[LibreQoS] solar powered internet

[LibreQoS] solar powered internet

[Dave Taht]

I am not going to buy into the level of hype here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtheodore/recent-activity/all/

But I am curious as to what extent solar power (how many watts?) can
be used nowadays for heavier duty backhaul radios, and what forms of
long term battery storage now exist?

Most UPSes sold in stores are designed for a high load, for a short
time, where aiming for 2-3 days of backup power would be better in
this case.

-- 
AMA March 31: https://www.broadband.io/c/broadband-grant-events/dave-taht
Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC

Re: [LibreQoS] solar powered internet

[Herbert Wolverson]

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I've not built one, but there's quite the cottage industry on WispTalk.
Sizing required panels, sufficient batteries, charger (with generator
option), DC converters & injectors for radios (there's an annoying mix of
voltage requirements, but you lose far too much doing DC to AC and back to
DC to use the shipped PoE injectors). Plus remote management.

Ubiquiti kinda, sorta sell a kit.

On Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 5:07 PM Dave Taht via LibreQoS <
libreqos@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> I am not going to buy into the level of hype here:
>
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtheodore/recent-activity/all/
>
> But I am curious as to what extent solar power (how many watts?) can
> be used nowadays for heavier duty backhaul radios, and what forms of
> long term battery storage now exist?
>
> Most UPSes sold in stores are designed for a high load, for a short
> time, where aiming for 2-3 days of backup power would be better in
> this case.
>
> --
> AMA March 31: https://www.broadband.io/c/broadband-grant-events/dave-taht
> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> _______________________________________________
> LibreQoS mailing list
> LibreQoS@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/libreqos
>

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Re: [LibreQoS] solar powered internet

[Brian Munyao Longwe]

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If the radios are POE, DC-Netonix, with enough batteries for 2-3-4 days and
a MPPT + Charge Controller to handle the voltage from the solar panels

On Fri, 14 Apr 2023 at 12:07 AM, Dave Taht via LibreQoS <
libreqos@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> I am not going to buy into the level of hype here:
>
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtheodore/recent-activity/all/
>
> But I am curious as to what extent solar power (how many watts?) can
> be used nowadays for heavier duty backhaul radios, and what forms of
> long term battery storage now exist?
>
> Most UPSes sold in stores are designed for a high load, for a short
> time, where aiming for 2-3 days of backup power would be better in
> this case.
>
> --
> AMA March 31: https://www.broadband.io/c/broadband-grant-events/dave-taht
> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> _______________________________________________
> LibreQoS mailing list
> LibreQoS@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/libreqos
>

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Re: [LibreQoS] solar powered internet

[dan]

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I run a number of solar sites in the frozen north as well as have built and
continue to monitor and advise on a number in tropical latitudes.  This
formula holds up in multiple climates and has been learned the hard way
including snowmobile rides with generators to power under built sites.  I
also build RV solar plants.  Once had a solar installation company until
the market fell out in early 2017.

battery sizing is the typical watts of all gear * 24 * max number of
overcast days in a row.
60W site in Montana where we see 7 straight days of overcast is
60*24*7=10080Wh of usable battery
Lipo/lifepo4 batteries can be used at about 100% of rated, while lead acids
are about 1/3 of rated.
so about 4x 24V100Ah lifepo4 batteries, or about 12x of the same in lead
acid for this particular area.

Panel sizing is recovering 2 days of power every day.  So a 60W site needs
1500Wh to operate, and we need to recover 2 days, so we need use+2 days or
4500Wh per day.

Take the sun hours on the 'winter' solstice and divide that.  Montana's
winter solstice for example is 3.5hours of sunlight.  4500/3.5=~1300W
array.  so 4x 325W panels will do it.

Always MPPT, and sized for that 1300W or higher if you like.  Battery bank
needs enough charge rating to take the 1300W.  say 4x 24V lifepo4 in
parallel and you need about 12A of charge rating each for example.   No
reason to over size this by much unless you have high hopes for expanding
the site.  Lead acid batteries are much harder to charge and you might have
to overbuild the array a bit in the cold because you have to push amps in
to get them going.  Just don't lead acid unless you're in a developing
country....

Special consideration for snowy climates.  Tilt panels up at 60 degrees
facing south for a heavy winter bias and to encourage snow to fall off.
Add additional panels facing south east and south west in parallel.  Could
be 2 panels south east in series, 2 south west in series, 2 south in
series, and then the 3 sets in parallel (2S3P layout) and the e/w panels
tilt up very aggressively, that way you can collect maximum sun right away
in the morning as well as be running the site off solar until sunset vs
being on battery for 3-4 extra hours.  Snow buildup is the primary issue in
winter obviously.  If you are at a site that gets feet of snow, then run 2
separate arrays, a 'normal' array at the latitude's optimal tilt, and then
a separate 2S3P or similar style array but stood straight up at 90
degrees.  We're experimenting heating the back of panels when there is snow
on them via a relay.  early results are really promising.  I had about 2
feet of snow on a panel at 60 degrees and it took 5 minutes and about 50Wh
to convince it to slide off.

Main conceptual issues I've had to push people through:
-100% usable vs 33% usable on lifepo4 vs lead acid is worth the up front
cost and the need to get self-heating batteries or put them in a climate
controlled box.   battery performance and life is so much better that
you're UP about 50% in value over 8-10 years.
-Solar efficiency is irrelevant.  This is all for off-grid uptime. Solar
panels are one of the cheaper parts of the kit. Charge controllers don't
have to match panel amps, just volts.  ie, 2 panels w/ 80V8A output and a
100V10A controller is a match, but so is 20 panels at 80V80A, solar doesn't
'push' amps in so you can overbuild solar without increasing the other
components.
-the '7 days of overcast' number is the maximum amount of battery that's
useful.  It may sound great to double this up 'just to be sure' but that is
almost always a far worse decision than doubling up on panels.
-wind is a costly addition that the same $ on more solar panels would
likely double output and not require maintenance. Wind is terribly
inefficient at low blade diameters.  Leave wind to wind farms.
-Solar panels produce about 5% output when covered in a few inches of
snow.  up to 10% on overcast days.  1300W in solar should be able to handle
the 60W site for about 1/3 the day without drawing from batteries.  Again,
more solar is the primary way to juice the system, not adding wind or more
batteries.  Overbuilding solar is really just building appropriately for
overcast conditions.  Forget efficiency when it comes to solar panels,
stack 'em up!

Always put a camera up.  I've seen too much bird crap take down an array so
you want to be able to see charts of production to see that build up
happening.  or if it's covered in snow you want to know what you fix ahead
of time you need visuals.

For equipment:
We use victron.  My preferred kit is the smart MPPT 150/35 plus a Cerbo GX
and Shunt.  All of these devices connect together for monitoring.
Monitoring is king.  We then use a 24>48 DCDC to get dual voltage at the
site.
We use quite a few ubiquiti edgerouter 10XP and similar for airmax sites,
but those are being replaced mostly with mikrotik's Netpower16P unit w/
dual voltage input.   We're still waiting for a 4 pair power multi-voltage
switch from someone other than Netonix (extreme failure rate, I'm OVER 50%
on these, they are banned on my networks).

I could add more, but this post is long enough.


On Sat, Apr 15, 2023 at 5:58 AM Brian Munyao Longwe via LibreQoS <
libreqos@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> If the radios are POE, DC-Netonix, with enough batteries for 2-3-4 days
> and a MPPT + Charge Controller to handle the voltage from the solar panels
>
> On Fri, 14 Apr 2023 at 12:07 AM, Dave Taht via LibreQoS <
> libreqos@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
>> I am not going to buy into the level of hype here:
>>
>> https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtheodore/recent-activity/all/
>>
>> But I am curious as to what extent solar power (how many watts?) can
>> be used nowadays for heavier duty backhaul radios, and what forms of
>> long term battery storage now exist?
>>
>> Most UPSes sold in stores are designed for a high load, for a short
>> time, where aiming for 2-3 days of backup power would be better in
>> this case.
>>
>> --
>> AMA March 31: https://www.broadband.io/c/broadband-grant-events/dave-taht
>> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
>> _______________________________________________
>> LibreQoS mailing list
>> LibreQoS@lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/libreqos
>>
> _______________________________________________
> LibreQoS mailing list
> LibreQoS@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/libreqos
>

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Re: [LibreQoS] solar powered internet

[Dave Taht]

Really wonderful information. I last tried to accomplish this using
edison batteries (in the warmer climes) due to how long they last and
the simpler solar controller. But they were bulky, and needed
ventilation.

On Sat, Apr 15, 2023 at 9:56 AM dan <dandenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I run a number of solar sites in the frozen north as well as have built and continue to monitor and advise on a number in tropical latitudes.  This formula holds up in multiple climates and has been learned the hard way including snowmobile rides with generators to power under built sites.  I also build RV solar plants.  Once had a solar installation company until the market fell out in early 2017.
>
> battery sizing is the typical watts of all gear * 24 * max number of overcast days in a row.
> 60W site in Montana where we see 7 straight days of overcast is 60*24*7=10080Wh of usable battery
> Lipo/lifepo4 batteries can be used at about 100% of rated, while lead acids are about 1/3 of rated.
> so about 4x 24V100Ah lifepo4 batteries, or about 12x of the same in lead acid for this particular area.
>
> Panel sizing is recovering 2 days of power every day.  So a 60W site needs 1500Wh to operate, and we need to recover 2 days, so we need use+2 days or 4500Wh per day.
>
> Take the sun hours on the 'winter' solstice and divide that.  Montana's winter solstice for example is 3.5hours of sunlight.  4500/3.5=~1300W array.  so 4x 325W panels will do it.
>
> Always MPPT, and sized for that 1300W or higher if you like.  Battery bank needs enough charge rating to take the 1300W.  say 4x 24V lifepo4 in parallel and you need about 12A of charge rating each for example.   No reason to over size this by much unless you have high hopes for expanding the site.  Lead acid batteries are much harder to charge and you might have to overbuild the array a bit in the cold because you have to push amps in to get them going.  Just don't lead acid unless you're in a developing country....
>
> Special consideration for snowy climates.  Tilt panels up at 60 degrees facing south for a heavy winter bias and to encourage snow to fall off.  Add additional panels facing south east and south west in parallel.  Could be 2 panels south east in series, 2 south west in series, 2 south in series, and then the 3 sets in parallel (2S3P layout) and the e/w panels tilt up very aggressively, that way you can collect maximum sun right away in the morning as well as be running the site off solar until sunset vs being on battery for 3-4 extra hours.  Snow buildup is the primary issue in winter obviously.  If you are at a site that gets feet of snow, then run 2 separate arrays, a 'normal' array at the latitude's optimal tilt, and then a separate 2S3P or similar style array but stood straight up at 90 degrees.  We're experimenting heating the back of panels when there is snow on them via a relay.  early results are really promising.  I had about 2 feet of snow on a panel at 60 degrees and it took 5 minutes and about 50Wh to convince it to slide off.
>
> Main conceptual issues I've had to push people through:
> -100% usable vs 33% usable on lifepo4 vs lead acid is worth the up front cost and the need to get self-heating batteries or put them in a climate controlled box.   battery performance and life is so much better that you're UP about 50% in value over 8-10 years.
> -Solar efficiency is irrelevant.  This is all for off-grid uptime. Solar panels are one of the cheaper parts of the kit. Charge controllers don't have to match panel amps, just volts.  ie, 2 panels w/ 80V8A output and a 100V10A controller is a match, but so is 20 panels at 80V80A, solar doesn't 'push' amps in so you can overbuild solar without increasing the other components.
> -the '7 days of overcast' number is the maximum amount of battery that's useful.  It may sound great to double this up 'just to be sure' but that is almost always a far worse decision than doubling up on panels.
> -wind is a costly addition that the same $ on more solar panels would likely double output and not require maintenance. Wind is terribly inefficient at low blade diameters.  Leave wind to wind farms.
> -Solar panels produce about 5% output when covered in a few inches of snow.  up to 10% on overcast days.  1300W in solar should be able to handle the 60W site for about 1/3 the day without drawing from batteries.  Again, more solar is the primary way to juice the system, not adding wind or more batteries.  Overbuilding solar is really just building appropriately for overcast conditions.  Forget efficiency when it comes to solar panels, stack 'em up!
>
> Always put a camera up.  I've seen too much bird crap take down an array so you want to be able to see charts of production to see that build up happening.  or if it's covered in snow you want to know what you fix ahead of time you need visuals.
>
> For equipment:
> We use victron.  My preferred kit is the smart MPPT 150/35 plus a Cerbo GX and Shunt.  All of these devices connect together for monitoring.  Monitoring is king.  We then use a 24>48 DCDC to get dual voltage at the site.
> We use quite a few ubiquiti edgerouter 10XP and similar for airmax sites, but those are being replaced mostly with mikrotik's Netpower16P unit w/ dual voltage input.   We're still waiting for a 4 pair power multi-voltage switch from someone other than Netonix (extreme failure rate, I'm OVER 50% on these, they are banned on my networks).
>
> I could add more, but this post is long enough.
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 15, 2023 at 5:58 AM Brian Munyao Longwe via LibreQoS <libreqos@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>
>> If the radios are POE, DC-Netonix, with enough batteries for 2-3-4 days and a MPPT + Charge Controller to handle the voltage from the solar panels
>>
>> On Fri, 14 Apr 2023 at 12:07 AM, Dave Taht via LibreQoS <libreqos@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> I am not going to buy into the level of hype here:
>>>
>>> https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtheodore/recent-activity/all/
>>>
>>> But I am curious as to what extent solar power (how many watts?) can
>>> be used nowadays for heavier duty backhaul radios, and what forms of
>>> long term battery storage now exist?
>>>
>>> Most UPSes sold in stores are designed for a high load, for a short
>>> time, where aiming for 2-3 days of backup power would be better in
>>> this case.
>>>
>>> --
>>> AMA March 31: https://www.broadband.io/c/broadband-grant-events/dave-taht
>>> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> LibreQoS mailing list
>>> LibreQoS@lists.bufferbloat.net
>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/libreqos
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> LibreQoS mailing list
>> LibreQoS@lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/libreqos



-- 
AMA March 31: https://www.broadband.io/c/broadband-grant-events/dave-taht
Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC

Re: [LibreQoS] solar powered internet

[Mark Steckel]

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I don't follow WispTalk so can't speak to those discussions. And agree, the Ubnt stuff sort of does the job, but it's under powered for what we do.

We have yet to build a solar powered site, and in Philly it is probably unlikely we ever will. However, all of our high-sites use a DC power plant. 

The attached photos are from a small site, and the others are (almost certainly overbuilt*) for what is a large site that I expect will grow over time.  (We've also switched to LiFePo4 batteries of AGM lead acid.)

* I've found upgrading network gear is much easier than power systems... and have been hampered when we have outgrown our power system at a couple of sites in the past. And granted, a good portion of the over built system in 3 of the photos is a by product of load sharing and redundancy.



---- On Thu, 13 Apr 2023 19:02:25 -0400 Herbert Wolverson via LibreQoS libreqos@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote ---



 > I've not built one, but there's quite the cottage industry on WispTalk. Sizing required panels, sufficient batteries, charger (with generator option), DC converters & injectors for radios (there's an annoying mix of voltage requirements, but you lose far too much doing DC to AC and back to DC to use the shipped PoE injectors). Plus remote management.
 > Ubiquiti kinda, sorta sell a kit.
 > 
 > On Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 5:07 PM Dave Taht via LibreQoS libreqos@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
 > 
 > _______________________________________________
 > LibreQoS mailing list
 > LibreQoS@lists.bufferbloat.net
 > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/libreqos
 > I am not going to buy into the level of hype here:
 >  
 >  https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtheodore/recent-activity/all/
 >  
 >  But I am curious as to what extent solar power (how many watts?) can
 >  be used nowadays for heavier duty backhaul radios, and what forms of
 >  long term battery storage now exist?
 >  
 >  Most UPSes sold in stores are designed for a high load, for a short
 >  time, where aiming for 2-3 days of backup power would be better in
 >  this case.
 >  
 >  -- 
 >  AMA March 31: https://www.broadband.io/c/broadband-grant-events/dave-taht
 >  Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
 >  _______________________________________________
 >  LibreQoS mailing list
 >  LibreQoS@lists.bufferbloat.net
 >  https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/libreqos
 > 

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Re: [LibreQoS] solar powered internet

[Jim Forster]

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Right.  The WISPs and ISPs that I know of in Africa & India have this  pretty much this dialed in.  Some solar-only sites, lots of DC sites..  Loads range from  ~10w - 100+w. Various suppliers for the pieces-parts, various time on battery deisgns, various engineering standards., 

Jim

> On Apr 13, 2023, at 4:28 PM, Mark Steckel via LibreQoS <libreqos@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> 
> I don't follow WispTalk so can't speak to those discussions. And agree, the Ubnt stuff sort of does the job, but it's under powered for what we do.
> 
> We have yet to build a solar powered site, and in Philly it is probably unlikely we ever will. However, all of our high-sites use a DC power plant. 
> 
> The attached photos are from a small site, and the others are (almost certainly overbuilt*) for what is a large site that I expect will grow over time.  (We've also switched to LiFePo4 batteries of AGM lead acid.)
> 
> * I've found upgrading network gear is much easier than power systems... and have been hampered when we have outgrown our power system at a couple of sites in the past. And granted, a good portion of the over built system in 3 of the photos is a by product of load sharing and redundancy.
> 


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