economic solar water pump design

2 Posts
Mar 11, 2009 08:33 pm
economic solar water pump design

I live in the San Ildefonso Ixtahuacanm Huehuetenango Guatemala. I work with the Social Ministry of the Catholic Church in a sustainable agriculture and reforestation project for indigneous subsistence farmers in one of driest regions of the country. The land entrance where we dug the well is 200m from the closed electrical post and the well 240m from the land entrance.Yesterday we finished digging the well and would like to use it at a model to show people an alternative to grid power (which is expensive here), that is economically feasible for them  and could be used for irrigation durning the dry season which would help with their food security and income generating activities.
the well is 8.5m deep with 2.20m of water. I want to pump it with solar energy 220m or 237.5m with a elevation of 32.7 from the well surface to the where the tank(1.5nX2mX1) will be built. I want 1gpm to 1.5gpm to fill the tank in an 8hr solar day

The solar panel will have to be placed in a tree 10m high to find the sun and the tree is 10m from the well.

Thanks for your time and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Take care,

Todd Bauer
 
Mar 18, 2009 06:09 am
Re: economic solar water pump design

Wow, I am surprised no one has ansewered this one yet. Have you found what you need Todd Bauer?
Something that I would have a concern over would be the recovery rate of the well. Your desire for 1 gpm would be 480 gallons in an 8 hour day. With only 2.20 meters of water in the well it would seem that it would have to be really big around or have a really fast recovery rate. For a long time I used a pitcher pump to fill plastic drums on an elevated platform from a shallow spring fed cistern well. If I remember right it only took me about an hour to fill 6 - 55 gallons drums. Got a nice little work out at the same time.

http://www.solar4power.com/solar-power-water-pump.html

This isn't the type I used though. The type I used was the more commonly seen cast iron type with the leather washers. I should add to that my pump and tanks were only about 4m high and the well about 4m deep.
 
2 Posts
Mar 18, 2009 11:01 pm
Re: economic solar water pump design

no, i haven't found the system yet. i'm looking at a sunpump but it seems expensive. the well now has 4.5m of water and seems to have a fast recharge. the 2.2m is back in 8 hours so i imagine that a solar pump of 1 to 3gmp would never draw down the well or if it didn't it would dry it up.

i looked on a map and it says that i have 4.5 peak sun hours. does that mean that only 4.5 hr a day a solar pump will pumo?

Thanks

Todd
 
33 Posts
Mar 19, 2009 10:23 pm
Re: economic solar water pump design

Sun is up 12 hours a day more or less depending on elevation if something blocks sun for few hours such as buildings or hills or mountain ranges or large trees etc.

Solar panels when they are mounted in a fixed position only make good power about 4 to 5 hours a day. The sun has to hit them directly or somewhat directly or else the solar panels just reflect it back off. From say sunrise to 10 am the panel will only make a few watts and then slowly start rising up production till sun is directly overhead then it will drop down. Say 4 amp panel will make .4 amps for few hours rising slowly to .8 amps then 2 amp then 4 etc.

A bigger problem and much more relevant seems to be that that place appears to be a tropical climate with a ton of cloud cover. I can't find databases that give averages of cloudy days or cloudy hours in the days but solar panels can't make good power with anything other than very high very thin cloudcover which a tropical area will produce very low very thick clouds just through the vegetation interaction with the atmosphere. But you say it's a very dry region so it has to be between a couple mountain ranges that leach off all the water before the air gets over the top. Dry regions are great for solar power but mountains are bad for number of sun hours. Wish I could locate the place better.
« Last Edit: Mar 19, 2009 10:27 pm by Jonathan Winters »
 
Mar 22, 2009 11:09 am
Re: economic solar water pump design

Yeah, chances are good that all of these types of water pumps are going to be expensive, in my opinion, thats why I threw in that alternative of using a hand operated water pump. Its not any cheaper but it, I think, gives you all more options for the future.
If we work with the figure of 480 gallons of water per day and assume that each stroke supplies 1 pint of water per 2 seconds that comes to 225 gallons per hour or 3.75 gallons per minute.
If you take a look at that website I gave you a link too again you should see that their claim is to 3 gallons of water per minute. So it would take about 2.5 hours of pumping by hand to fulfill the 480 gallons desired. Considering that all pipes are full to begin with.
http://www.solar4power.com/solar-power-motorized-water-pump.html
It also gives you the option of changing over at a later time to solar power. There are links within their website the can help you determine the best application for your site should you consider it.
Its not as hard as you might think to pump that much water by hand. It helps if one is ambidextrous. In this particular case thats not a hard "skill to acquire. As it turns out, necessary.
To be sure there is several people in this, uh, village? that would not mind a "workout" of this nature. They could take turns. Something I wished I had when I was filling 6 - 55 gallon drums with a pitcher pump. There is no doubt that this is a mundane task but so is an 8 hour day 5 days a week job, yet billions of people do it world wide there entire adult life. Many of them have to sit on there butts the whole time. Tradgic if you ask me. Somehow, I don't think thats what God intented for the human physique.

As for the 4.5 hours a day of peak sun hours. That may be the same as what I call the "number of hours of equivalent full rated power from a PV module." Mr. Winters explained this in his post. LCB's (Liner Current Boosters) help to "stretch out" that 4.5 hour solar day when a PV direct pumping system is set up.

One other plus for that hand pump is it can be done at night as well, when its little cooler outside.

 
351 Posts
Mar 22, 2009 12:17 pm
Re: economic solar water pump design

I agree with Thomas, people power is doable. One of the most ingenious ways is the play pump.
http://www.playpumps.org/site/c.hqLNIXOEKrF/b.2589393/k.30EE/The_PlayPump_System___How_the_PlayPump_Works.htm

 
 

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