Solar Water Pump

[Paul Day]

I'm looking for recommendations on a solar water pump sufficient to pump up an 8' head.   

[TCLynx]

I don't know of any of those "solar" fountains that are going to pump up more than a couple of feet.

How much flow do you need at that 8' head?

Simply getting a pump with a max head of 8' might give you a small pump that might not be too hard to run from a small solar panel charging a battery and running the pump through an inverter.

However, if you need 30 gpm at 8' head, you will need a lot more battery, inverter, charger controller and solar panels to accomplish that.

[Paul Day]

thanks for getting back to me.

re: flow -30 GPM would be sufficient. could probably be less. the pump could be submergable or surface. the application is a modified aquaponic system in Latin American rainforest to provide food to the indigenous. i am a director of a humanitarian group (www.deadwheat.com) based in Panama that develops contextually appropriate technologies for water, food (e.g. aquaponics) and clean air security needs among those living in the rainforest belt. in a nutshell, we construct an aquaponic system on hillsides curving out 2 degree slopes into the hillside for growbeds that zig-zag back and forth and drain into each other and eventually a Tilapia pond. we need to circulate water from the pond (low point) to the highest growbed (i.e. 8' head). we can take our time flushing water through the system, so we don't need a high GPM capacity. we just need to be able to achieve the 8' head.

[TCLynx]

Well, you will need to do some research so you can figure out exactly what your needs are, what pumps are available to your area and choose the most energy efficient one you can find. Then based on it's power consumption at the 8' head, figure out how much power capacity you will need.
Then more research into what sort of solar power set up you will need to provide for that situation. It will probably not be cheap.


Paul Day said:

thanks for getting back to me.

re: flow -30 GPM would be sufficient. could probably be less. the pump could be submergable or surface. the application is a modified aquaponic system in Latin American rainforest to provide food to the indigenous. i am a director of a humanitarian group (www.deadwheat.com) based in Panama that develops contextually appropriate technologies for water, food (e.g. aquaponics) and clean air security needs among those living in the rainforest belt. in a nutshell, we construct an aquaponic system on hillsides curving out 2 degree slopes into the hillside for growbeds that zig-zag back and forth and drain into each other and eventually a Tilapia pond. we need to circulate water from the pond (low point) to the highest growbed (i.e. 8' head). we can take our time flushing water through the system, so we don't need a high GPM capacity. we just need to be able to achieve the 8' head.

[Patrick Fenton]

Paul,  It sounds like you might already have the solar part of this under control.  If so, we use a regular "RV" water pump.  It will pump about ten feet vertically in half inch tubing.  The RV water pump of course runs on DC current.  Cost for non submersible is about $55 USD but has lasted us quite a long time.  We also use it to pump water up to the tanaka on the roof.  (Also small enough to be easily muled in you can't find one there.)  Good Luck!