire or explosion. The potential… Continue reading Lithium Iron Phosphate Batteries

Operating on Power Grid

The above diagram shows the fully functioning grid sell PV inverter operation for one full day (11-1-21). This was a sunny day so there is not much up/down fluctuation during the day. The small orange blips are when a well pump comes on. The well pumps are powered only by the solar inverter. Everything else… Continue reading Operating on Power Grid