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Before you buy more, at $1.4/watt, look at these guys. Mono/Polycrystaline panels can be had for much less than that.Originally Posted by gnihcraes
So i see numbers like yours only higher, much higher thrown around. Exactly what would my $2K get me storage wise IF and when power goes down . The generators are out of gas and propane back up runs out?
We've had an interest in solar as secondary supply. Unfortunately, when the monthly cost is more than our mortgage and something we'd never recoup savings wise. It's hard to justify spending anything.
Would it be nice for our next home, sure. Again cost are still higher than the results.
Please enlighten me, and others here.
Last edited by Great-Kazoo; 06-04-2016 at 02:48.
The Great Kazoo's Feedback
"when you're happy you enjoy the melody but, when you're broken you understand the lyrics".
If you are talking about what I will call "retail solar", then I completely understand how you were getting numbers much higher than what I am talking about.
It depends on the type of system you are looking at:
1. Grid Tie
2. Off Grid
3. Emergency
1. Grid Tie:
Generally, these are the most expensive, even though they may not have a battery back up. The cost comes from permits, dealing with the Electric Power provider, carrying grid tie insurance, etc... As mentioned before, lots of current grid tie solutions (Solar City and the like) don't include battery backups, so they do you absolutely no good when the power is out. Some will actually power your house during the day, but if it's cloudy/snowy/dark/etc... You get no power.
Depending on the provider you can add a battery backup, but the batteries are the most expensive part of a solar solution any more.
2. Off Grid:
These are done one of two ways... With Permits, and without. Permits for off grid systems aren't hard to get, but they add to the cost.
Off grid can be done pretty inexpensively, and if planned out right, can be done in phases when money is available. For my brothers house, we did 6KW of panels to start, but we only had a 1000AH battery bank to start. He has since grown that, and is looking at some other options, but only as money is available. What we did was hang a second breaker box next to his existing breaker box and move certain circuits (based off of load requirements) to the new box and then tied that box to the inverters from the battery bank. As the batteries have been added, we have moved more circuits to his solar. At this point, a few of the larger 220V items stay on grid power (welders, mill, lathe, CNC router, etc...), but the rest of the house is on solar.
3. Emergency:
This would be more like the skid I posted a picture of, when thought of from a prepping standpoint. It's mobile, depending on size/batteries it can power critical items like comms, food storage, and others for several days without sun, and given the appropriate panel sizing, can then recharge quickly when set into the sun.
For that skid, a standard deep freeze will pull 5-6A (@120VAC) when running. Since you will have to have an inverter to get 120, lets assume it pulls another 2-3A for inefficiencies (high, but I always tend to make my assumptions high for a margin of error). So that means it will pull 9A while it is running, which means that if it runs for 24 hours, we will have a total draw of 216AH. So, a 1290AH battery bank, without breaking the 50% discharge point, could run your deep freeze for 3 days, without any sun. A more reasonable battery bank, at 645AH, would only run it for 1.5 days without harming the batteries.
Now, you figure in the panels, which 270-275W of panels (@12VDC) will provide 22.5A for every hour they are in the sun. I usually build my solar calculations off of 4 hours of sun for this area, which is low, but it leaves another margin of error built in. Obviously, 4 hours at 22.5A won't replenish 216A, so we would need a larger panel array. An additional 275W would add $225 (assuming shipped) to the cost. That means you would get 45A for every hour of sun, which means 4 hours would replenish the current used.
So, for $2225 (or roughly that), you can have an entire deep freeze of food that will stay frozen, even if the power is out for weeks.
Grant, thanks for sharing the good info and links.
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"When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law." -Frederic Bastiat
"I am a conservative. Quite possibly I am on the losing side; often I think so. Yet, out of a curious perversity I had rather lose with Socrates, let us say, than win with Lenin."
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my homemade junk;
Installed into a Rigid portable toolbox setup. A work still in progress.
88ah battery.
controller is cheapo, but will upgrade sometime. Still looking for a reasonable cost pure sine wave inverter.
Following
My second garage is now solar but on a smaller scale. I used to build my own panels 10-12 years ago and did nothing but dry camp. Just a game of adding it all up and learning to use it wisely. My Camper was set up with just a little over 100W of panels but carried 570AH or so of batteries. Built my own LED lighting as well. Never ran out of power. Nice update on the current situation Grant.
I see you running, tell me what your running from
Nobody's coming, what ya do that was so wrong.
was looking at this for sometime in the future in order to possibly power an off grid cabin, thoughts?
http://www.earthtechproducts.com/xan...-3-panels.html
doesn't look too bad, but then again I know little about this stuff!
That wouldn't be a bad little system to run a few small things with, my only complaint with that source of it is that I can buy the same parts (different but similar panels) for $1600 on Amazon right now, no shopping around to bring the price down.
That price can be brought down by sourcing some of the parts differently.
1. Instead of 2 12VDC 100AH batteries, get 2 6VDC 215AH batteries for just over the cost of 1 12V/100AH battery at Batteries Plus. They are golf cart batteries. Better life cycle expectancy, more storage (marginally), and cheaper.
2. The Xantrex name isn't bad, but there are equally good and better items out there for the same money.
2a. The Powerhub thing? Fancy replacement for an inverter. I can get a Bestek (reasonable quality, use one in my work truck everyday) 2000 Watt inverter for $180 on Amazon.
2b. Charger. Their chargers are fine, they work. I see them used frequently in the O/G world for AC charging of LARGE battery backups. The price point for this one ($100) is pretty hard to beat.
3. Shopping around for 300 watts of panels may very well yield a significantly better price. $.50/watt isn't unheard of right now.
So, built quickly as I would do it?
$330 - Panels: https://www.amazon.com/ECO-WORTHY-Po...r%2Bpanel&th=1
$100 - Charger: https://www.amazon.com/Xantrex-C35-C...rge+controller
$180 - Inverter: https://www.amazon.com/BESTEK-2000W-...Binverter&th=1
$200 - Batteries: https://www.batteriesplus.com/productdetails/sligc110
Total: $810+tax/shipping depending on where/when you buy. So around 35% of their price!
Just my thoughts!
Last edited by Grant H.; 10-25-2016 at 22:24.
Like most retail products, you can build your own, specialized for your specific needs, for probably a quarter of that price. Think of it like building a junkyard turbokit for Civic compared to buying a full kit from a speed shop, only without the junkyard parts.
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