Northwest Ohio, I need help designing system

[J.P.M.]

I admit having the panels first was a backward approach. Long story, but that is where I am at. Is it a good idea to avail myself of the design capabilities of various suppliers to get ideas?

IMO only, no. At least not without more knowledge of how things work.
Reads like you did the "Ready, Fire, Aim" thing.
If you want a safe, well engineered and cost effective system that's serviceable, don't avail yourself of anything more than your own ability to educate yourself to the point where you dig yourself out of the knowledge hole you're in and can understand everything any vendor is proposing from start to finish.
Consumer ignorance is a peddler's nirvana.
Start your education with a read of "Solar Power Your Home for Dummies", a free online PDF. A bit dated, but lots of basic stuff you'll need to know.

[gary c]

As a follow up to my post asking for help. We have 32 540 watt bifacial panels ground mount. Sol-ark 15 and 4 EG4 batteries. I have things set so the sol-ark uses panels, then batteries , then the grid. No grid feedback. Been running since Aug 8th. Thru Oct we were 100% solar. In Nov and so far in Dec. we had kicked to the grid 3 times. Northwest Ohio is often really cloudy. With 17Kwh of panel we get enough generation on all but the cloudiest days. I talking 100% cloud cover with a cloud ceiling of 1000 ft for several days in a row.. It has worked without a hitch. We will stay on the grid for now but could have done just fine with generator backup so far. I'm getting lazy since I turned 70.

[Rade]

Well, it sounds like you local energy CoOp really has your hands tied. Would you be able to install, say, as private wind turbine to augment the solar? It might be enough to generate sustaining and charging power during the low sun seasons. Just a thought. I see them on the farms all around Westport MA, used to keep the heaters and lights on around the properties.

[gary c]

With 17k of panels we have good generation even on cloudy days. 20-30% still gets the batteries up to 100% in 7 hrs or by the end of the day. Where we are falling short is with long nights needing 15 hrs of battery use we are under batteried. We have 4 EG4s and kick to the grid at about 3 in the morning. 2 more batteries would get us through comfortably. Of course there are those Northwest Ohio days of 1000 ft, 100% cloud cover where we would have to run a generator, if we weren't grid collected. But that would have only been for a couple of times for 3-4 hrs.