Solar pump

jack001

hello PFs,

I am working on solar pump but unfortunately i am new to this. Confused which solar panel is best to buy for 1 HP pump. And even what type of pump to use. Want to make it as efficient and cheap as possible.

Thanks.

etudiant

A 1HP pump is pretty substantial.
You would need about 2000 watts steady state and about triple that for the starting surge. Noonday solar power is about 1000 watts/square meter and cell efficiency is about 10%, so you would need 60 square meters of solar cells, almost a solar field, to power your pump.
Afaik, the cost of solar cells is about a dollar a watt, maybe twice that installed.
So your installation pencils out around $10,000+/-. Is that cheap enough to be worth it?

jack001

thank you for your interest in the matter etudiant,

I am from india and i guess noonday solar power will be more..
One more thing i am confused, u said the cell efficiency is 10% only, what does that mean? I heard solar cell is most efficient way of converting into electricity.

and how do this people pumps water via using such a small solar cell?


sorry if i am wrong anywhere coz i am new to this solar pumping thing.

etudiant

The 1000 watt/sq m is with the sun directly overhead, even in India.
The solar cell efficiency has been boosted to well over 50% in the lab, but commercially available product is nowhere near that. The 10% assumed is a good place to start from, it may be a bit more, but not enough to matter.
The solar pump setups you show are much smaller than the 1hp design the OP requested.

jack001

do you know any other way of pumping through solar without using solar cell? will solar concentrator work?