Solar powered water well pump question

[Dario]

My wife has two lots of rice farmland next to each other totaling 7 rais. Her rice is now planted and looks nice,

We are like most of the other farmers who have to depend on mother nature to get water from the sky to get the rice to grow. I ask myself if it would be possible for her to have a water well drilled and pump the water up to her rice fields via a solar powered pump. If this is possible and would cost not too much money, she would be able to plant rice twice a year. Is there anyone in the know who could enlighten us?

[kickstart]

3 hours ago, Dario said:

My wife has two lots of rice farmland next to each other totaling 7 rais. Her rice is now planted and looks nice,

We are like most of the other farmers who have to depend on mother nature to get water from the sky to get the rice to grow. I ask myself if it would be possible for her to have a water well drilled and pump the water up to her rice fields via a solar powered pump. If this is possible and would cost not too much money, she would be able to plant rice twice a year. Is there anyone in the know who could enlighten us?

It can be done we have just a solar system installed, we are pumping water from a small river into our pond, and now we are irrigating a nursery bed of Nappier grass.

Depending on what your system will be, we had some 600 wat panels at 3500 each, we have 6 but now are only using 4, our pump and inverter was 13000 baht, I converted an old trailer to mount the panels on, that was about 8000 baht.200 meters of 2-inch PE water pipe was 8000 baht.

Your big X will be the bore hole, how far down will they have to go to find water?  around here it is/was 500-baht meter to drill the bore hole, you want to ask around your area find what other farmers etc. have paid for a bore hole, and how far down they go before finding water.

As for planting rice twice a year, I would say after the rice crop, or before, plant a crop of corn/maize, you will use a lot less water and it would do the land a bit of good from monoculture of rice.

[Dario]

Sounds to be an expensive setup and not even for an artisan well in the middle of nowhere. That's where I am.

[chipperPDU]

On 7/26/2024 at 11:48 AM, Dario said:

Sounds to be an expensive setup and not even for an artisan well in the middle of nowhere. That's where I am.

We are staying in Tak. Our bore hole is 80 meters deep and the pump is hanging at about 45 meters. The total cost of this was 130.000 thb. No solar. And it was a normal price, not a falang price. In Isaan they do it much cheaper, not so deep and the bore hole wont last as long.

[Hummin]

8 minutes ago, chipperPDU said:

We are staying in Tak. Our bore hole is 80 meters deep and the pump is hanging at about 45 meters. The total cost of this was 130.000 thb. No solar. And it was a normal price, not a falang price. In Isaan they do it much cheaper, not so deep and the bore hole wont last as long.

Our borehole is 60m, and we payed 32 000 baht plug and play electric pump. 

 

Sounds like overkill the price you paid. 

[Hummin]

On 7/25/2024 at 4:49 PM, Dario said:

My wife has two lots of rice farmland next to each other totaling 7 rais. Her rice is now planted and looks nice,

We are like most of the other farmers who have to depend on mother nature to get water from the sky to get the rice to grow. I ask myself if it would be possible for her to have a water well drilled and pump the water up to her rice fields via a solar powered pump. If this is possible and would cost not too much money, she would be able to plant rice twice a year. Is there anyone in the know who could enlighten us?

If you are in an area where there is not possible to plant rice twice a year, using ground water is an bad idea for environmental reasons, and for another reason I would plant something else to not deplete the soil completely, but something that will acually contribute to your soil health

 

 

[BeastOfBodmin]

Does anyone have an estimate of how many m^3 water per rai is needed for a crop of, say, jasmine rice? I expect the answer to that would rule out rain water collection and storage as a way to avoid drilling a hole and messing with the water table.

[impulse]

On 10/3/2024 at 4:24 PM, chipperPDU said:

We are staying in Tak. Our bore hole is 80 meters deep and the pump is hanging at about 45 meters. The total cost of this was 130.000 thb. No solar. And it was a normal price, not a falang price. In Isaan they do it much cheaper, not so deep and the bore hole wont last as long.

 

Do you know what the standing water depth is, and the pumping water depth?  And does it vary a lot by season, or year by year?

 

The depth of the water table (standing), and the pumping (drawdown) depth is key to sizing the system right.  Plus, of course, your desired Liters per Minute.

 

It's not unusual to drill a well to 300 meters, and have water standing at the surface, or even flowing with no pump at all.  Which is called an artesian well.

 

[kickstart]

4 hours ago, impulse said:

 

Do you know what the standing water depth is, and the pumping water depth?  And does it vary a lot by season, or year by year?

 

The depth of the water table (standing), and the pumping (drawdown) depth is key to sizing the system right.  Plus, of course, your desired Liters per Minute.

 

It's not unusual to drill a well to 300 meters, and have water standing at the surface, or even flowing with no pump at all.  Which is called an artesian well.

 

I do not know where you come from, but no one would drill a bore hole 300 meters in Thailand, one no need, the max I know of is 100 meters, and would say that most companies that drill bore hole would not have the pipe work of the power of the equipment to drill down to that depth. 

We live in rural area our water comes from a bore hole, it is a about 2 years old now never been a shortage of water, and this year's hot season was hot we have had water pressure issues, mainly due to pump problems and burst water pipes

[impulse]

56 minutes ago, kickstart said:

I do not know where you come from, but no one would drill a bore hole 300 meters in Thailand, one no need, the max I know of is 100 meters, and would say that most companies that drill bore hole would not have the pipe work of the power of the equipment to drill down to that depth. 

We live in rural area our water comes from a bore hole, it is a about 2 years old now never been a shortage of water, and this year's hot season was hot we have had water pressure issues, mainly due to pump problems and burst water pipes

 

Our water source wells in the south of Thailand were over 1000 meters deep. 

 

Which is neither here not there when it comes to designing systems.   For that, you need to know how deep the potable water strata is, how much pressure is down there, and how much the pressure will change over time, a) when you turn on the pump, b) by season and c) long term trending.   In the water well industry, the pressure is expressed in feet, or meters of water, not so much in PSI.  And you need to know how much water you plan (need) to produce.

 

Otherwise, you can't know what's causing your well problems.  You can guess, for sure.  But that gets expensive.

 

[chipperPDU]

On 10/6/2024 at 3:51 PM, impulse said:

 

Do you know what the standing water depth is, and the pumping water depth?  And does it vary a lot by season, or year by year?

 

The depth of the water table (standing), and the pumping (drawdown) depth is key to sizing the system right.  Plus, of course, your desired Liters per Minute.

 

It's not unusual to drill a well to 300 meters, and have water standing at the surface, or even flowing with no pump at all.  Which is called an artesian well.

 

I only know the pump hangs around 40/45 meters. Bore was drilled in the raining season in 2022. In the hot season in 2023 the pump was lowered 5 meters because the water went down. 

[impulse]

14 minutes ago, chipperPDU said:

I only know the pump hangs around 40/45 meters. Bore was drilled in the raining season in 2022. In the hot season in 2023 the pump was lowered 5 meters because the water went down. 

 

That's why it's good to have some kind of relationship with the local well drillers (and the gub'ment groundwater people).  They can tell you if the local water table has moved up or down, and how it's trending long term. 

 

That's helpful long after they've drilled the well using their expertise to know how deep they need to drill to get to a good water zone, and where to set the pump in anticipation of next year's (or next decade's) dry season.

 

There are tons of good interweb sources explaining all those parameters, in whatever language you're comfortable with.  But local knowledge is still required.

 

[chipperPDU]

On 10/8/2024 at 7:50 AM, impulse said:

 

That's why it's good to have some kind of relationship with the local well drillers (and the gub'ment groundwater people).  They can tell you if the local water table has moved up or down, and how it's trending long term. 

 

That's helpful long after they've drilled the well using their expertise to know how deep they need to drill to get to a good water zone, and where to set the pump in anticipation of next year's (or next decade's) dry season.

 

There are tons of good interweb sources explaining all those parameters, in whatever language you're comfortable with.  But local knowledge is still required.

 

The people work for the government, we even have the necessary paperwork for the bore. We also have lifetime free support to alter the pump depth. 

[impulse]

34 minutes ago, chipperPDU said:

The people work for the government, we even have the necessary paperwork for the bore. We also have lifetime free support to alter the pump depth. 

 

Sounds like you have a good thing going.  Good to hear.

 

[djayz]

Am (finally) getting ready to put in a solar power water pump (from Thaiwatsadu GIANTTECH Centrifugal Electric Solar Pump (DCPM50-17-110-1500 DC 110V) Power 1500W) but can't for the life of me figure out how many solar panels I will need. The hardware store has Solar Panel MONO Crystalline JA JAM60S20-380/MR Power 380. I need to water between 1 and 1.5 rai. How can I calculate how many panels I will need?  

[jvs]

4 minutes ago, djayz said:

Am (finally) getting ready to put in a solar power water pump (from Thaiwatsadu GIANTTECH Centrifugal Electric Solar Pump (DCPM50-17-110-1500 DC 110V) Power 1500W) but can't for the life of me figure out how many solar panels I will need. The hardware store has Solar Panel MONO Crystalline JA JAM60S20-380/MR Power 380. I need to water between 1 and 1.5 rai. How can I calculate how many panels I will need?  

You can start by looking at the voltage of your panels.

You need to get close to that,i don't think you need to go over that because you only have a small

area to cover.

I would say if the panels are 40 volts i would just get 3 panels.

That would give you around 1100 watts?

That would probably provide plenty of water but if you want the pump to be running more to capacity i would go for bigger(more watts panels) 450 watt panels would do that nicely.

There are cheaper places to get your panels,Thaiwatsadu is not that cheap.

I bought 450 watt panels for 3500 baht each earlier this year.

If the panels are around 30 volt  you could get four of those and then 380 watt panels will do the trick.

 

[Fruit Trader]

49 minutes ago, djayz said:

Am (finally) getting ready to put in a solar power water pump (from Thaiwatsadu GIANTTECH Centrifugal Electric Solar Pump (DCPM50-17-110-1500 DC 110V) Power 1500W) but can't for the life of me figure out how many solar panels I will need. The hardware store has Solar Panel MONO Crystalline JA JAM60S20-380/MR Power 380. I need to water between 1 and 1.5 rai. How can I calculate how many panels I will need?  

 

Below is detail for generic Chinese solar pump controllers with 1500W highlighted.

 

I would go on the high side of recommended solar power of  ≥ 1.3*Pump power

 

 

[Fruit Trader]

58 minutes ago, jvs said:

The hardware store has Solar Panel MONO Crystalline JA JAM60S20-380/MR Power 380.

 

[jvs]

4 minutes ago, Fruit Trader said:

 

ok, i see what you want to do there.

You do not need that size pump!It is too big for what you need.

We water around four rai and we have a 2 inch pump and more water then we need.

I would go for the dcpm26,you will only need 72 volts and 1100 watt.

That pump should give you around 20 000 liters (on average) per hour.

Lets say 5 hours a day?

100 000 liters per day! top of my head around 40mm per sq meter per day.

That should be plenty because you do not need to water everything everyday.

Imo you can save a lot of money by choosing a smaller pump.

Remember on good days you will have 6 to 8 hours of sun per day and when the sun does not shine you will need less water.

 

[Fruit Trader]

1 hour ago, jvs said:

ok, i see what you want to do there.

You do not need that size pump!It is too big for what you need.

We water around four rai and we have a 2 inch pump and more water then we need.

I would go for the dcpm26,you will only need 72 volts and 1100 watt.

That pump should give you around 20 000 liters (on average) per hour.

Lets say 5 hours a day?

100 000 liters per day! top of my head around 40mm per sq meter per day.

That should be plenty because you do not need to water everything everyday.

Imo you can save a lot of money by choosing a smaller pump.

Remember on good days you will have 6 to 8 hours of sun per day and when the sun does not shine you will need less water.

 

 

Not my pump, best to aim concerns about pump size at @djayz

 

 

[jvs]

51 minutes ago, Fruit Trader said:

 

Not my pump, best to aim concerns about pump size at @djayz

 

 

I am sure he will be reading this also?

 

[kickstart]

We put a system back in May, our pump wis 1600 Watt each of our panels is 400 watts, each one was 3500 ,baht the guy who did all the buying and fitting said we needed 6 panels ,which we got first time on start-up we got a fault code come up, saying too much voltage /power ,so we disconnected two panels now no problem.

As for pump,ours is a 3 inch pump ,which I put on a reducer making it now two inch ,works well ,the reason was, we are pumping 200 meters ,thinking that distance and  water volume the pump would not pump all that water ,I think I am wrong, as said another AN member who knows more than me ,saying  friction on the smaller boar pipe slows the water flow ,but buying new 3 inch pipe plus all the joins/fittings  will cost 20 000 baht plus, as opposed to the 8 500 baht for the 2 inch pipe.

But the pump with the 2-inch pipe can work with a 2inch sprinkler with a about 25-meter radius which is ok, but soon as a cloud appears the radius drops to 15 meters.

Normalee starts up at about 9-9.30 am.it can keep going until 4-30 pm,as has been said about 7 hours day.

[djayz]

17 hours ago, jvs said:

I am sure he will be reading this also?

 

Yes, thank you. 

[joedee]

On 10/3/2024 at 2:04 PM, Hummin said:

Our borehole is 60m, and we payed 32 000 baht plug and play electric pump. 

 

Sounds like overkill the price you paid. 

Yes, I paid about the same as you... Still working now 5 years later...