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Build your own solar-
powered water pumping
station
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Features
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Article Index Issue #91 • January/February, 2005
Author Index
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In the last issue, there was an excellent article by Dorothy Ainsworth on water pumping using
Print Display Ads mechanical windmills. In this issue I will address another form of "free" water pumping. There are
Print Classifieds many remote applications where a solar-powered water pump is more cost effective than installing
Newsletter a conventional grid-connected AC pump.
Letters
I recently designed a solar-powered pumping system for a local farmer wanting to pump water from
Humor
a lake up to a watering trough for cattle in a distant fenced field. We have also designed larger
Free Stuff systems to pump directly from drilled wells up to elevated storage tanks, which provide gravity-fed
Recipes water back down to remote ranch buildings.
Home Energy
Basic system description
General Store
Ordering Info These solar applications made economic sense because the location was too remote to run a long
Subscriptions power line. A solar-powered water system is one of the easiest solar power systems to install, since
you will not need a battery or battery charging equipment. When the sun is shining, the system is
Kindle
pumping, when the sun is not shining, the system is off—simple.
Subscriptions
Kindle Publications By adding a storage tank and increasing the size of the
Anthologies pumping system, excess pumped water can be stored,
Books which can continue to supply water during the night or
Back Issues when it's cloudy and the pump is off.
Help Yourself
Low voltage DC pumps designed to operate on solar
All Specials power are not designed like 220-volt AC water pumps. A
Classified Ad DC water pump is designed to pump using the absolute
minimum of electrical power. Unfortunately, this also
Advertise usually means a very low flow rate, so having a storage
Web Site Ads tank or open trough is essential.
Magazine Ads
Although the flow rate can be less than one gallon per Local residents enjoying the "solar water
minute (GPM) for the smaller pump sizes, this small flow supply" at the open top drinking tank.
BHM Blogs will be fairly constant throughout the solar day (9 AM to 3
Ask Jackie Clay PM for most locations). This low flow rate can still provide over 350 gallons of water per day from
Massad Ayoob all but the deepest well applications.
Claire Wolfe
James Kash
A solar module can be mounted almost anywhere, but should face in a southerly direction (for
North America). Most farm and ranch applications should have the modules and pump controller
Where We Live
mounted on a raised pole to stay above snow drifts and potential damage from animals.
Behind The Scenes
Dave on Twitter A pole mount also allows easier adjustment of module tilt and east-west orientation during initial
Retired Blogs setup to achieve the best overall year-round performance. For most applications the tilt will be
Oliver Del Signore equal to your latitude.
David Lee
Energy Questions Pump controller
Bramblestitches
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Quick Links Your solar powered pumping system should include a pump
Home Energy Info controller such as the one in the photo on page 37. Although it is
possible to connect the pump leads directly to the output
Jackie Clay
terminals of the solar module, a controller provides much better
Ask Jackie Online pump performance and start/stop control. It will also avoid trying
Dave Duffy to operate the pump in a stalled condition when solar output is
Massad Ayoob too low.
John Silveira
Each residential-size solar module will produce a fairly constant
Claire Wolfe
17-volts output at almost any level of sunlight. However, the
current output (amps) will be directly proportional to sun intensity.
Forum / Chat The pump will have a minimum current draw when stalled and no
Forum/Chat Info pumping is taking place. As the voltage is increased, pump
Enter Forum rotation and water pumping is increased as long as enough
Lost Password current is available. During less than ideal solar periods, the
current output of the solar module(s) can be below the amp draw
More Features required for the pump to begin pumping. A solar pump controller
will convert any excess voltage of the solar array to more output
Contact Us/
current.
Change of Address
Write For BHM The resulting lower voltage will not provide the normal flow output
Meet The Staff from the slower turning pump, but it will allow reduced flow during
Meet The Authors those hours the pump will normally be "stalled." In addition to
matching the voltage and current load of the pump with the
Disclaimer and A 24-volt DC SolarJack pump for a
charging current and voltage output of the solar module, a 4-inch well casing
Privacy Policy
solar-pump controller also includes wiring terminals for normally
open (n.o.) and normally closed (n.c.) switch contacts. This makes it easy to add a high and low
Retired Features level float switch to the storage tank, or a low-limit float switch for the well or pond providing the
Country Moments water source.
Links
Feedback The following information is taken from my book titled, Achieving Energy Independence—One Step
Radio Show at a Time. You might find this book helpful if you are considering installing your own solar power
system, and it goes into much more detail than space allows here.
Table 1 will get you started by estimating how
much water you will need per day. Since your
pump will not work during cloudy weather, be sure
to have a tank or trough that can hold several
days' usage.
Pumping basics
Any well or pressure pump is designed to provide
a given flow of water (GPM) for a given pressure
or lift (head). Pumping "head" is measured in feet,
and represents the total lift the pump can raise
water from a low point to a high point. When
measuring the distance a submerged pump must raise water, you do not start with how far down
the pump is in the well. You start by measuring from the above ground surface down to the lowest
level the well water will be during pumping.
For example, let's say we want to fill an open water tank (no pressure) that is on the top of a small
hill.
We estimate that the water level in this tank will be 3 feet high
above ground level, but the hill top is 50-feet higher than where
the well is going to be drilled. The well will be 100 feet deep and
the pump will be positioned 80 feet down. We notice the water
level is only 30 feet below the surface, but will probably drop
considerably when the pumping starts unless it is a very fast
refilling well.
If your well driller cannot provide this information, you will need to
estimate how much "draw-down" the well will have during
pumping. For a fairly fast recharging well, let's add another 20
feet for this estimated draw-down. For our example, the pump
would need to have a minimum lift of (30 feet + 20 feet to lowest
water level) + 50 feet elevation of the tank + 3 feet tank water
depth = 103 feet total pumping head. If you want to convert feet
head to pounds per square inch (PSI) pressure, divide by 2.31
which equals 45 PSI (103/2.31). If your tank will be closed and
pressurized, you will need to add the desired tank water pressure
to this pump's head pressure.
Instead of a deep well, you may need to pump from a lake or
pond at a lower level up to a storage tank. The pump lift
estimating procedures we used in the above deep well example Pole-mounted solar array during
initial setup
also applies. However, you measure from the lake's surface level,
regardless of how deep the pump will be below the surface.
When using a large body of water as a water source, you will want to suspend the pump off the
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bottom using an underwater support or surface floats to avoid plugging the pump intake with mud
from the bottom.
Another common mistake to avoid, is do not oversize the
piping. For most applications, you will be pumping less
than two GPM, and at this low flow rate, these low flow
solar pumps will not provide enough water velocity
through a large pipe to keep suspended solids from
settling out onto the bottom of the piping. A typical
residential size 1/2-HP deep well pump can pump over
six GPM, which produces a much higher velocity. For
these larger flow AC pumps, larger pipe sizing is used to
keep flow resistance low on long piping runs. However,
for a low-flow solar pump for applications requiring less
than 100 feet of piping, a 1/2-inch PVC pipe size will
probably work just fine. For runs over 100 feet, I suggest Kyocera solar pump controller (cover removed)
using 3/4-inch PVC piping. If you need to pump water
over 300 feet, a 1-inch pipe size will lower the high pressure drop of the smaller pipe, but you may
have problems with sediment settling in the bottom of the pipe due to the low flow rates involved.
Remember, the purpose of the storage tank or drinking trough is to allow a very slow water flow
constantly pumping throughout the day, to build up a large volume of water to supply brief periods
of high water usage.
Solar module sizing
You may want to consult the DC pump distributor to
determine the size of solar array that will be required for
your specific application. For high pumping heads (feet of
lift) or high flow rates, you may want to consider buying a
higher voltage DC pump instead of a smaller 12-volt DC
pump. This will require using two or more nominal 12-volt
solar modules to provide the higher voltage.
To get you started with solar array sizing, it is rare that
any solar-pumping application can get by with less than a
75-watt solar module, and larger applications will require
two modules for acceptable pump performance. A 48-volt Float switch in the tank to turn off the pump
DC pump will require a minimum of four nominal 12-volt when tank is filled
solar modules (4x12).
The installation shown in this article supplies water to a cattle drinking trough located 75 feet higher
than a nearby lake, which is 300 feet away. We used a 24-volt DC Solar Jack TM pump, two
Kyocera 60-watt solar modules, and 320 feet of 3/4-inch PVC pipe. The photos were taken in late
October after 6 p.m. and the panels were no longer facing the setting sun, yet there was still almost
1/2-gallon per minute flow of fresh water up to the trough.
Piping head loss
In addition to the elevation head (feet) your pump
must lift the water from a low pond or drilled well
up to a storage tank, it also must overcome the
resistance to flow of the pipe. As I stated earlier,
for small-flow DC pumping applications, if you
oversize the piping to reduce friction loss, you
could increase sediment problems at these low
flow data rates. Table 2 provides piping resistance
to flow in terms of head (feet). This makes it easy
to calculate total pump size, by adding this pipe
friction head loss to the lift head we estimated
earlier.
As an example, let's say you need to calculate the
piping pressure loss for a 2-gallon per minute flow
through 250 feet of pipe. If we use 1/2-inch PVC
pipe, the loss would be 8.9 feet head (3.56 x
250/100). If we increased the pipe size to 3/4-inch
PVC, the loss would be 2.3 feet head (0.90 x
250/100). At this low flow rate either pipe size will
work, unless your pump cannot handle the
additional pressure loss of the smaller pipe. As
flow rates increase, a larger pipe may be
unavoidable on longer pipe runs.
Pump selection
Table 3 provides a size comparison of
several popular models of smaller DC
pumps, and the relationship of pump flow
(GPM) to pump head (feet). Notice how
the same pump will have a substantially
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reduced flow rate as this head pressure is
increased. Since this is only a very limited
list of pump models and brands available,
please consult the dealer for more specific
sizing information.
The manufacturers listed in Table 3 offer
many other pump models having many
different combinations of DC voltage, flow
rate, and head or lift. Selecting the right
pump for your specific application can reduce the size and cost of the solar array that will be
required to provide the power. Buying a low cost pump with poor efficiency will require a much
more expensive solar array.
Solar pump suppliers
Dankoff Solar Pumps
www.dankoffsolar.com
Backwoods Solar
www.backwoodssolar.com
Real Goods
www.realgoods.com
Jeff Yago is a licensed professional engineer and certified energy manager with more than 30
years of experience in the energy conservation field. He has extensive solar and emergency
preparedness experience, and has authored numerous articles and texts. His website is
www.offgridprepper.com.
Read More by Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
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