We also setup our own off-grid solar system, almost 4 years ago now. The cost was much lower due to lower import fees and lack of regulations where I live, it was altogether somewhere between $3-4k total, for 16 panels, mounting rack, inverter (with backup inverter), mptt, 12 acid-lead batteries, etc.. We saved so much money, and fewer headaches, since state electricity only came around 5-6h a day and people relied on scammy-mafia generator providers that ask for insane prices.
Building my own solar power system
91–100 of 355 posts
Re: Building my own solar power system
#92I did build my own solar system too. In Switzerland. Took me 1-2 month planning and then 3 month building it alone nearly each day. Sept 2023 til Xmas 2023. Got all the hardware from a PV dealer friend on his purchase price level. Even 24 panels I have put myself alone onto the roof. With two persons it was a bit better. I've got: 420w x 71 Trina solar panels and two SolarEdge inverters. SE10K Hybrid and a SE17k. Als…
What do you do with that much electricity? Was it necessary to over-dimension for winter?
If you have an EV that can be charged only at night, a big battery is required.
Re: Building my own solar power system
#93I have a solar system in my house in london. 5kw, 13kwhr battery. I am self sufficient from end of march to october. I recently got a second hand electric car. I bought an EV plug (total fucking ripoff. its a fucking plug with a contactor, RCD and a CAN interface. no way is that worth fucking £600) It has some basic control to allow me to charge from excess solar. What is not easy to do is charge at night without dra…
If your electrical installation allows it: You can connect your ev plug before the battery so that it does not drain the battery. You can do this by placing the fuse/connection before the measurement clamps for the battery. Somewhere in between your mains connection and your battery/solar system.
This way the battery does not see the load and does not provide power to your EV.
That way you can still use excess solar (before you inject it into the mains) to charge your car + you do not pull power from your battery :)
Re: Building my own solar power system
#94I did build my own solar system too. In Switzerland. Took me 1-2 month planning and then 3 month building it alone nearly each day. Sept 2023 til Xmas 2023. Got all the hardware from a PV dealer friend on his purchase price level. Even 24 panels I have put myself alone onto the roof. With two persons it was a bit better. I've got: 420w x 71 Trina solar panels and two SolarEdge inverters. SE10K Hybrid and a SE17k. Als…
What do you do with that much electricity? Was it necessary to over-dimension for winter?
I would also be interested in the reasoning here!
Just for comparisons sake, our 8.6kwP setup with a 10kwH battery cost us (after subsidies from governemnt) appr. ~€11.5k. Haven't received all the subsidies yet, so the total will be lower by about 1.5k (I think). Everything was done through installers, we didn't lift a finger (also couldn't, because when it comes to electricity I have as much experience as the dog next door).
If I had more due diligence before I would have scaled up the panels up to at least 10kwP, for future proofing probably to 12kwP. This is mostly just to make sure winter is covered better, as our production is really low as we have a 10° flat roof installation.
Re: Building my own solar power system
#95I have a solar system in my house in london. 5kw, 13kwhr battery. I am self sufficient from end of march to october. I recently got a second hand electric car. I bought an EV plug (total fucking ripoff. its a fucking plug with a contactor, RCD and a CAN interface. no way is that worth fucking £600) It has some basic control to allow me to charge from excess solar. What is not easy to do is charge at night without dra…
Midnight Solar are the OG company in off grid and they have a "waste not" feature from way back that triggers any device when the parameters you set are reached, ie: float voltage, and/or other things, like a second set point where power would be sent to a third load, like the grid or water heating.
https://www.midnitesolar.com/
hard core techies, even had the pleasure of detailing my inadvertant and unsucessfull attempts to melt one of there controlers.......literaly had a main lug get loose, and the panels arc melted the lug to slag, and it lived.
in any case, there web site has a wealth of info on what is possible, and to look for elsewhere
Re: Building my own solar power system
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well problem in the UK is that in summer there is like a magnitude more power from PV then in winter.
I personally feel there should be more allowance for small personal wind generators in sub-urban areas. That would offset a bit at least in winter for places like the UK. Not sure what the actual laws are, but I can assume councils wont be too happy about someone putting one up on their home.
They barely produce anything at all. You really need a bigger one and putting it very high up for it to generate any real power.
Re: Building my own solar power system
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
- Subsidy starts: prices drop. - Greed kicks in because capitalism: prices rise again, maybe not back to pre-subsidy levels, but they rise. - Subsidy gets axed: prices rise to above pre-subsidy levels. (Note: I'm personally entirely pro "subsidize things you want more of". But that requires a stable, trustworthy government that plans on longer timescales.)
Sounds like a situation where there's not enough competition. the Netherlands had a net-metering subsidiy + good competition + frictionless install and as a result we have 3,5 solar panels per person installed.
Or price fixing.
Re: Building my own solar power system
#98forget the technology, what is that gorgeous snake-like plant in the picture by the blue stairs? I need that
Not sure if the identification by the PlantNet is the correct one, but you may check [1]Asparagus aethiopicus 1 https://www.backyardboss.net/asparagus-fern-guide/
Thank you, I think that's the one!
Re: Building my own solar power system
#99> I have a rack in the garage that pulls a little less than 1kw. That’s 1kw 24/7/365
This is insane. And here I am shutting down nightly the drives in my synology to save 20W.
Re: Building my own solar power system
#100I did build my own solar system too. In Switzerland. Took me 1-2 month planning and then 3 month building it alone nearly each day. Sept 2023 til Xmas 2023. Got all the hardware from a PV dealer friend on his purchase price level. Even 24 panels I have put myself alone onto the roof. With two persons it was a bit better. I've got: 420w x 71 Trina solar panels and two SolarEdge inverters. SE10K Hybrid and a SE17k. Als…
What do you do with that much electricity? Was it necessary to over-dimension for winter?
Of course it is a bit oversized.
We’re living in a big river valley where we have fog from October until March. On some days in November the fog is so dense that the whole system does not produce any kind of energy. On the other days the produced kWh are enough to charge the battery.
We have a heat pump (extrem efficient), servers, one electric car, etc which consumes all together around 13MWh per year. The solar system produces around 27.5MWh. Most of the energy gets fed back into the grid.
We’re currently investigating to connect the neighbour houses physically to us. But that takes even more time here :-(