What Solar Charger, Battery and Inversor should I Use ?

[cindynsg]

BAD IDEA.

Adding new batteries to a bank, will quickly degrade the new batteries to the level of the oldest. If only a month or so apart, not too bad. Over 6 months age difference, NOT SUGGESTED.

Ok, so theretically if I use 21 Kwhs per day but I can only afford to power about 12 Kwhs per day on solar but want to step it up over time (a year - 1.5 years) I would be better off getting enough batteries to hold the amphrs I need on 21 Kwh system? I might as well just take the house off grid all at once?

[Mike90250]

Ok, so theretically if I use 21 Kwhs per day but I can only afford to power about 12 Kwhs per day on solar but want to step it up over time (a year - 1.5 years) I would be better off getting enough batteries to hold the amphrs I need on 21 Kwh system? I might as well just take the house off grid all at once?

Yikes !! 21KWH daily. That's a massive system. Better check your #'s and make sure that is what you need, conservation of power, will pay off in the long run, in the price of panels not bought, and batteries not needed.

[cindynsg]

I looked through bills over the last year and a half and figured my average was around 21 kw a day. My water heater, cloths dryer, and stove run on gas. I have a 46 inch high def tv I use for about 4 or 5 hours tops. My fridgerator uses 1.4 kw a day. I use a couple of lamps but they have cfl bulbs and only use them for 4 hours max. I have a laptop with an energy star rating in fact manyof my electrical appliances are energy star rated. I think what drives up my usage is my furnace. I burn wood but it has a blower fan for forced hot air. I adjusted it to come on when it's a bit hotter so I see how that helps. I don't use very many things in a day and am careful to turn off any lights and the like when i'm not using them. I uses much less than what I did years ago when I had kids running around. I can't figure out much else I can do to save on electric. I live ina big two hundred year old house with five bedrooms mostly used for storage now. Ive spent my whole life here making repairs and updates and I love the six and a half acres I live on, so I wouldn't have the heart to sell it and move into somthing smaller, even if it would help with electric.

I read an earlier thread about the guy who uses 39 kw a day, I thought 21 wasn't too bad compared to that. So give me a goal to shoot for, how many kwh a day would be considered good? I will try to tighten my belt a bit more.

Oh, I don't plan on running the furnace on solar.

[cindynsg]

The are not as efficient. you can loose 30% of your power in internal losses. Solar deep cycle batteries are better efficiency, about 20%. AGM batteries even better, about 3-5%, and no EQ needed.

You mean like surrette or trojan. I didn't like the idea of AGM because they seem to be more sensitive, more easily ruined by a rookie. Also a bit more costly.


this was supposed to go to anothed thread, i don;t kow how it got here. computer issues lately.

[Mike90250]

21KWH is way too much, you will need 7-8KW of solar to even begin to supply that! You have to get a watt meter (kill-a-watt) and measure. Unless your fridge is a recent EnergyStar one, you are likely more than 1.4KW daily. Measure the fridge for 3 or 4 days, get a good average. Same with TV, sat convertrer, cable box, DSL modem. Look for phantom loads, 30W @ 24/7 is a bunch of power. Add in a couple of those, and it adds up.

Friend Tony, off-grid, with his wife, on an island in Canada:
300 watts Siemens/BP panels,plus a Sun 90,, making ~300w. ~30 amps into Rogue MPT-3024 controller,into 450 ah of Trojan T-105, powering a Morningstar ts300 inverter, and monitored with a Tri-Metric meter.a collection of antique generators, plus 2 Honda eu-1000i's (propane fridge)

[cindynsg]

yeah, I just got a kw meter (killawatt) thats what I used to measure the fridge. I measured it for 3 days.

[cindynsg]

I don' have an SAT converter, cable box, or a dsl modem, I don't have much at all. Not much more than what I told you. What I could do is maybe not have to use fridge in winter. I spent the summer building a cold cellar which is almost ready. I will stay around 33 degrees in cold months.

I will search around for a phantom load perhaps some things plugged in are using more energy than I thought even though they are not used.