I haven't seen too many solar setups that didn't include an invertor to turn your power into AC.
Using generators to power grow lights
- Thread starter RandyL
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millertm
Well-Known Member
True, but if it was viable I'd think it would be out there. I know DC will not travel well and most setups take AC and invert it to DC. Not sure if solar energy stored in batterys would fire a high pressure lamp. I remember reading something about this issue but it escapes me at this time.
Cheers
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The solar setup that runs the property I'm currently working on has only 16 panels, run to a bank of 24 batteries and an inverter. It's not even very sunny here to say the least. I'm regularly running fairly heavy power tools like power planers that draw around 20 amps. Also all the usual stuff is running on the property like lights, computers, music, fridge, water pumps, etc etc. When the sun is shining we are bringing in up to 60 amps gain. A 1000 watt hid light only draws 9 amps.
millertm
Well-Known Member
What happens if you plug in a ballast? Sounds like it could work. How is power output regulated? I couldn't hurt to plug in a 1K ballast and see, now I'm interested to see if it will work.
Cheers
Cheers
Well, I am just working there and I'm pretty sure they're not too interested in growing so I probably won't lug any grow lights over. 
But I'm sure it would work just fine. There is a solar regulator that regulates the dc current to the batteries to prevent overcharging. AC power comes through the invertor. Everything after the invertor is basically identical to any other on-grid house. Other than that you're going to get an alarm if you dip your batteries too low.
However- grow lights have to be on for long periods, and that steady drain might use up more than your gain in the winter months. Yes obviously leds would be the way to go. Still- the setup cost about 45,000. You can buy a lot of dope for that, or power your grow from the grid for the rest of your life.
Having said that- that system was put in a few years ago and they paid a premium the way they did it. . Prices are dropping by about 10% a year right now.
But I'm sure it would work just fine. There is a solar regulator that regulates the dc current to the batteries to prevent overcharging. AC power comes through the invertor. Everything after the invertor is basically identical to any other on-grid house. Other than that you're going to get an alarm if you dip your batteries too low.
However- grow lights have to be on for long periods, and that steady drain might use up more than your gain in the winter months. Yes obviously leds would be the way to go. Still- the setup cost about 45,000. You can buy a lot of dope for that, or power your grow from the grid for the rest of your life.
Having said that- that system was put in a few years ago and they paid a premium the way they did it. . Prices are dropping by about 10% a year right now.
Re: Using generators to power grow lights.
Yes, of course. The ROI is still not great in anything except the long term, and at that point one must consider equipment failures/upgrades.
Truth is, most residential solar installations are not off-grid, they're still connected - and they still use some municipal electricity from time to time. Sometimes, more than "some." These setups can sell electricity TO the municipal supplier, of course, but I wouldn't say that the balance doesn't still end up being a negative.
Aren't most of the panels manufactured in China? Anyone done any recent research on the environmental cost of manufacturing them (actually obtaining the raw materials and transporting same, the manufacturing process, then transporting the finished products... all the way to delivery at the point of installation)? Might not be a cost that the end-user has to pay - at least immediately :rolleyes3 - but such things should still be considered, IMHO.
Ya think, lol? Yes, I immediately realized the irony in using light to create electricity in order to create light.
The thought has occurred to me that the only real reason for using an artificial light source would be if someone is a major black market commercial producer and doesn't want to deal with a very high electric bill, one that is high enough to raise a flag. But the simple solution to that is to get off of that pile of money they're roosting on and use it to buy or lease some kind of front business. Then, they'll almost certainly see a lower electric bill because commercial/industrial rates are generally significantly less than residential ones (FFS, lol). Additionally, that front business need not be a dummy one, which would also act to offset expenses.
Okay, if you live in BFE, say you got talked into buying one of those plats of land out West where there's nothing from you all the way out to the horizon except other plats of scrub/rock awaiting other suckers to "buy cheap land and retire NOW!!!" then you might not have a choice. But there comes a point... It's one thing to grow your own at $35/lid - or less. But some off-(the-minicipal-electrical-)grid electricity generation methods cost enough that I wonder. If we could still get good sinse for less than $150/ounce - but I guess with some people charging $100/¼-ounce or even more, maybe it still works out cheaper, IDK.
Pretty much as I stated earlier.
While there are transport issues with DC power, this certainly isn't something to be concerned about unless you're speaking of much greater distances than the home, small business, et cetera person who is producing their own electricity. It's even possible in the municipal sense. In fact, the last municipal direct current electricity service (which of course, involved distribution of same) was shut down... in 2007, lol. (I guess the flip light switches that actually made a noise will stop being produced pretty soon, if this has not already happened?) Oh well, municipal DC power had something like a 125-year run. And, yes, that was accomplished in recent memory by converters - but this was definitely not always the case.
For SHORT (IOW, on your own property, unless you live in Australia and own one of those crazy-large cattle ranches (the largest of which is slightly larger than the entire country of Israel, so probably not what most people call "home") runs, it's no big deal to use DC. Even if it were, convert it at the source instead of inside. Power losses are going to be much higher, but again this isn't really all that significant when your solar panels are right there on your roof.
Depends on the size of the battery, lol. Tesla just built one for the Aussies that has the capacity to power something like 30,000 homes for an hour, at least 100-megawatt, I think. Err... I would guess that at least one of those houses has an HID or two in it
.I suppose this would more properly be referred to as a battery farm, but...
I was just going to state that the device one plugs into the outlet can't really tell how the electricity was generated :rolleyes3 , but you beat me to it. With electronic ballasts, I'd hope for "clean" power - IOW, a sine wave instead of a square wave, and a stable voltage. But the same would apply if I was wishing to plug in a laptop, television, et cetera. There are devices that take care of this (and most residential solar installations will have them, to protect the user's consumer electronics).
Got me again... I saw your post about having no issues running your power tools and I was going to ask if you ran them for 12 to 18 hours per day, EVERY day.
I'm just too slow. Got 27 different things going on at once here and cannot seem to sit in front of the computer for any length of time at a stretch.
<DING! DING!> We have a WINNER, lol. There are several good reasons to consider solar - but "just to grow cannabis" doesn't seem like one to me.
Hey, I know a dope - and even he smokes cannabis .
Yes, of course. The ROI is still not great in anything except the long term, and at that point one must consider equipment failures/upgrades.
Truth is, most residential solar installations are not off-grid, they're still connected - and they still use some municipal electricity from time to time. Sometimes, more than "some." These setups can sell electricity TO the municipal supplier, of course, but I wouldn't say that the balance doesn't still end up being a negative.
Aren't most of the panels manufactured in China? Anyone done any recent research on the environmental cost of manufacturing them (actually obtaining the raw materials and transporting same, the manufacturing process, then transporting the finished products... all the way to delivery at the point of installation)? Might not be a cost that the end-user has to pay - at least immediately :rolleyes3 - but such things should still be considered, IMHO.
Ya think, lol? Yes, I immediately realized the irony in using light to create electricity in order to create light.
The thought has occurred to me that the only real reason for using an artificial light source would be if someone is a major black market commercial producer and doesn't want to deal with a very high electric bill, one that is high enough to raise a flag. But the simple solution to that is to get off of that pile of money they're roosting on and use it to buy or lease some kind of front business. Then, they'll almost certainly see a lower electric bill because commercial/industrial rates are generally significantly less than residential ones (FFS, lol). Additionally, that front business need not be a dummy one, which would also act to offset expenses.
Okay, if you live in BFE, say you got talked into buying one of those plats of land out West where there's nothing from you all the way out to the horizon except other plats of scrub/rock awaiting other suckers to "buy cheap land and retire NOW!!!" then you might not have a choice. But there comes a point... It's one thing to grow your own at $35/lid - or less. But some off-(the-minicipal-electrical-)grid electricity generation methods cost enough that I wonder. If we could still get good sinse for less than $150/ounce - but I guess with some people charging $100/¼-ounce or even more, maybe it still works out cheaper, IDK.
Pretty much as I stated earlier.
While there are transport issues with DC power, this certainly isn't something to be concerned about unless you're speaking of much greater distances than the home, small business, et cetera person who is producing their own electricity. It's even possible in the municipal sense. In fact, the last municipal direct current electricity service (which of course, involved distribution of same) was shut down... in 2007, lol. (I guess the flip light switches that actually made a noise will stop being produced pretty soon, if this has not already happened?) Oh well, municipal DC power had something like a 125-year run. And, yes, that was accomplished in recent memory by converters - but this was definitely not always the case.
For SHORT (IOW, on your own property, unless you live in Australia and own one of those crazy-large cattle ranches (the largest of which is slightly larger than the entire country of Israel, so probably not what most people call "home") runs, it's no big deal to use DC. Even if it were, convert it at the source instead of inside. Power losses are going to be much higher, but again this isn't really all that significant when your solar panels are right there on your roof.
Depends on the size of the battery, lol. Tesla just built one for the Aussies that has the capacity to power something like 30,000 homes for an hour, at least 100-megawatt, I think. Err... I would guess that at least one of those houses has an HID or two in it
.I suppose this would more properly be referred to as a battery farm, but...Well, I am just working there and I'm pretty sure they're not too interested in growing so I probably won't lug any grow lights over.
But I'm sure it would work just fine.
I was just going to state that the device one plugs into the outlet can't really tell how the electricity was generated :rolleyes3 , but you beat me to it. With electronic ballasts, I'd hope for "clean" power - IOW, a sine wave instead of a square wave, and a stable voltage. But the same would apply if I was wishing to plug in a laptop, television, et cetera. There are devices that take care of this (and most residential solar installations will have them, to protect the user's consumer electronics).
Got me again... I saw your post about having no issues running your power tools and I was going to ask if you ran them for 12 to 18 hours per day, EVERY day.
I'm just too slow. Got 27 different things going on at once here and cannot seem to sit in front of the computer for any length of time at a stretch.
<DING! DING!> We have a WINNER, lol. There are several good reasons to consider solar - but "just to grow cannabis" doesn't seem like one to me.
Hey, I know a dope - and even he smokes cannabis
.
Interesting convo... I'm considering buying a house in upstate NY - has a 2.5 KW solar array with batteries.... and tied to the grid with a backup generator I think is propane.
So 20A generation... hard to say how hard running 1200w
(my current setup - COB LEDs) 12hr/day every day will be on the batteries.
I'm assuming DC from array to battery then inverted to AC to home. If grid goes down, switch off grid, turn on battery to home, if battery runs down below a certain threshold, generator kicks on to charge batteries and maintain current.
Probably/hopefully system runs on solar until not enough to charge batteries then switch to on grid?? OR It could just sell back electricity to grid and use grid until grid goes down. There's some changes going on with this process. Unless there's an agreement with electric provider the price for sell back is not the same as what you pay... meaning you pay more for grid power than the electricity provider pays you for your solar you sell back.
Gotta get all the details...
So 20A generation... hard to say how hard running 1200w
(my current setup - COB LEDs) 12hr/day every day will be on the batteries.
I'm assuming DC from array to battery then inverted to AC to home. If grid goes down, switch off grid, turn on battery to home, if battery runs down below a certain threshold, generator kicks on to charge batteries and maintain current.
Probably/hopefully system runs on solar until not enough to charge batteries then switch to on grid?? OR It could just sell back electricity to grid and use grid until grid goes down. There's some changes going on with this process. Unless there's an agreement with electric provider the price for sell back is not the same as what you pay... meaning you pay more for grid power than the electricity provider pays you for your solar you sell back.
Gotta get all the details...
Cool. Thanks bobrown and keep us posted how that goes ok? I would love to find an alternative power setup.
Yeah man me too... we don't need a shit ton of electric.. We have a cottage in Ontario that was off grid for 25 years before we "modernized". Had a nice propane fridge and a kick ass vintage 6 burner 3 oven stove and the house lights were propane. Now sadly all plastic shit for appliances. We even have a TV I think I never watched. I'm on a mission to change it back. Dual fuel appliances is a thing.. specially in remote areas where electricity can go out with the clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning or blizzard.
Nothing beats electricity going out first day of vacation and not coming back on for 2 weeks! Finally this year one of my fam had to deal with it and find out how useless an electric stove & fridge are. I'm good, ice in the cooler with beer and meats on the grill by the lakeside. Catch fish if hungry!
The Amish still work/live that way with propane. We get our grass fed beef from the Amish and their eggs ... nothing even comes close not even pastured organic eggs from the store - night and day diff. and the beef tastes more like venison.. which I much prefer over store bought beef (I don't eat that).
Yeah I think I could generate 1200w easily with a few panels. The question is how to store it. Better to be hooked to the grid and get paid for extra (not likely). Batteries are not really sustainable despite all the hullabalue lately with electric cars. How much energy does it take to make the batteries - how much energy to recycle and how much to purchase replacements??
Probably parsing it all out, net would be a loss is my guess. We have to start somewhere... again.
Renewable energy is the way to go and we are on that path finally... 2 oh' dem presidents finally gettin er done. I think our nations renewable energy is about 12-15% of total generated this year.
China is not only making the solar panels they are making all the batteries too.. turning their environment into a waste land. I wonder what will it take for the Chinese to stop worrying about making money and focus on food. Oh wait.. that was Mao that did that ... he's now a disgrace. Food for thought.
Much of the world is still trying to catch up with the dream of 1950's America- with about the same level of environmental awareness, or less. In general most places I've been in Asia seem to have almost no consciousness around pollution or environmental awareness. Everything comes wrapped in copious amounts of plastic. Plastic is good. Plastic is our friend. All garbage goes out the vehicle windows, to festoon the trees and pile up in small mountains. Animal rights- nonexistent and would be considered laughable. If you can't eat it- throw rocks at it and jab it with sticks.
A sweeping generalization of course and there are a couple exceptions - but I spent years trucking around SE Asia, India, China -and if we think the west is backwards- well we are many decades ahead in terms of awareness - and toxic batteries and solar panels will only be regulated by demand on our end at this point.
I grew up almost as bush as it possibly gets. Far north of the Yukon and we lived winters in very remote cabins accessible by infrequent long bush plane flights. Had a summer place which was further south but definitely way off grid and far from any town.
So off grid is totally my comfort zone. I get it. Propane and generators are the norm. Living out bush in the Stone Age and cooking on wood fires with no such luxuries as propane is also totally the norm. My cabin I'm in now is definitely out of the way but is hooked to the grid.
I don't see a lot of options in this particular spot for alternatives. There's nothing that could run the luxuries I've become accustomed to like Hid grow lights and lots of power tools. I'm up by Alaska and it's pretty much dark midwinter.
Summer outdoor growing here is pretty much a write off unless I want to get into autos which I don't. It's 24 hour light in mid summer and doesn't wind down to 12/12 till October or so.
Wind power yes but it comes down to a battery bank again.
If someone invents non-toxic batteries- we are laughing.
That place I mentioned is working well as a small home on solar. But I don't have the money to throw at that sort of solar setup. And the battery bank isn't a pretty sight to me.
It would mean, at best, downsizing my grow drastically to some sort of small led with one or two plants. With generator backup.
I hadn't considered or known of the possibility of that type of setup you're talking about though - with no battery bank and still wired directly to the grid as backup - using it to absorb the excess power. And then buying it back again at a loss. Lol.
A sweeping generalization of course and there are a couple exceptions - but I spent years trucking around SE Asia, India, China -and if we think the west is backwards- well we are many decades ahead in terms of awareness - and toxic batteries and solar panels will only be regulated by demand on our end at this point.
I grew up almost as bush as it possibly gets. Far north of the Yukon and we lived winters in very remote cabins accessible by infrequent long bush plane flights. Had a summer place which was further south but definitely way off grid and far from any town.
So off grid is totally my comfort zone. I get it. Propane and generators are the norm. Living out bush in the Stone Age and cooking on wood fires with no such luxuries as propane is also totally the norm. My cabin I'm in now is definitely out of the way but is hooked to the grid.
I don't see a lot of options in this particular spot for alternatives. There's nothing that could run the luxuries I've become accustomed to like Hid grow lights and lots of power tools. I'm up by Alaska and it's pretty much dark midwinter.
Summer outdoor growing here is pretty much a write off unless I want to get into autos which I don't. It's 24 hour light in mid summer and doesn't wind down to 12/12 till October or so.
Wind power yes but it comes down to a battery bank again.
If someone invents non-toxic batteries- we are laughing.
That place I mentioned is working well as a small home on solar. But I don't have the money to throw at that sort of solar setup. And the battery bank isn't a pretty sight to me.
It would mean, at best, downsizing my grow drastically to some sort of small led with one or two plants. With generator backup.
I hadn't considered or known of the possibility of that type of setup you're talking about though - with no battery bank and still wired directly to the grid as backup - using it to absorb the excess power. And then buying it back again at a loss. Lol.
Crazy world no doubt. I live is a city on the east coast USA... OMG completely EVERYTHING is taken for granted. Even trash.. yep we are still throwing garbage and worse out the window in our own neighborhoods.
Just watched a guy walking across the street - he had the walk sign and green light... car ran him right over.. driver gets out of car and instead of dialing 911 or helping out, he's taking a VID of the dude lying on the ground.
It's past due time for us to move out to the country. Adirondacks in upstate NY is about perfect. They get a lot of snow and bad weather all year so the grid is shaky a lot of the time weather dependant.... Most everyone that can afford it has a whole house generator. In Canada Hydro is pretty good about getting the grid back on line but tbh ... really doesn't bother me. Make a fire right?
This house I'm interested in has a generator, solar w/batteries and a bunch of land. The batteries I haven't seen yet, prolly going to think its a freaking environmental hazard at best. Likely it's a bunch of deep cycle batteries hooked in series or something similar... something that can fuck me up if mistake.
Just watched a guy walking across the street - he had the walk sign and green light... car ran him right over.. driver gets out of car and instead of dialing 911 or helping out, he's taking a VID of the dude lying on the ground.
It's past due time for us to move out to the country. Adirondacks in upstate NY is about perfect. They get a lot of snow and bad weather all year so the grid is shaky a lot of the time weather dependant.... Most everyone that can afford it has a whole house generator. In Canada Hydro is pretty good about getting the grid back on line but tbh ... really doesn't bother me. Make a fire right?
This house I'm interested in has a generator, solar w/batteries and a bunch of land. The batteries I haven't seen yet, prolly going to think its a freaking environmental hazard at best. Likely it's a bunch of deep cycle batteries hooked in series or something similar... something that can fuck me up if mistake.
lol using a generator will be costly , 4 months running continuously day & night running out of gas ,etc., not to mention the lights the fans the humidifier etc., all that cost,. I'm a legal grower myself with only 1 light in a grow tent my bill went up quite a bit , if the cops come I have my mj card & legal to grow 5 plants that's enough, 2.1 lbs. off 5 plants, i got 5 growing in various stages while 2 are curing i have 2 flowering a continuous supply, that's how you do it
not to mention carbon monoxide need long power lines to connect the lights etc., the plants can't breathe in carbon monoxide
Plants? I'd assume that the whole (cannabis-related) point of having the generator is so that the person can grow their cannabis indoors. So HTH are they going to be affected by the generator's exhaust? Anyone moronic enough to fire up a generator in their living room would hopefully died of some self-caused misadventure or other long before they reached puberty. If not, well... let's all hope that they buy a generator before they have a chance to breed.
I know running a genrerator will be costly and possibly over power a generator, I have 2 lights a carbon filter a heating pad and a humidifier , i'm running on 2 20 amp breakers added the extra light then poof the breaker flipped so I had to put it on the other breaker I'm running on 60 amps, it's too dangerious for me , you goy as risk of a fire & lord forbids that end up like a guy i seen in these forums burned his ghouse down b/c he over charged his circuits and caught fire , generators isn't going to work, you don't realize how much power to run a grow room
takes a lot of power to use a grow room I had a 2000 watt grow light a heating pad carbon filter with the fans , added an extra light then poof there's 1 circuit had to plug it in to another , growing is a major fire hazard , my spouse & I gotten into an argument b/c of the power usage , it's drawing WAY TOO MUCH power , I'm in a house with 20 amp breakers 1 is completely used up using another , I'm going to wait till spring to grow them too risky indoors a fire hazard, no wonder the guy that had that fire resulting in those grow rooms, the cause was drawing toomuch power from the walls it eventually caught & lost a 160,000 dollars of his belongings his HOUSE ,EVERYTHING GONE, GOOD LUCK RUNNING A GENERATOR
