Solar System Update

My Off-Grid Electricity Journey

We started with a very small, simple system. That way we wouldn’t fry too many expensive components if a mistake was made. Now that we’ve learned and have become more comfortable, there are plans to add more power!

The solar array is growing!

The Basics

Essentially a solar-powered system needs 4 parts. Panels, a controller, storage, and an inverter.

• Panels catch the sun and make it into wild electricity.

• The Controller tames the electricity into something the batteries can store safely.

• Batteries store electricity until you need it.

• An Inverter converts it into higher voltage power that your appliances use.

There are other ways to do it - for example, you can bypass batteries altogether on a bright day but once the sun goes down, there is no stored power to use.

Witchcraft and Voodoo

I’ve mentioned before, I don’t understand electricity that well. It’s still largely ‘witchcraft and voodoo’ to me, but I’ll explain things to the best of my knowledge.

A big limitation is how much wattage your inverter puts out. Wattage is a way of measuring the electricity being used at any given moment. Things which create heat are huge consumers of power and demand higher wattage. Check it out! Most of your home appliances say on them what wattage they might demand. Coffee maker, air fryer, blow dryer, vacuum, etc.

Power Supply: 1700W - thats a lot of oomph!

The New Inverter

My original system was itty bitty - only 500W. I could keep the wifi going, and charge my devices and batteries for power tools. The new inverter is 1000W. That’s still not much by ‘normal’ standards. Most heating elements are out of the question- however, I can now use kitchen appliances like a food processor, a vacuum, a hand mixer, and a sander. Not at the same time.

You can check out where our solar-powered journey began here:

Solar Power ⚡️

More Panels

On dark winter days my 400W array of panels catches almost nothing. Curt thought of a solution - it was right under our noses. We have three solar water pumps which came with their own 200W panels and controllers. During the summer they pumped water from the spring, but for the winter we’d put them away. He added the water pump panels to the main system and, magic! Another 600 Watts of panels keep the batteries always full and we only ran out of power once last winter.

When the sun goes down, the house gets quite dark!

A Brighter Future

Now that the sun is stronger and the days are longer, the panels make more electricity than the batteries can hold. Luckily, the charge controllers ensure that the batteries don’t get overcharged. Since we’ve gradually learned how it all works and how to assemble solar-powered systems, it’s time to add more batteries and bright LED indoor lights!

Currently, we have four batteries in our 12V system. Their capacity is measured in amp hours, and that’s where I start to get lost. It’s been explained to me, I’m just waiting for my ‘lightbulb moment’. Pun intended.
I want to double the batteries. Like having extra gas stored, extra power in the batteries will be handy in winter.

The Goal

My hope isn’t to have as much electricity as a regular house. For me, being off-grid is a lifestyle. I like drying my laundry on the line. Being methodical and using it minimally. With some tweaks, this will likely be as big as I want the system to get.

1,000W of panels with controllers, 8 batteries, a 1,000 watt inverter.

When I feel like using tons of power I can fire up the generator.
For example, when Curt feels like rocking the mountains with his electric guitar!