Multiple controllers for wind, solar, diesel

[roosaw]

Anybody have a combo setup with solar, wind and diesel powered alternator charging one bank of batteries?
I'm concerned about the interaction of the controllers for each.
Will turning on the engine let the wind generator freewheel?
Not too concerned about the solar as that will pretty much sit there and take it should the volts to the bank go high.

Thoughts?

Bill

[TomW]

Multiple sources are not any real problem.

We tend to control the battery and let the sources feed it uncontrolled at least the RE sources.

The fuel driven source should not be running when batteries are charged but that is the only issue I see.  The Ghurd Controller should be sufficient for keeping the battery from over charging.

I don't use a fuel generator but my inverter does do charging if batteries are low so that is similar. The Ghurd Controller does fine with the charger but the charger has internal control. They play well together in other words!

Several folks have this type system and may chime in on "how"

There are a lot of things we do not know about your system so the details are hard to offer.

Tom

[ChrisOlson]

I got wind, solar and standby gen, although our standby gen for the house and shop is LP fueled (6 kW Generac EcoGen).

The inverter controls the generator with a box called a "GSM" (Generator Start Module) that looks like this:


The inverter has pretty elaborate generator controlling schemes in its programming that prevents it from starting the generator unless it's absolutely necessary.  There's a series of timers and monitoring systems in there starting with (all these generator control parameters are programmable for what you want them to do):

• a 24 hour timer that monitors bank voltage and if it drops below 25.0 for more than 24 hours that means there hasn't been sufficient RE power to fully charge the batteries.  So the inverter starts the gen and does a maintenance bulk and absorb charge on the bank, then shuts it off.  That's usually a very short run time - around 30-45 minutes or so.
• a 2 hour timer that monitors bank voltage and if it drops below 24.0 for two hours  it brings the gen online and does a full bulk and absorption charge on the bank, then cools the gen down and shuts it off.  This is as low as I like to see my bank go (2,400 amp-hours), and at 220 amps charging rate from both inverters (I have stacked inverters for 120/240 split phase power) it usually takes about 4.5 hours with the gen at full load and all the power going to the chargers.  If there's other loads on in the house or shop so full gen power isn't available for the chargers, it will take longer. The inverter manages that and passes power thru to loads as priority and the chargers as secondary
• a 15 minute timer that brings the gen online if the voltage falls below 23.0 for 15 minutes.  All these timers do the same thing - a full bulk and absorb charge, gen cool down, gen shutdown.
• a 15 second timer that initiates the gen starting sequence at LBCO (Low Battery Cut Out).  The inverters shut down at 22.0 volts after 15 minutes.  The 15 second timer starts the gen at LBCO, warms it up for 30 seconds, then puts Full Dawg on it to get some juice back into the bank.
• Load Management - if the master inverter has 30 amp load on it for more than 2 minutes the inverter starts the gen to help out with the heavy load, runs it for five minutes after the load drops below that set point, cools it down and shuts it off.  There is no battery charging when the gen is started because of Load Management.

If the inverter starts the generator for any of the above reasons and there is solar power coming in, the solar just helps out with the battery charging.  Both of my solar arrays have Morningstar MPPT controllers and the voltage is regulated at the same setpoints that I have set in the inverters for bulk/absorb/float.

If the inverter starts the generator for any of the above reasons and there is wind power coming in, the wind power is not voltage regulated.  So it helps out and the inverter "blends" the incoming wind power with the gen power until the bank charging parameters are reached, then if there's too much wind power for the inverter to "blend" it with the gen power, it "spits the gen off" - unloads it, cools it down, and shuts it off and lets the RE system do its job.  The auxiliary loading system then takes over to control bank voltage.

So basically, set up properly, it's a walk away and forget it system.  It just takes care of itself.  What will screw it up after you have it programmed properly is punching buttons and playing with it.  After you have it set up so it "just works" you have to learn to set back in your easy chair and just let it "just work".  You only mess with it if the master inverter spits an error warning for something it didn't like, such as "Error O5H: Gen Failed To Start: YES".  Then you investigate the problem and correct it (such as, CRIPES! The fuel tank is empty!!!), then walk away and don't mess with it.  One of them timers will start the gen if needed after you fix the problem and clear the error.

So that's how it works with my system, and different inverters and generator controllers and whatnot are different.  My system is all Xantrex.  The wind turbines don't "freewheel" or anything - the inverter just evaluates the situation and takes care of it accordingly.

It's my opinion that automatic generator control is better than a manually started generator.  It will save you gen fuel in the long run, and get the best life from your batteries.  With manually started backup gen systems the tendency is to pull the bank down too far before starting the gen, and let it run too long after bulk and absorb is done, which wastes fuel and is harder on the bank.  If you like to sit around and monitor your power system all the time, then manual if fine.  But when we upgraded our system this past summer I set it up so it's fully automatic so I don't have to monitor it.  We like to fish and hunt and do other stuff besides sitting around and worrying about whether or not we got enough wind or solar power to carry us thru today.
--
Chris

[SparWeb]

I have wind and solar.
I have two choices for charge control, and I use one in the winter and the other in the summer.

In winter (now) I don't bother having the solar regulated.  It just goes straight to the battery.  There is a charge controller on the system, controlling a diversion load.  When either the wind or solar or both are charging the battery, it's watching the voltage and when necessary turning on the dump load resistors.  The heat is nice to have since my batteries are in a cabinet outside.

In summer, I don't need that heat, and the solar is producing wayyyyyy more juice than I need, so that's when I flip on the charge controller for my solar panels.  It now regulates the solar current only to a necessary level.  The other CC is still on diversion duty.  As long as I get the relative settings on the two CC's right, the diversion load won't come on when there's lots of sun, but it will when there's lots of wind.

This system can be adapted to use with a standby generator, if I wanted one.  In my case my inverter can tell the genny to turn on or off.  The inverter is also able to monitor and adjust the battery voltage setpoints so that the generator doesn't raise the battery voltage so high that the diversion load charge controller comes on.  Since I haven't done it, there might be nasty details to bite me that I won't know until I try.  But Chris has it working with similar equipment.

BTW I think it's important to point out (but maybe everybody reading already knows it or guessed it) that standby generators all output full power only on the 125V/250V outlets.  If you want the standby generator to work properly, you need a means of converting the AC output to battery DC.  In my case my inverter will do it.  In other cases you could be stuck having to charge the batteries with the 12V DC tap on the generator, probably only a few hundred watts at a time.  This is an important feature to look for when buying an inverter if you ever plan to charge the battery with a standby AC generator.

[rossw]

Anybody have a combo setup with solar, wind and diesel powered alternator charging one bank of batteries?
I'm concerned about the interaction of the controllers for each.
Will turning on the engine let the wind generator freewheel?

Another "me too".

I have 3.6kW solar, 1kW wind (soon to be 2.5kW) and 8kW propane powered genset.
The heart of the system is really the 5kW 48/240 inverter. It does all the start/stop signaling to the genset when required.
My solar comes in at 100V odd, and has its own FM80 MPPT charge controller. It just backs off when the battery volts come up.
Wind has its own controller. When battery volts come up, it kicks in a dump to wash off some wind power. If the battery volts go up further is shuts the turbine down until volts are again within acceptable limits.

As noted above - once set up right, don't gitfingerpoken.

Our power has been far more reliable over the last 6 years (since we moved in here) than the main grid supply everyone else in town is subjected to.

[ChrisOlson]

As noted above - once set up right, don't gitfingerpoken.

LOL!  That gitfingerpoken thing can be not even good.

Like the one day I was working in the shop and my wife walked by the inverter control module, which we have on a remote panel in the house.  She decided to flip thru the meter menus to display her favorite meter, which is battery voltage.  I like the AC Load Amps meter myself.  But she likes Battery Voltage.

So she pressed the INV button to get to the Basic Menu.  Then instead of pressing the button to advance to the next screen she pushed the cursor left button and shut all our power down.  When my shop went dark I'm like, "What the.......? Our power NEVER goes out."

Well, it does when your bride is messing with the inverter.
--
Chris

[roosaw]

OK, thanks for all the feedback

bill

[roosaw]

for the record this is for a sailboat
30 amps solar with 3 stage controller
~5 amps wind but can get up to 30 when she blows with a load dump to a water heater
150 amp engine driven 12 volt alternator with external 3 stage regulator

My concern is as I motor the boat for whatever reason the alternator will boost the volts and the wind controller will go into load dump mode and I'll be boiling water and the wind generator will start to freewheel at high speed due to no load. The engine already has a coolant loop on for the hot water tank so turning on the electric heater is kinda dumb and may be dangerous.

[Rover]

Assumming you really don't need the extra juice from the solar and turbine when motoring, you could manually short the turbine and disconnect the solar array wiith  switches. Would mean remembering to do so, and also remembering to turn em back on again. I also have a boat but not with solar or turbine, and it's easy to forget what to turn off/on at certain times without your added complexity.

Or you could find a way to automate the above based on parralling a relay off one of the engine wires that's hot when the engine is running. From the relay or relays you could create the same short for the turbine , and cut the solar. A lot depends on the turbine but a NO with multiple poles to short the turbine wires when closed, and an NC to break the connection on the solar.

I'm sure there are other, ways programming a small PIC to do the same thing but based on bat voltage etc.

Hmmm didn't see any mention of Shore Power, you have a shore power chargere as well in the mix?

Rover

[roosaw]

Rover
That was my fall back solution.  Just have a solenoids the turns off when the ignition is on and turns on when the ignition is off.  Then run the solar and wind outputs through them to switch them in and out of the circuit with the ignition key.
I was also considering a "totally home brew solution" HB solar panels, HB wind gen, and a PIC controller to handle the integration/charging/load dumping.  In that case it is just about bringing all the production means to the same voltage (boost/buck) based on the battery SOC and what is available production wise.

I do have a 40 amp shore power charger but that does not do me much good when on the hook.  We prefer to anchor out and not spend lots of time in marinas when cruising.