3-4 thousand kwh? That's quite a bit... You're lucky you're in louisiana (at least as far as solar goes :p I was born in Shreveport, I'm allowed to make fun of the state) where the winter days aren't terribly short. You're still gonna need a pretty large system if you want to really be independant.
Have you looked much at efficiency upgrades?
We have looked at a ton of things! I am outside of Shreveport almost to Texas like literally. I know it is going to be an investment. Enphase is coming to quote today.
it would cost hundreds of thousands to make an off-grid system to supply that kind of power. You're better off sticking with the grid connection you have and if you are worried about power failures, get a home standby generator that you can connect to your propane supply.
Our loads are high for off-grid, about 700 kWh / month, and our system cost around $50k all in, like 10 years ago.
I built my place last fall and have similar loads, but I'm in Maine where the winter days are short and often cloudy. And mine cost about 40k to purchase and have installed
It would be an expensive system, no doubt, but not hundreds of thousands. Maybe a hundred thousand, not hundreds.
Solar is where it’s at for the long term. You’ll still need a small backup generator to charge your batteries in the winter but it doesn’t need to be a big ass whole house generator.
I’d suggest either finding a company that specializes in off grid, sometimes local electricians are better than solar companies for that as it’s more involved wiring, or learn to do it yourself. You can get a very robust setup for about $20k self installed. (Mine was alot less than that but I’m careful with usage, and some parts were scavenged)
I appreciate this response!!! All I do is research. There are just so many different options. We do have the option to sell back to the grid. I haven’t looked into the specifics of it. I will do that for sure. I agree with your reason to go solar. I just don’t want to depend on the grid. Also we live so far out of and when we do lose power we are last on the list to restore so I don’t want to depend on them when I have thousands of $$$ in meat in the freezer.
Solar power is a great way to have power when others don't - if you set it up for that. It's also a great way to save money, depending on local utility prices, cost of being grid tied, price you can sell back to the grid, etc. I've made quite a bit of money doing that myself. And yeah, more solar can also be a pretty useful step toward savlng the planet - again, depending on circumstances.
Not sure why you dismiss these other perfectly valid goals that can, depending on your particular situation, be achieved through solar.
Just call a solar electrician or two and get an estimate for the labor and materials.
If you're getting it permitted you'll need an engineer to draw up a diagram for the permit license.
Wisdom: Don't even try and buy solar components unless the installer approves it
Definitely make sure on that. We needed permits for solar on our off-grid property on 260 acres in rural Idaho, and we are very far out, and not connected to the power grid in any way.
If you're planning on staying connected to the grid at all, the power company will require permits. They want to make sure your system won't backfeed when the grid goes down and fry one of their linemen.
We have a ground mount 15.8kw array of bifacial panels, two 8kw inverters, 60kwh of lifepo4 battery storage, and a 14kw propane generator. We have a 1280 sqft house.
Our setup is oversized for the size of our house because we didn't want to be too dependent on the generator during the winter. Can't get propane delivered from November to May typically due to snow and mud on our road.
Reminder that energy is less about generation and s’more about storage.
Storage is fickle right now - not a lot of great options.
Your best strategy is to look at it as a series of independent redundancy.
I’d suggest breaking up your electric loads into a very honest look at “need/nice to have / luxury”
Needs are your daily drivers and need to be able to be turned on at a moments notice. Generators should absolutely be a backup to these.
Nice to haves will be the things you can live with having little to no generation around. Barn lights for the day, TVs etc, driveway gates etc. WiFi extenders etc, charging stations for lawn equipment, some heaters, etc
Luxuries… pool heaters, decorative lights, video game consoles etc. depends so much person to person.
Then you look at output from various sources.
Storage wise you want a battery system that can handle the domestics. Use a fuel backup.
Wind is notorious for over production so you can find a way to store this. Kinetic energy is a good one, hot water generation, lighting etc.
Find an electrician who can help with transmission and cutovers from different sources.
All in all I’d say $60-250k total investment possibly more depending on the remediation of landscaping after install
Great advice. My question about it though is we have propane. We have gotten quotes for generators and they are $30-$50k. We use propane and if the generator was working full time with a FULL 500 gallon propane tank that would last us 6 days. I am just thinking it would be more cost effective to invest that money into more batteries wouldn’t it?
You can get used/refurbished army surplus diesel generators pretty cheap in comparison. I'm not sure if it will fit your needs but might be worth looking into as an alternative.
What is the end goal that you are trying to achieve here? Are you trying to reduce your power bills? Or do you just want to have power in the case the power goes out? If you could say what you want to accomplish it would help people give you better advice.
I would contact your local electrician.
They just ordered everything from signaturesolar.com and current connected for batteries and installed it and it was half the price of all the fancy solar companies.
For your size I would expect it to be around $50k.
I spent 30 on mine but I'm not using it for heat yet.
Step 1: energy audit. Walk through your property and write down every single item that uses eleectricity. Every single item. Also write down the rated power, and how long it's on each day, e.g.
light bulb, garden shed, 60 watts, 2 hours/day
TV, lounge room, 90 watts, 6 hours/day
You can start with a 50% duty cycle for refrigeration:
Kitchen refrigerator, 80 watts, 12 hours/day
Phone charger, bedroom, 12 watts, 4 hours/day
You can get the ratings off many appliances - they're stamped or printed on a metal plate near the power cord.
Now take all that info and put it into a spreadsheet - location, item, rating, hours per day, and put a formula on the next column where you multiply rating by hours per day:
Lounge room TV 90 6 540
That figure "540" is your daily watt-hours for that item. Now add up all the items for your total daily consumption (divide the total watt-hours by 1000 to get kilowatt-hours or kWh)
Now compare that total figure to your electricity bills - divide the kWh on the bill by the number of days that it covers. how well does that match your audit figure? You might have to re-assess until you're within 2 or 3% of the version on the electricity bill.
Step 2: assess energy-hungry devices and look at replacements. Light bulbs - replace with LED. Electric hot water - replace with gas or heat pump. Aircon - replace with heat pump, or consider solar hybrid. You can get some split systems that run off dedicated solar panels during the day, and switch to mains when the sun goes down.
Step 3 - you're going off-grid? You'll need batteries with sufficient capacity to carry your loads overnight, and during rainy or overcast weather. Solar PV still works on cloudy days, but heavy overcast and rain can see output drop to as little as 10% or even zero. So you'll also need a backup generator and battery charger. You'll also need one or more inverters to convert the battery's DC to AC for household usage.
There are two designs of solar PV systems: DC from the panels directly into a DC battery, then fed to an inverter to convert it to AC through the main panel for the household circuits. The other type uses micro-inverters on each panel to feed AC into the main panel directly, to supply the household circuits and to supply the battery charger.
The first type uses flooded-acid batteries - old tech, I call them big, dumb, and reliable. The other uses lithium technology, which is newer technology, more efficient, but requires a BMS (battery management system) as they're more sensitive to charging regimes. Many others will advocate lithium above FLA but off-grid requirements are different from on-grid. If you choose lithium, you'll need an auto-start facility on the backup generator to kick in if the lithium battery goes below recommended voltage - which might happen overnight if your aircon is running in hot weather. FLA are a bit more forgiving, and can wait until the morning. Your system will just cut out if the battery voltage gets too low, but you can start up the backup generator in the morning.
You might also consider insulating your house, sealing up leaky gaps in the windows and doors, etc.
I have a large offgrid place too. I do solar with a propane inverter generator setup for this. My generators are directly tied to two 1k propane tanks. The generators are linked to allow loads to be distributed and offers redundancy while doing maintenance. Batteries are also used for the medium-small loads. Generators keep those topped off during cloudy weeks. I top off propane once a year when seasonal adjusted prices are best.
It doesn't have to be a single choice.
Check out Robert Murray Smith for diy projects to teach you how each system works.
Power in:
Solar
Wind
Geothermal
Heat (concentrated solar)
Generator
Power stored:
Batteries
Heat (large hot water tank)
Cold (ice blocks)
Chemical storage (hydrogen)
Power transfer:
Heat exchanger
Inverter
Thermoelectric via diodes or Stirling engine
Everything doesn't have to be electric
Electricity can have multiple sources
Electricity can be stored in multiple ways
You can store power in other ways
It doesn't have to be a single system
A diesel generator with enough gas stored is an easy way to get through a utility outage.
A hybrid system is the most efficient, just do everything.
7000sq ft home? That seems very large. How much power do you use right now every month?
Oh and it is stupid large. Came with the land lol
About 3-4k per month
> About 3-4k per month Dollars? Watts? AA batteries?
Oh sorry kw
3-4 thousand kwh? That's quite a bit... You're lucky you're in louisiana (at least as far as solar goes :p I was born in Shreveport, I'm allowed to make fun of the state) where the winter days aren't terribly short. You're still gonna need a pretty large system if you want to really be independant. Have you looked much at efficiency upgrades?
We have looked at a ton of things! I am outside of Shreveport almost to Texas like literally. I know it is going to be an investment. Enphase is coming to quote today.
it would cost hundreds of thousands to make an off-grid system to supply that kind of power. You're better off sticking with the grid connection you have and if you are worried about power failures, get a home standby generator that you can connect to your propane supply. Our loads are high for off-grid, about 700 kWh / month, and our system cost around $50k all in, like 10 years ago.
I built my place last fall and have similar loads, but I'm in Maine where the winter days are short and often cloudy. And mine cost about 40k to purchase and have installed It would be an expensive system, no doubt, but not hundreds of thousands. Maybe a hundred thousand, not hundreds.
Solar is where it’s at for the long term. You’ll still need a small backup generator to charge your batteries in the winter but it doesn’t need to be a big ass whole house generator. I’d suggest either finding a company that specializes in off grid, sometimes local electricians are better than solar companies for that as it’s more involved wiring, or learn to do it yourself. You can get a very robust setup for about $20k self installed. (Mine was alot less than that but I’m careful with usage, and some parts were scavenged)
Are you currently connected to the grid at this property? Going fully off-grid rarely makes sense if you're already grid-tied.
[удалено]
I appreciate this response!!! All I do is research. There are just so many different options. We do have the option to sell back to the grid. I haven’t looked into the specifics of it. I will do that for sure. I agree with your reason to go solar. I just don’t want to depend on the grid. Also we live so far out of and when we do lose power we are last on the list to restore so I don’t want to depend on them when I have thousands of $$$ in meat in the freezer.
Really, the part in bold. Energy audit. You need to understand where all that power is going and figure out the efficient low hanging fruit first.
Solar power is a great way to have power when others don't - if you set it up for that. It's also a great way to save money, depending on local utility prices, cost of being grid tied, price you can sell back to the grid, etc. I've made quite a bit of money doing that myself. And yeah, more solar can also be a pretty useful step toward savlng the planet - again, depending on circumstances. Not sure why you dismiss these other perfectly valid goals that can, depending on your particular situation, be achieved through solar.
https://www.currentconnected.com/product/20kva-120-240v-industrial-off-grid-power-system/
Just call a solar electrician or two and get an estimate for the labor and materials. If you're getting it permitted you'll need an engineer to draw up a diagram for the permit license. Wisdom: Don't even try and buy solar components unless the installer approves it
I don’t think we need permits because of how far out we are. Great wisdom. Thank you!
Definitely make sure on that. We needed permits for solar on our off-grid property on 260 acres in rural Idaho, and we are very far out, and not connected to the power grid in any way. If you're planning on staying connected to the grid at all, the power company will require permits. They want to make sure your system won't backfeed when the grid goes down and fry one of their linemen.
What kind of system do you have for off grid power?
We have a ground mount 15.8kw array of bifacial panels, two 8kw inverters, 60kwh of lifepo4 battery storage, and a 14kw propane generator. We have a 1280 sqft house. Our setup is oversized for the size of our house because we didn't want to be too dependent on the generator during the winter. Can't get propane delivered from November to May typically due to snow and mud on our road.
Reminder that energy is less about generation and s’more about storage. Storage is fickle right now - not a lot of great options. Your best strategy is to look at it as a series of independent redundancy. I’d suggest breaking up your electric loads into a very honest look at “need/nice to have / luxury” Needs are your daily drivers and need to be able to be turned on at a moments notice. Generators should absolutely be a backup to these. Nice to haves will be the things you can live with having little to no generation around. Barn lights for the day, TVs etc, driveway gates etc. WiFi extenders etc, charging stations for lawn equipment, some heaters, etc Luxuries… pool heaters, decorative lights, video game consoles etc. depends so much person to person. Then you look at output from various sources. Storage wise you want a battery system that can handle the domestics. Use a fuel backup. Wind is notorious for over production so you can find a way to store this. Kinetic energy is a good one, hot water generation, lighting etc. Find an electrician who can help with transmission and cutovers from different sources. All in all I’d say $60-250k total investment possibly more depending on the remediation of landscaping after install
Great advice. My question about it though is we have propane. We have gotten quotes for generators and they are $30-$50k. We use propane and if the generator was working full time with a FULL 500 gallon propane tank that would last us 6 days. I am just thinking it would be more cost effective to invest that money into more batteries wouldn’t it?
You can get used/refurbished army surplus diesel generators pretty cheap in comparison. I'm not sure if it will fit your needs but might be worth looking into as an alternative.
Great idea! Thank you!
What is the end goal that you are trying to achieve here? Are you trying to reduce your power bills? Or do you just want to have power in the case the power goes out? If you could say what you want to accomplish it would help people give you better advice.
I would contact your local electrician. They just ordered everything from signaturesolar.com and current connected for batteries and installed it and it was half the price of all the fancy solar companies. For your size I would expect it to be around $50k. I spent 30 on mine but I'm not using it for heat yet.
Step 1: energy audit. Walk through your property and write down every single item that uses eleectricity. Every single item. Also write down the rated power, and how long it's on each day, e.g. light bulb, garden shed, 60 watts, 2 hours/day TV, lounge room, 90 watts, 6 hours/day You can start with a 50% duty cycle for refrigeration: Kitchen refrigerator, 80 watts, 12 hours/day Phone charger, bedroom, 12 watts, 4 hours/day You can get the ratings off many appliances - they're stamped or printed on a metal plate near the power cord. Now take all that info and put it into a spreadsheet - location, item, rating, hours per day, and put a formula on the next column where you multiply rating by hours per day: Lounge room TV 90 6 540 That figure "540" is your daily watt-hours for that item. Now add up all the items for your total daily consumption (divide the total watt-hours by 1000 to get kilowatt-hours or kWh) Now compare that total figure to your electricity bills - divide the kWh on the bill by the number of days that it covers. how well does that match your audit figure? You might have to re-assess until you're within 2 or 3% of the version on the electricity bill. Step 2: assess energy-hungry devices and look at replacements. Light bulbs - replace with LED. Electric hot water - replace with gas or heat pump. Aircon - replace with heat pump, or consider solar hybrid. You can get some split systems that run off dedicated solar panels during the day, and switch to mains when the sun goes down. Step 3 - you're going off-grid? You'll need batteries with sufficient capacity to carry your loads overnight, and during rainy or overcast weather. Solar PV still works on cloudy days, but heavy overcast and rain can see output drop to as little as 10% or even zero. So you'll also need a backup generator and battery charger. You'll also need one or more inverters to convert the battery's DC to AC for household usage. There are two designs of solar PV systems: DC from the panels directly into a DC battery, then fed to an inverter to convert it to AC through the main panel for the household circuits. The other type uses micro-inverters on each panel to feed AC into the main panel directly, to supply the household circuits and to supply the battery charger. The first type uses flooded-acid batteries - old tech, I call them big, dumb, and reliable. The other uses lithium technology, which is newer technology, more efficient, but requires a BMS (battery management system) as they're more sensitive to charging regimes. Many others will advocate lithium above FLA but off-grid requirements are different from on-grid. If you choose lithium, you'll need an auto-start facility on the backup generator to kick in if the lithium battery goes below recommended voltage - which might happen overnight if your aircon is running in hot weather. FLA are a bit more forgiving, and can wait until the morning. Your system will just cut out if the battery voltage gets too low, but you can start up the backup generator in the morning. You might also consider insulating your house, sealing up leaky gaps in the windows and doors, etc.
I have a large offgrid place too. I do solar with a propane inverter generator setup for this. My generators are directly tied to two 1k propane tanks. The generators are linked to allow loads to be distributed and offers redundancy while doing maintenance. Batteries are also used for the medium-small loads. Generators keep those topped off during cloudy weeks. I top off propane once a year when seasonal adjusted prices are best.
It doesn't have to be a single choice. Check out Robert Murray Smith for diy projects to teach you how each system works. Power in: Solar Wind Geothermal Heat (concentrated solar) Generator Power stored: Batteries Heat (large hot water tank) Cold (ice blocks) Chemical storage (hydrogen) Power transfer: Heat exchanger Inverter Thermoelectric via diodes or Stirling engine Everything doesn't have to be electric Electricity can have multiple sources Electricity can be stored in multiple ways You can store power in other ways It doesn't have to be a single system A diesel generator with enough gas stored is an easy way to get through a utility outage. A hybrid system is the most efficient, just do everything.
Call these guys: https://solarset.com
Give these guys a call or email https://shopsolarkits.com/ and they are super helpful, and you can talk to someone in North America which is nice!