Dropping a well-pump & pipe down 150-ft is not a one person job.  Friends in photo  (L-to-R): Kyle Young, Bart Santello, Obe Sweetwater and Peter Ragan - Thx guys!

How may times has ‘grid’ power gone down due to a storm, line maintenance, or accident damage and you end up at the mercy of the utility company to get the system up to power your pump. A solar powered well-water pumping system is a robust way to obtain underground water - It’s your system!.

 If you live near a hill, you can pump water into a storage tank during daylight hours and gravity-feed straight into your home. In my case, I live on level land so what I do is pump well-water into an 80-gallon pressure tank and have batteries for night time water pumping if the pressure tank runs low.

The particular system I designed for my application starts with a submersible pump suitable to lift water 150-feet. I chose a Lorentz Pump originally sold by Dankoff Pumps, now owner by an international alternative energy firm Conergy. The pump runs off 48-volts DC current: Therefore I purchased 4-Uni-Solar 64-watt, 12-volt solar panels and wired them in series to obtain the 48-volt requirement.

I chose a Blue Sky Energy - Solarboost 3048 battery charge controller to match my 48-volt system requirements. The battery bank (inside customized Rubbermaid tub in above photo), has 4 Trojan 24TM 85-AH Deep Cycle, 12-volt batteries wired in series to achieve 48-volts.

Fused disconnect boxes installed to isolate load sources and all components wired to single point ground.

Vented battery box customized from plastic tub. Wiring not complete in this photo

Plumbing from the well to the pressure tank required several components necessary to ensure safe and proper operation. The photo below shows the plumbing that starts with a particle spin-down filter (top-center of photo). Just downstream I added a water meter, followed by a check valve to prevent water from going back down the well. There is a pressure-sensitive switch that tells the pump controller when the water tank has reached full pressure. also a pressure gage, pressure relief valve, tap, and shutoff valves for the two water lines that go out to the house. I added a quick disconnect fitting near the tank in case it has to be serviced or replaced. A drain was added in the floor in case of a leak in the plumbing.