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I am starting a solar project on my farm in Hawaii. I helped fund a Kickstarter campaign for Legion Solar and purchased 2kw of panels with micro inverters and a solar hub to monitor performance. Total investment so far is $3100 including delivery.
Hawaii has very expensive electric and I am not expecting to go completely off the grid, just reduce costs. We can lose power anywhere from a few minutes to many hours. One time after a storm we lost power for a couple days while crews came to fix a transformer for a few houses.
The micro inverters are awaiting UL1741 certification, however I am not at this time interested in supplying any power to the grid. The power company has numerous requirements which I prefer not to perform at this time. The system is plug-n-play and could be plugged into an outlet or wired into the service panel. I worked for an electrician so have background in wiring. I can do much of the work and have my electrician neighbor inspect it and ensure it is to code.
Since I have a farm, I can mount the panels at ground level and not have to roof mount them. This makes it a fully customer install-able system. I then plan upon having the panels feed one input to a transfer switch. The other input of the transfer switch would be power from a breaker from my panel. The switch would be controlled by a cheap micro computer or circuit I design. It would determine if the power drops off from the panels for any amount of time (heavy clouds or night) and switch the input to the utility and away from the panels.
I know you are thinking, that is fine BUT there will be times of no power to your load and that does not work well with computers, etc. I have that covered. The output of the transfer switch will be a UPS. The UPS will feed the computer, etc. So for the second to minutes it takes for the system to determine the panels are not coming back on line, the UPS keeps the load running with no glitches. I already have UPSs online to protect the TV and computers from surges and are $100 each, so the cost is not much compared to solar batteries, etc.
I also have a gas/propane generator in case of lengthy outage or hurricane so I think I am covered there too.
The system I got, twenty 100watt panels, with microinverters and a hub to monitor power from the panels. I think the savings from not having to roof mount anything, not having to comply with net-metering requirements here and not having to invest in costly batteries will help me save some money. My total electric cost per year has been about $1800 a year. That is for minimal usage of refrigerator, electric hot water, occasional oven use and drier, lights and TV, etc. That does not include heating or cooling which we don't really need here (we use a thing called windows to regulate temperature). Even during the 'winter' we can go outside in shorts an t-shirt (I know it is a horrible habit).
For those wondering, my total electric bill this month was $146.28 and including all taxes and fees covered usage of 442 KWH (I calculate that as 33 cents/KWH)
Anyway, I'd appreciate comments or suggestions to my plan. The panels are shipping soon.
Hawaii has very expensive electric and I am not expecting to go completely off the grid, just reduce costs. We can lose power anywhere from a few minutes to many hours. One time after a storm we lost power for a couple days while crews came to fix a transformer for a few houses.
The micro inverters are awaiting UL1741 certification, however I am not at this time interested in supplying any power to the grid. The power company has numerous requirements which I prefer not to perform at this time. The system is plug-n-play and could be plugged into an outlet or wired into the service panel. I worked for an electrician so have background in wiring. I can do much of the work and have my electrician neighbor inspect it and ensure it is to code.
Since I have a farm, I can mount the panels at ground level and not have to roof mount them. This makes it a fully customer install-able system. I then plan upon having the panels feed one input to a transfer switch. The other input of the transfer switch would be power from a breaker from my panel. The switch would be controlled by a cheap micro computer or circuit I design. It would determine if the power drops off from the panels for any amount of time (heavy clouds or night) and switch the input to the utility and away from the panels.
I know you are thinking, that is fine BUT there will be times of no power to your load and that does not work well with computers, etc. I have that covered. The output of the transfer switch will be a UPS. The UPS will feed the computer, etc. So for the second to minutes it takes for the system to determine the panels are not coming back on line, the UPS keeps the load running with no glitches. I already have UPSs online to protect the TV and computers from surges and are $100 each, so the cost is not much compared to solar batteries, etc.
I also have a gas/propane generator in case of lengthy outage or hurricane so I think I am covered there too.
The system I got, twenty 100watt panels, with microinverters and a hub to monitor power from the panels. I think the savings from not having to roof mount anything, not having to comply with net-metering requirements here and not having to invest in costly batteries will help me save some money. My total electric cost per year has been about $1800 a year. That is for minimal usage of refrigerator, electric hot water, occasional oven use and drier, lights and TV, etc. That does not include heating or cooling which we don't really need here (we use a thing called windows to regulate temperature). Even during the 'winter' we can go outside in shorts an t-shirt (I know it is a horrible habit).
For those wondering, my total electric bill this month was $146.28 and including all taxes and fees covered usage of 442 KWH (I calculate that as 33 cents/KWH)
Anyway, I'd appreciate comments or suggestions to my plan. The panels are shipping soon.
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