Solar Power System

The bobcat is starting to level out where the concrete pads will be placed.

Leveling

Its starting to look flat

More leveling

The bobcat is much better at this than my little tractor.

Bobcat

The bobcat's bucket and tracks make short work at it

Moving fast

Looks like the pad area is pretty close now.

Getting Close

We're creating an area roughly 60' x 60' that will hold two concrete pads.

Large area

Each pad will be roughly 60' x 15' in size

First pad is about done

The cat is smoothing the dirt out and then dumping the excess outside of the area.

Moving out the extra dirt

As the pads get cleared down, then the guys are staking them out for the concrete poor.

Looking good

The two pads are the same size and will be separated by 20'.

Two pads

Here's another good view from the side/back

Back view

You can see that the pads are about 15' from the rear of the barn

Rear view

And her's a short showing the two pads as they are stacked behind the barn.

Rear corner

Concrete has been poured for the first pad

First pad

The second pad is ready

Second pad

Here's a shot of both concrete pads from the rear view of the barn. This shot is looking north-ward across the two pads.

Pads from the rear

Here's a shot of our solar powered well. The well is 425' deep and produces 8 gallons per min. of water. We're using a solar powered pump and controller to put the water which is used for dip irrigation of our garden and orchard area.

Solar Well

Here you can see that I've finished digging out the side of the hill (west side) beside the concrete pads.

Dug out the hill

I used some of the excess dirt to fill in around each of the pads.

Fill

You can see the first pad will dirt filler put in place

Fill from the rear

All the excess dirt was used to extend the field that the pads are on.

Excess dirt

In this shot you see the new clearances around the pads and the dirt fill. Everything is now ready for beginning the installation of the rails.

Overview

The solar modules have finally arrived. 48 of them weigh close to a ton.

Solar Modules Arrive

The uni-rack system is already up and now they are staging the modules for installation.

Starting the install

The first row is going up

First row

His a shot of the whole work site.

About half a row

Here's a longer shot of the first row going up.

Another angle

The first 40 modules are up. 4 rows of 10 modules. The last row at the end of this phase will only have 8 modules. Later in phase 2 we will add 12 more modules to this pad and then 60 to the second pad -- giving us a total of 120 modules.

First 40 modules

Here's a shot of the battery bank. Hasn't been wired up yet, but the batteries are stacked. 4,500 lbs of weight. Total capacity is 1256 ah at 48 volts - 60,288 watt hours.

Battery Bank

Phase 1, 48 x 230 watt modules are in place. 4 rows of 10 modules each and a top row of 8. In phase 2, we'll add 12 modules to this pad. The second pad shown in front will get an additional 60 modules in phase 2 for a total of 120 modules for the final system.

Phase 1 modules

Here's where the main cable feed from the barn to the house enters the barn.

Main Line at barn

Here's where we will place the 'load center' in the barn. I'll take the peg board down and we'll place the load center in the wall.

Main Line internal location

Here's a shot showing the trench with the main lines running through it.

Trench at field

We had to trench across the field because the wire for the main feed was a tad short.

Another view of the trench

This shows where we had to bring the main line to. Original plan was to reach the rear of the barn but the cable came up short so we decided to put a load panel on the inside of the barn and tie the solar modules to the main line there.

Cables

The main power line from the barn/panel area to the house ran down the center of the gravel drive. After burring it, we had to add an additional 12+" of gravel on top as the cable crossed the bridge so that we meet code on depth.

Burried cable

You can see how thick the gravel layer is on top of the road. I've added probably 18-20" of gravel at this point.

Bridge height

David is getting the bee hive ready next to the solar array.

Solar Well

We ran the drip irrigation lines and plumbed up all the fittings.

Solar Well

We borrowed the simple blade to help push dirt back into the trenches that we dug to run the irrigation lines. Worked pretty well since you can angle the blade and just curl the dirt back into the ditches.

Tractor by Grapes