Arctic Circle Power Wall

Hi. I live in a small village 30 miles above the Arctic Circle on the North West coast of Alaska. Access is by plane only and our electric grid is an island. Our town power plant has a 20' shipping container 1 Mwh worth of batteries they tell me can power the whole town for 30 mins. We still have had a couple outages but nothing like what we have had in the past. the battery is built by Saft. I got to tour it a little while back and was blown away. was in such awh that is didn't document it very well. I plan to go back and do a proper write up as it's pretty cool.

Anyways... my project is to build a solar system for my triplex. I starting with a 13 Kwh bank with a 3k server room UPS to power the common area lights, security lights and cameras for now. I'll also tap some of the power for my shop also located on the property.

The plan is to get the battery pack built and operating with grid power this winter and install solar panels next summer.

I have obtained 1200 panasonic NCR 18650BD cells that Jehu told us about in this live Youtube https://tinyurl.com/ybay7ylo





They came in 20 cell packs.




Some of the cells have deep scratch that penitrates the wrapper. They will need re-wrapping






Started the testing of the cells using 5 Opus 3100s .5A discharge/charge.




After 180 cells through the testers here are the numbers so far:

Max mAh: 3263
Min mAh: 3024
Avg mAh: 3175

Max IR: 144
Min IR: 48
Avg IR: 71.8

Will update this post as progress is made.

Very interesting location and build conditions... For winter have you looked at or found a wind turbine that can survive the conditions as this would pair up with a battery very nicely ?

The 3kW UPS units will draw around 70-110W on standby 24x7 so this may be soomething to consider, but if you have electric heating then the heat output will net off your existing heating demand so no real issue, appart from the higer drain on the battery.

Some large toroidal based inverters have losses down below 20W so if your after low load provision from the battery, i.e. lights in winter when the power is out, then this may be something to factor in or convert all the lghts to 12V.

Separate option is to use a smaller non server UPS for the lights as some of the smaller home UPS units have a lot lower losses. Pick one with no fan and say 600VA and just run it at 200VA.

sounds like a unique place to live! Good luck with your project

Welcome! With your choice of batteries do keep your batteries warm for optimal results. And do not charge below freezing! Also look into better chemistries that work well in extreme climates. I know LTO works extremely well below freezing. LFP would be the second choice.

completelycharged said:

The 3kW UPS units will draw around 70-110W on standby 24x7 so this may be something to consider

Click to expand...

I'd test that with a kill-a-watt or something to know for sure. My 2.2KW / 3kW UPS' are said to use 25W in standby.

not2bme said:

Welcome! With your choice of batteries do keep your batteries warm for optimal results. And do not charge below freezing! Also look into better chemistries that work well in extreme climates. I know LTO works extremely well below freezing. LFP would be the second choice.

Click to expand...

My utility room where the batteries will be located is next to the boiler room and keeping things warm is not an issue. I have around 300ish LiFePO4 batteries from e-bus but they are beat and only about 60% life left. 1100 -~ 1600 mAh each but huge 70A continuous. Have not decided what to do with them yet. I have located 3 treadmills for salvage. maybe an ebike.

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completelycharged said:

Very interesting location and build conditions... For winter have you looked at or found a wind turbine that can survive the conditions as this would pair up with a battery very nicely ?

The 3kW UPS units will draw around 70-110W on standby 24x7 so this may be soomething to consider, but if you have electric heating then the heat output will net off your existing heating demand so no real issue, appart from the higer drain on the battery.

Some large toroidal based inverters have losses down below 20W so if your after low load provision from the battery, i.e. lights in winter when the power is out, then this may be something to factor in or convert all the lghts to 12V.

Separate option is to use a smaller non server UPS for the lights as some of the smaller home UPS units have a lot lower losses. Pick one with no fan and say 600VA and just run it at 200VA.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I know it's not optimal but its what I have atm and will work for testing the pack and work until a proper inverter is used. The UPS was left in the recycle conex. it was BFN still in its box wrapped in plastic. Had been sitting for a while as the SLA batteries were sitting at <1v each. I left the batteries and brought home the UPS.

My ultimate goal is to get as much off the local grid as possible. We pay $0.23 /kwh for the first 500 kwh and then its $0.45/kwh. What I would like is a system that drew from the grid only when necessary in the winter 3-4 months when our sun is not so great. LOL if I could get aroung 300kwh of batteries, I could survive the winter w/o the grid so until I can get 300kwh (LOL) together, I need a system that will only charge from the grid only when I reach a certain SOC.

Mazlem said:

completelycharged said:

The 3kW UPS units will draw around 70-110W on standby 24x7 so this may be something to consider

Click to expand...

I'd test that with a kill-a-watt or something to know for sure. My 2.2KW / 3kW UPS' are said to use 25W in standby.

Click to expand...

Both my 2200VA APC UPS (one a tower case the other a server rack unit) units use around 70W with no load... will get an accurate measure in the next few days when I have to move things around and can then power them in isolation. It was more than I was expecting...

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I love free equipment... +1 on the UPS.

For winter a wind turbine could work great with the battery, small turbine to try and avoid icing, flexible blades so the ice cracks and falls off ? I realise your in a different climate altogether in winter compared to the rest of us so don't realy truly understand the winter conditions.

completelycharged said:

Mazlem said:

completelycharged said:

The 3kW UPS units will draw around 70-110W on standby 24x7 so this may be something to consider

Click to expand...

I'd test that with a kill-a-watt or something to know for sure. My 2.2KW / 3kW UPS' are said to use 25W in standby.

Click to expand...

Both my 2200VA APC UPS (one a tower case the other a server rack unit) units use around 70W with no load... will get an accurate measure in the next few days when I have to move things around and can then power them in isolation. It was more than I was expecting...

---

I love free equipment... +1 on the UPS.

For winter a wind turbine could work great with the battery, small turbine to try and avoid icing, flexible blades so the ice cracks and falls off ? I realise your in a different climate altogether in winter compared to the rest of us so don't realy truly understand the winter conditions.

Click to expand...

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Winters are very much like Cleveland winters except the snow comes in october and does not melt until may and its a lot darker

As for the wind turban, the town has a huge wind farm, so its possible here however my research has shown they are not efficient until you can get them up above the ground turbulance. Not very practical and would cast a shadow on the panels. Still another option I was considering.

What I need is a storage method that I can fill during our near 24h sun in the summer and store it until nov-jan when sun is all but non existent.

What I need is a water tower big enough to store enough water to power a gen set for 3 months LOL. How big would that need to be to generate 20kw a day?

20kWh per day for the 3 months (92 days) or 1840kWh would be 35,000 litres if you can store the water 20km high for 1907kWh excluding losses, lol...
35000 kg X 9.81 gravity X 20000 meters = a lot of Joules... or 1907kWh.

I'm in the UK and our winters are tropical in comparison... one flake of snow and it's chaos. lol.

If you have 24hrs days during summers, that means you'll have 24hrs nights during winters... during winters your batteries should be regulated to just providing backup power in case the grid goes down. If you have multi-day power issues, then using a backup gas generator to charge the batteries are the best option. You will size your generator to your inverter/ac charger so you don't need this massive gas generator, just one that will put out the right wattage at its optimum rpm. I know Hondas can set to run at its most efficient rpm. And power it up only when you need to recharge the batteries. There would be no need to use the batteries otherwise during these low output periods. Install a manual transfer switch so during the months where there's little to no output to just go on grid all the time and keep the batteries at idle.

During summers is when this system will shine with solar. You should be able to provide 100% power through solar panels alone! Are there a lot of solar installs where you are?