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  • #16
    When you mention the happy wife syndrome I cringe. Living off grid inherently requires a lifestyle change. Some folks are happy and willing to make that change but some folks have no interest in that lifestyle change and they will resent it if imposed on them. If you cant get natural gas in the street, buy yourself a bulk diesel tank and a good quality generator and you can run for weeks for far less hassle. I have mixed feeling about a quiet generator, sure it helps with sanity but even a generator has load limitations and hearing it runs leaves not so subtle reminder that loads need to be planned.

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    • #17
      Originally posted by peakbagger View Post
      When you mention the happy wife syndrome I cringe. Living off grid inherently requires a lifestyle change. Some folks are happy and willing to make that change but some folks have no interest in that lifestyle change and they will resent it if imposed on them. If you cant get natural gas in the street, buy yourself a bulk diesel tank and a good quality generator and you can run for weeks for far less hassle. I have mixed feeling about a quiet generator, sure it helps with sanity but even a generator has load limitations and hearing it runs leaves not so subtle reminder that loads need to be planned.
      The big thing it needn't take a huge change in lifestyle to reduce your power usage substantially. It just takes a bit of thought and care. I had a friend who asked me to look at helping them go offgrid even though they were connected to the grid. The first thing we did was an energy audit, this audit showed up inefficient devices using more power than they should and equipment that was being left on unnecessarily. The only lifestyle change we came up with was to get rid of the electric clothes drier. By changing two energy inefficient fridges with one larger efficient model, replacing the airconditioner with a more energy efficient one and making sure that equipment is turned off if it is not in used we dropped their energy consumption from around 15kWh/day to around 5kWh/day. The cost of the changes was around $3,000 and the savings on there power bills were around $1,000 per annum. I have convinced them that it is not worthwhile to go offgrid and they have instead installed solar panels and a grid tied inverter. Their power bills are now around zero even though they pay around $0.25/kWh and their feedin tariff is $0.08/kWh.

      In our case we actually use more power since we moved from our house on the grid to our off grid house in the country but now all our cooking in summer is electric and in winter wood and electric.

      Simon

      Off grid 24V system, 6x190W Solar Panels, 32x90ah Winston LiFeYPO4 batteries installed April 2013
      BMS - Homemade Battery logger https://github.com/simat/BatteryMonitor
      Latronics 4kW Inverter, homemade MPPT controller

      Off-Grid LFP(LiFePO4) system since April 2013

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      • #18
        Trying to catch up on all the questions comments from my original post...I may try this backwards...

        As far as the happy wife comment - its not as bad as its sounds. Our plans to move and the location/home we are going to is a full joint decision. My real meaning behind that is that although we will be living a simpler lifestyle without all the "stuff" we have today we still want to have some basic comforts of home and some of those will be required as we both work from home a fair amount. Nuff said on that...

        "Which batteries are you thinking of using as part of the $38,000?" - I'm trying to get additional details on these but the current proposed batteries are "Qty 3 Ex-Energy LiFePo4 48V 240Ah battery pack and BMS". Thx karrak, I'll review that post to look at the system that steveg has put together - looks like a lot of good info.

        I got the same responses to my Powerwall 2 questions - no clue when it will be available in our area and no detailed spec's as to if it will be an option for off-grid systems.

        I have looked at the Honda generators. I'm having the house wired for a generator but I'm thinking about holding off on purchasing anything until I'm there and using the system for a bit to really understand my requirements for a gen. I know I'll need one. My installer is recommending at least a 5kw generator. Ideally if I could get away with something like the Honda 2000i and the companion unit it would be useful as I can tote them around the property for other projects and not just for backing up the panels.

        "When you say 6.12Kw, is that the PV array size, inverter size, or battery?" That's my PV size. I worked up my list of appliances, lights etc and ran them though a few different installers and they were all in the 5 to 6.5Kw range for a system. I'm spec'd....more like hoping for 2-3 days of reserve in the batteries. To be honest I won't be 100% sure until we get in the house and start adjusting from our current 61 kWh/Day usage down to sub 22kWh/day....yeah don't laugh..

        One good thing about this process is that it really opens your eyes as to how much energy you use and waste.

        So how do we plan on cutting our usage down to a third of our current consumption? Well first we sell off one child...actually they moved out on their own... next

        Switch from electric to LP (no natural gas lines in the area): hot water heater, electric oven and dryer.
        Downsize from a 28 cubic foot fridge to about 12
        Eliminate: The air conditioner, dishwasher, pool/pool pump and hot tube.
        Switch to all LED lighting, and wire all outlets with switches to drop phantom loads when things like TV's and kitchen appliances aren't in use.
        I should also mention that the house size is dropping by about 25%, the construction is insulated panels wrapped in concrete (www.gctm2.com) and the climate is mild so I'm not concerned about not having AC and don't have to worry about snow. Hopefully our calculations are close, if not we either cut back some more or upgrade the system but hopefully we are close to covering our needs...

        I'm looking into options for net-metering and if that might help reduce the need for as much battery capacity and help offset the cost ($22K) of connecting.

        ...that's a lot of info. I do really appreciate everyone's comments and feedback...these discussions help take some of the mystery out of the entire process.
        Last edited by cgofish; 11-30-2016, 08:27 AM.

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        • #19
          Originally posted by cgofish View Post
          Trying to catch up on all the questions comments from my original post...I may try this backwards...

          As far as the happy wife comment - its not as bad as its sounds. Our plans to move and the location/home we are going to is a full joint decision. My real meaning behind that is that although we will be living a simpler lifestyle without all the "stuff" we have today we still want to have some basic comforts of home and some of those will be required as we both work from home a fair amount. Nuff said on that...

          "Which batteries are you thinking of using as part of the $38,000?" - I'm trying to get additional details on these but the current proposed batteries are "Qty 3 Ex-Energy LiFePo4 48V 240Ah battery pack and BMS". Thx karrak, I'll review that post to look at the system that steveg has put together - looks like a lot of good info.

          I got the same responses to my Powerwall 2 questions - no clue when it will be available in our area and no detailed spec's as to if it will be an option for off-grid systems.

          I have looked at the Honda generators. I'm having the house wired for a generator but I'm thinking about holding off on purchasing anything until I'm there and using the system for a bit to really understand my requirements for a gen. I know I'll need one. My installer is recommending at least a 5kw generator. Ideally if I could get away with something like the Honda 2000i and the companion unit it would be useful as I can tote them around the property for other projects and not just for backing up the panels.

          "When you say 6.12Kw, is that the PV array size, inverter size, or battery?" That's my PV size. I worked up my list of appliances, lights etc and ran them though a few different installers and they were all in the 5 to 6.5Kw range for a system. I'm spec'd....more like hoping for 2-3 days of reserve in the batteries. To be honest I won't be 100% sure until we get in the house and start adjusting from our current 61 kWh/Day usage down to sub 22kWh/day....yeah don't laugh..

          One good thing about this process is that it really opens your eyes as to how much energy you use and waste.

          So how do we plan on cutting our usage down to a third of our current consumption? Well first we sell off one child...actually they moved out on their own... next

          Switch from electric to LP (no natural gas lines in the area): hot water heater, electric oven and dryer.
          Downsize from a 28 cubic foot fridge to about 12
          Eliminate: The air conditioner, dishwasher, pool/pool pump and hot tube.
          Switch to all LED lighting, and wire all outlets with switches to drop phantom loads when things like TV's and kitchen appliances aren't in use.
          I should also mention that the house size is dropping by about 25%, the construction is insulated panels wrapped in concrete (www.gctm2.com) and the climate is mild so I'm not concerned about not having AC and don't have to worry about snow. Hopefully our calculations are close, if not we either cut back some more or upgrade the system but hopefully we are close to covering our needs...

          I'm looking into options for net-metering and if that might help reduce the need for as much battery capacity and help offset the cost ($22K) of connecting.

          ...that's a lot of info. I do really appreciate everyone's comments and feedback...these discussions help take some of the mystery out of the entire process.
          I would investigate a whole house generator that runs off of bottle or LP gas. They usually have a better efficient rating then the Honda's and can be installed in a sound proof (or sound limiting) enclosure. Also getting a large tank installed will allow you to run both gas fired appliances as well as the gen set.

          Just something to think about that might help reduce the size of a battery system and the cost that goes with it.

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          • #20
            We do plan on having one or two 100lb LP tanks for cooking, on demand hot water and the dryer so I was looking to use LP for the generator as well. I'm seeing many of the standard backup units available aren't warrantied for off-grid but I still need to do more digging. I've been looking at the typical Kohler, Generacs and Cummins LP units. I see Generac has their Ecogen 15KW off grid unit but that seems like overkill for what I need. I did see that there are some third party LP converters for the Honda generators also.

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            • #21
              Originally posted by cgofish View Post
              We do plan on having one or two 100lb LP tanks for cooking, on demand hot water and the dryer so I was looking to use LP for the generator as well. I'm seeing many of the standard backup units available aren't warrantied for off-grid but I still need to do more digging. I've been looking at the typical Kohler, Generacs and Cummins LP units. I see Generac has their Ecogen 15KW off grid unit but that seems like overkill for what I need. I did see that there are some third party LP converters for the Honda generators also.
              Yeah. Honda does make a converter for LP which I have heard is not a bad option. I have not seen one in action but it may be something to look into for long duration use. I just don't remember what the manufacture recommends for continuous duty in hours.

              Remember the gas tanks on the small units are sized for a certain number of hours of running for a reason. They want you to let the unit cool down before you refill it so you do not over heat some of the components in the combustion section. You have to check the specs on how long you can run the gen before you have to let it cool down and how many hours before you have to overhaul it for a rebuild. That all comes down to price and quality.

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