Why Solar Electric Water Heater is Best Method
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- In this installment, I explain WHY heating water with electricity is BETTER than using a dedicated solar water heater for Off-Grid living. I know this goes against the grain of conventional thinking, but you'll see why it really is much better.
This video is 5 years old but it is still as relevant today as it was then. You could add to the list of reasons why electric solar hot water heating is better. For instance, you don't have to run plumbing from outside to inside, just electrical wire. You don't have to worry about freezing in the winter and winterizing the plumbing lines because you don't have any. You don't have to worry about leaks and protrusions in your wall cavity or other hard-to-reach places, all things that you tend to deal with when Plumbing.
I’ve been doing this for a while too and completely agree - batteries have been exoensive and complicate things - now I cool the fridge down when the sun is shining and insulate the heck out of it, so it can stay off over night and everything in the freezer is still frozen in the morning....over-insulate the hot water storage as well...finally, pump water to an elevated storage tank with a solar/no battery pump and feed everything by gravity
I found the thinking I was looking for. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiences. At 58 years old I still believe you learn from others when you listen.
I think this guy has spot on thoughts. I've been looking into solarwater heating elements and truth to be told, they're really cheap these days at least were I live. But then again I've been thinking about practical way to install it. There it begins. Fairly heavy module install on good location. Then plumbing problems and circulation for reservoir. Now these are real problems and costly ones too. Where I live we can have very freezing cold and snowy winters, so installing is very demanding compared to other regions. I've always thought that it would be a big hassle to make it fully reliable system with all the connections through walls etc. heck even to control reliably possibly boiling water in case of excessive heat. Now just recently I've realized that electric panels are getting cheaper and it doesn't take much to figure out that using panels even for only heating water reservoir would make so much more sense. It would be so much more convenient to do simple electric wiring. Heck it would be convenient in future to ie. charge electric cars battery to "waste" excessive power.
at last ,a practical thinker! thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much for the compliment!
@@OffGridLivingSteve I love your thinking. Been looking for such an explanation. It just never made sense to dedicate solar panels to 1 device or buying an expensive direct sunlight geyser when we can use power from solar panels to do exactly that.
Im an excavating contractor, delt with wind and solar over the years. We have a hobby farm...you speak exactly like how I think....thank you!!! I just recently learned about DC powered elements.Live in central oregon. Just now getting off grid as much as possible. Located H20 heat exchangers that replace electric elements from used furnace. Put smaller fan in, use hot water furnace. It all makes sense. The DC power hot water elements will allow us to make all our hot water needs and help in back up space heating. I bring home lots of pine logs from lot clearing. Wood is main heat source.
Hi, could you share more about the heat exchangers? I want to heat my shop and home with dc hot water via heat exchangers.
I'm just now coming across this video and grateful for this channel! Thank you!
@@BarbaraInspires17 Happy to have you along. I'm sorry I haven't made any videos in so long
Finally someone who speaks my language..you're a champion
Finally I have found someone who thinks like me....first time I subscribe to someone's channel
Thank you for joining me!
You came as a recommendation a damn good recommendation from TH-cam I was looking for something similar and now I am 100 per cent sold on the idea of powering a water heater with solar thank you so very much for your time
Thank you sir!
Don’t forget that JUST heating hot water is not getting you the max advantage.
Great video Steve, both content and delivery! Great to see REAL outside the box thinking
I agree, best practical advice I have seen so far.
Love the advice on not getting a solar thermal water heater! and using PV w/ a heater! awesome thx
Offgrid Steve..... Brilliant thank you. I've been researching which way is better. Thank you for putting up straight up videos! I greatly appreciate you!!!!!
Fair and Honest Video Reviews thank you so much - happy to have you along!
I was expecting this guy to start singing islands in the stream at any moment. Good video.
Man. You just have opened my eyes to the obvious in front of me. Why I haven’t thought of that. Thank you.
Steve, well said as all your points make sense and are logically thought through and explained. It makes complete sense and to compliment your system a device called an immersun will supply any excess PV to your resistive heater then when the thermostat reaches the required temp and stops demand then the immersun has the ability to output another load to what ever appliance is next on the list for storage of excess PV production. Once my battery system is full and then when my water heater reaches its required temp, my neighbour will be receiving my excess as a gift because their nice people and I can help out when the sun shines down on us all.
Brilliant. Thank you for this video. I was on the solar hot water heating path. Not any more.
I remember waking up to that new path myself like yesterday. Thanks for that great word!
Hi Steve.
Here in the Bahamas, love your ideas. I'm living off grid with a 2.4kw mpp pip system with 4 12v 100amp lithium ion batteries and it works great.
Thanks for your videos
James Edwards thanks for that feedback brother!
@@OffGridLivingSteve
Awesome work, I think that I'm going to follow you and experiment with the mpp pip 5000 watt that requires a step down transformer. The mpp is half the price as the split phase, so with that $750 I can easily justify the cost of the step down transformer with savings
Great job my brother.
Now I watched ti all : Thank for sharing your experience.
I’ve been looking for info on this all afternoon. Yours was the best. Subscribed. I’m prepping to go off the grid in San Diego. Solar, septic, well water, bio diesel, chickens, and garden.
Get a hybrid water. It uses 85% less electricity! I have a new video on living off grid really channel about the new hybrids. Now o have enough electricity to charge an electric car
Good morning Steve enjoying a cup of coffee and your video. Good job. I am a pro HVAC with a lot of spare used parts, tubing, etc. lying around. I plan on making a heat pump water heater. Basically your idea, but 2 to 3 times more efficient. It has been done before it just isn’t gonna cost me $3000.
Good morning! Actually I moved to Hawaii and installed a Rheem hybrid water heater. Now I get all the hot water I need and the water heater uses less than 400 watts of power! But if you can build one, my hat’s off to ya. Those things are awesome.
Well Done You're what makes America Great !
Russell thank you sir!
This is the easiest explanation I've seen yet. Thank you.
Sandra Winter Thank you!!
Good stuff Steve. I recently came to the same conclusion. Solid advice. Much appreciated.
Thank you very much!
I agree and am doing it now! I have an at point 13 gallon 120volt ac water heater which has power and temperature controls being run by my 700 watts worth of solar panels,60amp MPPT and one 100amp hr.12v battle born battery. I set the temperature to max and power setting to low which is 200 watts. By the time I get home from work on a sunny day the water temperature is 145 degrees which is enough hot water for two showers.
People can laugh all they want, but you are 100% spot on. PV panels are cheaper in the long run than the old fashioned evacuation tube or flat panel--plus you can have more than hot water. It's a joke that people still purchase the water systems. Plus, the price for PV panels will only go down. Good Job!
Thanks for the advice about hot water. I was on the fence and you had some excellent points.
Thank you. The new hybrid water heaters are game changers. You should check them out. I did a review for an AO Smith hybrid water heater off grid on the new channel.
totally agree, I did the same to heat my water (used 8 250w panels) didn't have to change electric heater o run pipes around, (the first version I had used ultracapacitors as batter, a total of 24 capacitor 3000F it wordked ok but no storage for rainy days...)
thanks again mr robertson,....another piece to my hot water project,..which by the way is my first in solar use,....i still need to do some calculations for panels and batteries and figure out something for a dump load but thanks to your experience and ideas i will have a good model to work from,....thanks again for your time
Steve, you are right on the money about electric hot water. Electric hot water is the best. In the winter all my solar heater is good for is feeding my automatic ice cube making machine lol. I love your video's, thumbs up.
excellent Steve, thanks so much for taking the time to upload this information
+jizpillow Thank you.
Steve, I do understand where you're coming from. Controlling electricity is far easier than controlling solar thermal. But my three 20-tube evacuated-tube panels can generate up to 15,000 Btu/hr while only taking up 83 sq. ft. (roughly 5.5 ft x 15 ft). Imagine how large a PV array I would need to do this. My PV array is about 220 sq. ft. and puts out 2.8 kW. Simply put, solar thermal outperforms PV on a square foot basis. There's no comparison.
If your needs for hot water are modest, yes, a PV array can do the job. And easily. No argument there.
Great videos!
Oops, forgot to translate 15,000 Btu/hr into kW. My solar thermal panels are putting out roughly 4.4 kW in only 83 sq. ft.
To top it off the "new" pvc tube solar mats for domestic hot water heating use about 10% of the cost in raw materials of the old copper and glass panels, but guess what? They charge more for these than the old ones. They say the transfer process is "more efficient". Defies everything I thought I knew about the efficiency of energy transfer loss. Thanks for this video. Very helpful.
Well done, nicely stated!
Brad Cochrane thank you sir.
I've seen 160F water from my solar pool heater this summer. I've put up a pool this year just to play with it and see what it can do. 2 weeks of overcast/rainy weather and the tiny pool is just room temperature. works amazing in full sun, but without full sun it's near useless. I think even if I were to insulate the heater, it still wouldn't do much for me in the winter, in pennsylvania. I like your approach.
Ouch. Pennsylvania is probably pretty cruel to any solar setup in the winter. Thanks for the thumbs up, Pete!
Ive been considering building a solar thermal heater for a couple years now, and like you have seen plenty of time wasting experiments that might work well on the sunny summer day they filmed it on, or interesting builds with no test results-I had to laugh when you said "lets put that one to rest" thanks for clearing that up.
Glad you liked it. Thanks for joining me!
Good information and very practical! Obviously endless scenarios that could alter the equation but electricity is clearly most universal and flexible.
Love the concept of no plumbing freezing up. I wonder about dumping DC directly into a heating element, the lower voltage would not allow much power into a 240/120 element though. So the el cheapo inverter makes sense.
You can dump the DC directly into the heating element, just make sure that voltage provided by the panels is exceeding or equals the voltage of the element.
Thanks for posting this and the entire series on load diversion. I've watched all of them, and now read through all of the comments, but more importantly, I've read through all of your responses to others and their questions.
You even previously answered the question that I'd asked a while back regarding switching DC with a standard upper thermostat.
*TL:DR = "Best method" is defined by the original poster, as the most cost-effective and reliable way to accomplish this task. And they're correct!*
It would appear that the questions, comments, and challenges on this fall into 3 different groups.
There are those who are actually trying to make ends meet either off-grid already, or moving in that direction, who are just thankful for some really good advice and some ideas that hadn't occurred to them before.
There are also a (small) group of people who are trying to make something out of nothing, or not enough of something to be practical or in some cases even possible. They've never done the math, and don't understand why they can't make do with whatever tiny system they have or can get their hands on, and produce the same results as a much more capable system would, but they'll probably end up spending much more on jury-rigging that, than they would on just buying a proven system.
Lastly, there are those who remember their high-school science class, and are certain that it's far more efficient to heat water directly from the sun, NOT with solar PV, and certainly NOT by conversion of DC into AC, just to convert back into heat, but they also either never took economics, or didn't do well in it, or they're treating this like a science experiment, instead of real life, where one's spouse will be highly disappointed with you when the hot water system breaks - AGAIN, or you can't afford ___________ because you ran out of money, but you've got a killer super efficient hot-water heating system... This group is probably mostly made up of armchair quarterbacks or "keyboard" warriors, who have no desire or intention of actually putting any of this into action, but they'll debate it on the internet any day of the week.
The first group typically will have their "eureka" moments, maybe leave a thankful comment, and go on to improve their own lot in life with the new found information. The second group generally will be asking for help to get what they're doing to work as well as what the OP is doing, even though they aren't doing the same thing, or anywhere close to it, and don't really want to, for various reasons. The last group will keep insisting that you're doing it wrong, or could/should be doing it better, if you'd only do it differently (their way), even though odds are, they've never actually tried doing what they're trying to talk you into doing themselves, much less paid for the parts to try doing it.
The first group need no further mention, they've got a handle on things. To the second group, in a nutshell, you can't get blood from a rock, no matter how much you try or want it to work, so until you understand enough to get the numbers to work in your favor, you probably don't want to plunk down real money on an unproven or untested design, unless you had cash to blow on it that you're willing to write off as the cost of education, if things don't work out the way you wanted. To the last group, you're absolutely correct! It is NOT as efficient to heat water indirectly, as it would be to heat water directly from solar, but it's far more COST-EFFECTIVE, and enough so, that hands-down, it will give you more hot water for less money, and at least to those of us not made out of money, it will leave us with much MORE money in the long run, while still having hot water in the process!
If you define "Best method" as most efficient, that's great, as long as the only thing you care about, is most efficient production of hot water, but that only does a body good as long as they actually have water that needs to be heated - once the water is all gone, or all hot, the science experiment/party trick is over, and if/when it breaks down, not just anyone can come along and fix it, even if it was the most efficient and elegant science experiment in the world.
Any handyman or plumber can fix this design, with readily available low-cost parts, even if you're away on a 2-week hunting trip, off visiting other family, etc., and you don't end up in the dog house because you weren't there when some overly complicated or non-standard system broke down, or the parts needed to repair it are on back-order for the next 3 weeks, and your water is cold until then. I can come up with a functional DC load switching diversion, and build the circuits between Digi-Key and Mouser Electronics, but after adding in the value of my time vs. just putting together something that works reliably, I'm forced to agree with the OP idea of "Best method".
(continued from above)
I would suggest to the OP, that their views on batteries may be a bit out of date from 6 years ago, because while IMO, batteries are still the most expensive part of most folks off-grid power systems, LiFePO4 batteries have come down in price enough to be truly contenders for off-grid power, vs. old-school lead-acid batteries. The OP mentioned at one point, that they had only a 400 Ah battery system. It's not clear to me if that's 400 Ah at 48 volts DC, or at 12 volts DC (such as having the equivalent of 4 x 100 Ah 12 Vdc batteries in series for a 100 Ah 48 Vdc system, or ???)
Doing a comparison of a similarly sized system (assuming a 48Vdc/400Ah system), Feb 2021 pricing from Alt-E store online shows Trojan
12V 204Ah Premium Line Flooded Battery SPRE 12 225 (J200-RE) at $412.45/each, and one will need a total of 8 of these to build a 48Vdc/400Ah+ system, which adds up to $3300, NOT counting shipping. Yeah, those are truly expensive, especially since you can't actually use more than half of the power, or you kill the long-term life of the batteries. Per the MFG, 1900 cycles at 50% DoD, which translates to 5.2 years, if cycled once/day, but only down to half-charged before recharging them, so that 408Ah system is really only a 204Ah system, but at 48Vdc for $3300 plus freight...
I prefer to use KWh for comparisons of power storage, because I'm much more used to what the utility companies are billing me for, but a rough conversion is easy - Ah x V = nominally the Wh of the battery pack, so that 204Ah/48Vdc system is about a 19.5KWh storage system, that you can really only use about 9.8KWh from or it will die quickly. 9.8KWh for $3300 that is expected to last for 5.2 years on a daily cycle, or 8 years if you don't cycle them EVERY day -- Keep that in mind for later comparison.
Buying LiFePO4 batteries (NOT the Lithium Ion batteries found in laptops and Teslas), they can be purchased directly from Chinese manufacturers (NOT from a reseller like the Alt-E store), and the last quote I got for a qty of 8 x 240Ah LiFePO4 batteries, was $1253, shipped to me in the midwest, including taxes, customs/duty fees, etc., and as the nominal voltage of a LiFePO4 battery is 3.2Vdc, those 8 batteries would be a 6144 Wh pack, or 6.1KWh pack. 16 of them would probably be less than 2 x $1253, but I'll use those numbers, since that was a hard quote I got from a factory, just for comparison. That would yield a 12.2KWh battery pack for a price tag of $2506 BUT unlike the lead-acid batteries, those are rated for 100% DOD, NOT 50% DOD like the lead-acid batteries, so the $2506 buys you more usable power for less money, and for a longer lifespan too, since these batteries are rated for more than 3500 cycles, and as an added bonus, they claim more than 5000 cycles to 100% DOD if you don't discharge them faster than 0.2C.
So for example, with 2 strings of 8 cells at 3.2Vdc/ea, that would comfortably run a 24 Volt system, and 0.2 C for a 240Ah cell is 48 amps, and 96 amps for 2 parallel strings. 96 amps x 25.6 volts = 2457.6 watts. If your continuous draw from this battery pack is less than 2400 watts, the batteries will last for 13.2 years, cycled once a day... If you truly needed more than 2400 watts continuously, you probably need one or more strings of batteries to provide more current long-term, to keep your batteries lasting, BUT that same cell can still produce short burst current of up to 3C, so even if you can only afford to get 8 batteries, you can still have a battery pack that will supply up to 720 amps! At 25.6Vdc, that's 18.4KW, although it can't do that for more than about 3 seconds, and it's unlikely that anyone will be plugging a 20KW inverter into this small of a battery pack.
Maximum continuous discharge is rated at 2C, so one can still pull 12.2KW from this pack until it's dead (maybe 20-25 minutes?) if they really needed to, but again, what inverter, and what loads you need to run to pull that kind of power continuously?
The biggest downside to the LiFePO4 batteries, is that one really has to start with a large enough (expensive) pack to provide the level of current their application will need, so for my needs, I can't just buy a smaller battery, and "save up for a larger one later", like one could do with a lead-acid battery system, because even the smaller capacity batteries can product high current draw if needed, even if it means killing the batteries in less than 3 years...
So yeah, get the extra 2KW+ of solar panels, but don't get lead-acid batteries, in the long run and the short run, it's become cheaper to go with large LiFePO4 batteries after you research how to build your own packs. FWIW, the pricing for LiFePO4 battery systems from resellers is on the extreme side, and probably due to the fear of the unknown, but there's more than enough information freely available to build your own packs safely, without needing to pay a 5x or more upcharge for someone else's pack. 6KWh of Battleborn LiFePO4 for 24Vdc systems at Alt-E is $5K, not $1.2K, and even if you had to spend another $400 on misc to get internal connectors, fuses, protection & balancing, for my dime, it's not worth it to buy someone else's limitations that may not meet my needs as well as I can do for myself for cheaper.
$3300 + freight for a 9.8KWh (usable for 5.2 years) battery, or $2506 shipped for a 12.2KWh battery, usable for 13.2 years... I'm going with the LiFePO4 system, but I think I'd like to have an extra 5-10KW+ of solar PV - I don't live in the tropics!
Offgrid Steve, if you're still reading the comments here from Hawaii, you may want to get a quote on LiFePO4 batteries directly from a Chinese manufacturer, as the shipping to you is probably even cheaper that it is to ship them to Illinois from China... You may be pleasantly surprised at the battery pricing today.
@@testuser3167 well professor, I do still read the comments here in Hawaii and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading your comment.
To address some points you brought up I’ll say that things have come a very long way in 6 years, not the least of which is my moving to Hawaii for warmer weather in my golden years. I live in the rain forest where the winters bring deep dark clouds and incredible rains. There are 3 growing seasons. It never gets below 45F at night. You can grow anything effortlessly, and for any plant to die you have to intentionally kill it by digging it up and keeping it away from soil. But I digress from topic.
The first point I want to address is the use of lithium batteries in a load dump situation. The power curve of lithium batteries is entirely different than their lead-acid counterparts. Lead acids have a fairly linear voltage drop which makes it pretty easy for any charge controller with a set point relay to be used to switch the water heater on when full, and off when it starts to discharge. This isn’t the case for lithium batteries.
The power curve of lithium batteries are such that, they are (in loose terms) charged to around 56v (for a 48v system) entirely at the discretion of the BMS. At the end of the charge cycle, the BMS stops the charging of the batteries and starts it again many times if the charge controller doesn’t taper the current flow properly at the end of the charge cycle. So in order to prevent the discharge of the batteries into the diverted load, there has to be some intelligence added. James and I are in the process of adding a raspberry pi to his system to ensure the batteries don’t discharge past a certain point into the load dump.
The second point I would like to address is the cost of shipping to Hawaii. It costs way more to ship to Hawaii. On the order of $200-$1300 more depending on the shipping method chosen (FedEx Express Air or China slow boat).
I can’t have them shipped directly to Hawaii without hiring an import broker and going through US Customs at Honolulu before coming to the Big Island. Import customs in Hawaii is a horrid nightmare at best, and impossible to perform for lithium batteries. The easiest way and cheapest way to get lithium batteries from China to Hawaii is to have them shipped from China to mainland California where they go through customs there. Then I hire a freight forwarder to ship them to Hawaii on their boat, adding another 2-4 weeks to the delivery time.
Having said all that, I have two different off grid systems. The first is 7.2kw pv panels, 15kw NiFe batteries. Water is heated using a hybrid water heater, which actually performs 3 different functions. 1). Heats water (its primary purpose). 2). Dehumidifies my home where the humidity is literally 99%, 99% of the time. 3). Provides pure distilled water as a byproduct used for batteries and could be used for drinking.
Hybrid water heaters use less than 0.4kw of power and require only 0.4-1.2kwh of power to heat water to 135F. Less than half the power of a conventional element water heater at 20% of the power consumption while operating, even after the modifications of the conventional water heater.
So what do I load dump my power to in Hawaii? I have a 2019 Chevy Bolt EV that is now the load dump. In fair weather (on and off clouds) the car will charge from dead to full in about two days. Half a day’s charge will get me a 70 mile round trip drive to Hilo. Not bad at all in my opinion, and the only vehicle maintenance is literally tires snd wiper blades. Oil, transmission fluid, filter changes are a thing of the past. Brake replacement is almost eliminated because of Regen braking.
My second solar system is comprised of 5kw pv panels and a 14kw LiFePo4 battery. This is my experimental system that I test new ideas and software on a raspberry pi to provide power solutions for myself and my neighbors.
I appreciate your feedback, thoughts, and opinions very much. I wish you could be a neighbor here on the big island. But I have to admit it’s a bit like the Wild West here with a lot of lawlessness. You have to be a special breed with a pioneering spirit to live here.
@@OffGridLivingSteve - what about using a heat pump to heat your hot water? Isn't that supposed to be more efficient than direct electrical heating?
That was really smart outside the box sh--t! Your my new go to guy! Thanks and G-d Bless!
+R.V.TripLife101 You just made my day brother!
Fantastic Edification! You look and talk like Randell Tex Cobbs!!!
Emanual0607 I hope that’s a compliment!
@@OffGridLivingSteve Yes, That's definitely a compliment. I look at you as a celebrity with your knowledge, and as far as I'm concerned, you have similarities of another celebrity "The Great Randell Tex Cobbs." Except You Look Better. Lol!!!
@@OffGridLivingSteve Yes, that's definitely a compliment. I look at you as a celebrity with your knowledge and skills. I also look at you as a celebrity, because you have similarities with "The Great Randell Tex Cobbs." Except You Look Better. Lol!!!
You make very good points. I'm currently designing a house with grid-tie and you're making me seriously consider going all electric and using the excess from the additional panels for an electric range and eventually an electric car. And if I go on vacation, the PV panels are making electricity, creating a credit with the power company but while I'm not using hot water, a solar water heater is doing nothing for me.
Most of us, don’t want to be tied to the greedy, corrupt, lying power companies. All you’re doing is helping the six-figure suits. While they neglect trimming ROW, replacing 75 yr old copper/steel core cables and dry rotted poles. Maybe even keeping spare substation transformers on hand….you’d think that’d be a no brainer Duke Energy.
Great vid - thanks for the info and no annoying music!
I'm sure I have annoying music on some videos - everyone does!
Thanks for sharing this awesome video and God bless you brother.
Thank you sir. We've been enjoying your videos and updates as well.
First time watching your work and I liked how easy you explain your ideas and knowledge. You got a new follower and I also rang "your follow bell" so I don't miss any new material. Thank you & best wishes all the way from the small island of Puerto Rico. 🇵🇷
Thank you!
Great Video Steve! I added a 8KW system to my house and am finding the same benefits as you describe!
Thanks! I'm glad to see others finding the same benefits.
I got into wind and solar 5 years ago and have a lot more to learn. I have 600 watts on my roof and 100 watts goes to two old 12 volt batteries to run my 4 digital spot lights around outside of my house. They are 10,000 hour life lights and a lot of light. I just hooked up a new DC element with a thermostat built on it--- to my electric water tank. It runs off a 100 watt panel by itself. my electric bill went from 550 kwh a month, down to 289 kwh last month. Who is better then me. Great job and thanks for the ideas.
+r a cooper That is quite amazing,the math somehow doesn't add up ,let say 600 watts x 30 days= 18 kwh You have saved 261 kwh a month.ADD another 100 watt panel and don't question the recipe.ha!
RA git yourself some DC light now guy !!!
thanks steve...
you have opened my eyes on other options to utilize solar....
Thank you so much for the compliment!
Dear Steve
It is my first time watching any of your videos I believe, but all 5 reasons that you list is why after receiving a quote of €4000 for a thermal solar water heating system last year is why I decided to invest €4000 and install photovoltaic panels instead. So now I have 6Kwh of panels, 8kwh inverter and a miserable 11kwh battery bank but as you say I use all my solar power as it is being produced during the day. So I have the pool pump (1000w) and the ELECTRIC water heater (1500w) going from 10am to 4pm most of the year and the times before and after that I recharge my battery bank. Anyways posting from a phone I will continue below.
As I was saying and as you stated solar panels have gone below the $1 mark for a while now and the electronics have gotten so much better and much less expensive. Indeed I will never have a battery bank any bigger than a nights worth power, in my case about 6Kwh or just about 50% discharge on my actual battery bank. I have seen a what I would call a hybrid electric water heater it has both AC and DC elements so you can hook up 1 to 3Kwh of panels direct and on cloudy days the AC element would kick in as it has independent thermostat so you can give priority to DC and in case it gets to a low temp the AC would kick in as well.
Thank you a million, just subscribed and will continue watching your videos now as your channel is great.
Gustavo
from the sunny Costa del Sol in southern Spain!
+Gustavo Malaga Mucho gusto! I have watched a few of your videos and subscribed as well. You sound very American "accented" on your videos, and I noticed you use the PIP system. I have to ask what is your overall impression of PIP? I always appreciate having another like-minded person in the circle and welcome!
+Steve Robertson (Off-Grid Living) I am really impressed with the PIPs so much so that I am installing a second one and they can be paralleled. I really believe that it is a all in one device for AGM batteries where you do not need equalizing. I think that you should be able to use them in the States as well and using the 220v version as most if not all divices today are able to take 110v to 250v AC. Although there is also one 120v version but it is the 3kw version.
+Steve Robertson (Off-Grid Living) Just one more thing that makes the PIP the best out there it is really the price. Where can you find a 4kw inverter and a 60A mppt charge controller for less than $900? Only time will tell if they are reliable enough but for now it is unbeatable I see people using them all over Europe, Australia and South Africa...
+Gustavo Malaga The price and functionality of the PIP is what caught my eye. The only
thing I have concern with is reliability in temperature and operation
near rated limits. I will be watching your channel in earnest, so
please share with us any new thoughts you have about it as you go.
Thank you very much for bringing your world to the table - it's good for
all of us.
If you get some decent hot sunny days even in winter in Sydney Australia I've got 2 water solar panels and I've never had to turn element on .
Thank you. I have thought this, delta hot water, but have been contradicted by those who install. I have felt all of what you are doing and been contradicted. Things as simple as calculating watts and using watt's Law. Again, thank you.
We had a rebate in my city, which paid most the cost to add a solar collector to ur geyser. We did it - and it works fairly well.
We also have 8kw solar array and 12kw of battery backup.
We recently split the panels into 2 arrays - and ended up with 2 x 250w panels left over … which got me thinking …
Perhaps to add a dual element to the geyser, one that’s grid powered, the other that’s DC powered from my old panels.
Since we moved to Hawaii, we switched to a heat pump water heater. It uses only 400 watts to heat 50 gallons of water. It’s like a miracle.
Solar water heaters unless it is spring to fall are useless. Thank you for your truths.
I use a wood boiler, and had a wildfire go thru my back 40 that was the size of 28,0000 hectares.
There are hundreds and hundreds of acres of trees still standing that I can harvest as I have a license to do so. Lucky that way.
I do want to go completely solar one day tho.
0:55 not even in the mater, but already thumbed up. the opening speech is worth watching this. The rest is as good.
Makes perfect sense. Thanks!
The biggest problem with all of that common sense is govt outlaws common sense where I live in Western Australia, and in many other places. This is common govt sense!
The legislation here limits the number of panels per household, and it is illegal to disconnect yourself from the grid.
So if you are an honest law abiding citizen, which a Christian is supposed to be, then common sense tells me that ‘I’m up a creek without a paddle’🤷🏻♂️🤔🤓
But your logic is true in areas low in sun during winter. Tubes are fantastic here.
Hmm, I'm surprised to read this - I couldn't find any legislation preventing people from disconnecting their power supply or setting a maximum number of panels per household. For grid tie systems of course there are limits to system size set by the network/provider but I'm unaware of a limit on panels in a standalone system..
I'd like to see your sources if you have them..
davo963320 wa.gov
Western Australian state gov.
@@philosborn3748 Strange, I can even point google exclusively towards wa.gov.au with the terms "solar maximum household" and get zero references to any limitation per household for offgrid solar panels. Perhaps if you ever manage to find the actual legislation you can share it here but I'd say it's safe to assume you're not going to jail for have a few solar panels and some batteries :P unless of course you're in some kind of posh housing development that prohibits them because of the aesthetics but then I will say to you say - bad luck. :P
Phil Osborn what are you talking about? most states the utilities company allow 5kw inverter per phase and over clock the inverter 33%
Yup. That's exactly what I do too. Passive solar for thermal is great for a building design but making, storing and moving electrical energy around is much easier and cheaper for things like hot water.
Nothing wrong with installing a passive pre-warming tank if you have something just lying around.
great video Steve, Thanks
Again agree in practical sense but at least in theory it IS possible to convert thermal energy into electricity but requires steam generator...
Or with peltier elements or thermoelectric generator. Latter is pretty new tech.
A great video, thnx. Has anyone thought to make a solar trough using pv as the mirror and vacuum tube at the focal? The vacuum tube may reduce the pv reflectors temp
perfect.. i really need this... very helpful video..
Thanks
great job
now that is an inteligent person. quite rare on the net. i do understand the concept. thanks for sharing!
Thank you for this video!
I am doing a small 1000W setup with a water heater dump.
I need to figure out what hardware I need to do this load controlling
Smart idea
papajohn fitbyfaith thank you!
Convincing logic.
Here in Europe however, things are different. I have a 3kw PV rooftop installation which produces about 3000 kwh a year. Half I consume, and the other 1500 kwh gets sold to the electricity supplier for 25¢ a kwh. At night, I pay 10¢ a kwh if I need to heat my water. I have a 200 litre tank, which would require about 12 kwh to take from 10°C to 60°C. However I have a 4 m2 solar water panel which for 8 months of the year provides all my hot water (in fact I let it get to 70°C before cutting out, as I don't like to waste the free energy). If I used the same 4 m2 area to produce electricity, I would be very lucky to get 7 kwh in a day. So if there is no sunshine, I have to pay about 1.10 € to heat my 200 litres, if used I electric instead instead of water based , I would lose (12 x 0.25¢) 3.00€ because that would not be fed into the grid. Plus, there is not much to go wrong with a water/glycol based system.
Thank you outstanding
good idea
thanks for sharing
Very good video. If only living in the UK was like US
I'm looking at heating water with PV for a second building on our property. Our main building has an evacuated tube solar hot water system which boils the 300L tank of water even in winter.
Naughty Goat Farm I’m not familiar with your location, but it sounds like you have mild winters compared to Colorado. If you never go below freezing, you can use a hybrid water. It can produce scalding hot water with as little as 350watts of electricity. It does cool the room considerably it is in. It also produces distilled water as a by-product. I’ve done a video on it on my new channel and I’m quite impressed with it. I use the distilled water for my batteries, it cools the area it’s in and all for the power of a couple of panels.
@@OffGridLivingSteve yes we do have mild winters but temperatures do drop overnight and we get frosts. I think the evacuated tube technology overcomes this due to the insulation it provides. But I'm really looking forward to experimenting with a solar PV system as second hand solar panels are rely cheap here.
Enjoy your experiments. That was the start of my pv addiction!
Steve, DON'T SPEND YOUR $$ ON THE INVERTER! You can connect 4 of the 300 Watt 35 DC Volt solar panels directly to your electric water heater. The 240 Volt AC rating is in AC RMS, which really means the DC equivelent to the same AC power rating. You can get 120 VAC 1400 Watt water heating elements for under $10.00 at Menards. But remember that the electric heater has TWO elements so you would need 8 panels, 4 for the upper element and 4 for the lower. But now you would be heating water all the time that the sun shines! So I would get as large a tank as possible AND use a reculating pump to move that heat into another tank or into baseboard heaters.
Hope this helps. Keep up the good work! George
+George Zaleski
A two element water heater will normally have the lower heat first and only if the water cools down enough will the top element turn on, so at no period will both the upper and lower be on at the same time. I have installed a pilot lamp on both elements to indicate when they are on
+Craig Nehring I have done the same thing so I can know if my load is diverting.
Good reply, Just a small blue in ur calculations. 4 panels, 35v x 300w in series is 140v 300w max, given though that it is always producing to some degree while you have sunshine. You would probly still require the 8 panels minimum to put 600w of power through a single 120v 1400w element to get a half reasonable supply of hot water. I’m only guessing, feel free to correct me anyone if you dont think this sounds closer to the mark. In a very cold climate any extra hot water I imagine could always be stored and used, so I say more panels the better.
Steve, we sure miss your teaching on the other channel. Can you move some of the tech stuff over hear?
I’m pretty much retired from all this stuff. But thanks for staying in touch!
Ever thought of installing baseboard (skirting) heater , with resistor, in your house and use the PV energy to run it? I am thinking of this in order to compare the off-grid method to the on-grid method to see which method would be cheaper.
I wonder if you could do something similar with AC. Have a large compressed bottle with compressed liquefied gas. That stores "thermal energy" if you can somehow keep evaporating it. Might work best if you could just use normal air for this.
Dejay Rezme that’s out of my league, but I love the concept!
Steve, just found your channel and love it. Very impressed by your personal resolve to recover from despair after the loss of your home and life savings. So cool that you are sharing your knowledge through the YT medium. Thank you! Question: I am wanting to divert/dump my excess solar power from my small array into my electric hot water heater. Wouldn't it be better to dump directly from my charge controller to a DC heating element in my water heater? Why go through an inverter to an AC element? Am I missing something? Thanks again!
Kevin Stensether Thank you Kevin for the compliments! The reasons I use AC instead of DC for the heater elements are as follows:
1. Cables to run the amperage for the same wattage would be huge.
2. The factory thermostats would burn out or burn up on DC.
3. I have only found DC elements high as 300-600 watts - I use 2000 watt elements.
4. AC elements and thermostats are available at my local hardware store.
5. Since the heating elements are resistive, an inexpensive inverter can be used.
6. Inverter loss at 90% efficiency for 2000 watts is 400 watts and is only consumed during excess power periods.
PUSHBACK COMPLETE Wow that was a fast answer! Funny I just saw you answered this same question on your other video! Thanks for answering again. I get it now. My battery bank is very close to the water heater but the other reasons will lead me to pursue the same path you have with the inverter. Very cool! Thanks for flattening out my learning curve!
Kevin Stensether Thanks Kevin. It's the miracle of my android. I've had people on their roof needing assistance, and it allows me to get them the help they need quickly. I believe we're all here for each other. Enjoy the channel!
Great video. Love the reasoning. Subscribed.
Ranger4564 thank you. Please subscribe to the new channel also for the latest happenings.
@@OffGridLivingSteve Will do. Thanks for the heads up.
hi! the idea is very good and right. But the question is, wherever voltage from solar panels are suitable for cheapest inverters? cheapest inverters are mostly 12-24 volts input rated. If panels are 35V and higher, than some fancy inverter must be chosen? Is somewhere possible to get those inverters? Good Days for Your system and life!!!
Thank you! The cheaper inverters do require batteries to stabilize the input voltage from the panels. MPP Solar does sell inverters that will run batteryless with panels supplying as much as 400VDC. This would eliminate the need for batteries and allow fewer runs and smaller wires to the inverter. An example would be their model 5048GK.
@@OffGridLivingSteve This seems problematic, to find some mptt inverter, which can work without batteries, from, about 35Volts and more.
Good, practical info, Steve! I live in Hawaii, where heating is (almost) never an issue - at least at my elevation of 1500'. I have an aging, commercial rooftop solar water heater. We have a grid-tie system, which is well-worth the cost, because we pay almost .40 a kw hr to the local utility! We're thinking of ditching the solar HW heater altogether, and using a well-insulated electric unit (after adding a few more panels). If we don't like our electric bill after this change, we're thinking of installing a small solar pre-heater to the loop.
It wasn't totally clear in the video, but I'm guessing you have a large compressor with a big tank. In addition to your splitter, do you have other air tools, i.e, nailers, grinders, saws, or...?
+dicktilton I don't have many tools, really. I do have several nail guns though.
The reference to compressed air bears a lot more discussion.
I have read that compressing air is a horribly inefficient way to power tools. Takes 5 hp of air compressor to run a 1 hp tool.
HAHA I like your disclaimer!
"Don't try this at home. This is how I tried this at home."
Thanks for your informative video! Just found your channel.
Hi Steve, First i want to say thankyou for making the world a better place. You have taken a lot of the ouiga board aspect out of solar installations for me and im sure a lot of others. I would like to know what ever happened to your cheap chinese inverter for hot water idea. I am a newby, have a pile of solar panels i got dirt cheap but cant really afford the rest of the system yet so im dabbling in a few cheap mods right now. Have you tried out this inverter and how does it work? Is it garbage? I know many of those burn out from what ive read. I want to do whatever i can before going to batteries. I was always thinking this way but your videos have confirmed what i already knew. That going batteryless as much as possible, and storing energy in whatever i can muster up is the way to go. I have a heat exchanger similar to what you have in my wood furnace to heat my water, and i currently cool my home with well water in the summer. I really think water and free access to it ie. well water is the real key to independent living. Now i want to take this one step further and solar heat my water tank or 2 and use that as domestic hot water plus possibly transfer some extra capacity hot water to floor heated loops. I live in the great white north in winnipeg so heating is so much of a priority i think my best use of solar would be transferring solar output as you have done with your water heater switch hack from one heating device to another. In fact heating is so much of an expense here i dont even care if i paid the electric company to run the other stuff although my goal is to be 100% OTG like you. I really look forward to anything else you can share as this is truly eye opening information, you already changed my mind on a few things i was thinking of buying. Afew more things id like to know is what do you think about running PV heated hot water underfloor for heating, waste of time or not? I dont know anything about those heat pumps you have, do you think these would work up in freezing cold winnipeg? We have hot summers here but from october to may its pretty damn cold. How does a heat pump perform in cold weather? I am very interested in any more water heating tips you might share. One more on the technical side i have is i have about 8kw of panels, my yard has so many trees that i will really be challenged setting these up. I read so many places that shading of one panel even with mppt affects the entire array. Given the fact that i probably wont be able to have the entire array unshaded at any given time, what would you recommend as the best way to go about maximum energy harvest, microinverters? Is there any better way to wire a single inverter to take advantage of this ie more parallel strings? I understand i ultimately might have to get out the chainsaw but i was hoping for some suggestions here. Once more , thanks Steve, you have the best solar videos ive ever seen!
+Nitro Digital I apologize for the tardiness of my response. TH-cam doesn't always notify me of comments like it once did. I haven't used the cheap chinese inverter from the video often other than to try it out. I used it to run my 240V electric stove range, and it pushed the stove with no problems. My experience with the cheaper inverters is that they run great for resistive loads like incandescent light bulbs, heaters, small fans, curling irons, hair dryers, etc. They tend to burn up when used to start larger motors like pumps, refrigerators, air compressors, vacuum cleaners, mercury or sodium vapor lights (because of the igniters used in most), air conditioners, etc. So they should work well for dump excess electricity into a water heater or baseboard heater.
Since the days are so short in the winters, I produce about half the power as summer. As a result, I would seek other methods for heat. One of my favorite methods I'm currently researching is using mulch to generate heat as demonstrated here. th-cam.com/video/oF5iL-nUGMQ/w-d-xo.htmlm25s
Heat pumps do not preform as well the colder it gets, and will eventually revert to electric heat coils to make heat. Each manufacturer provides specs for operating temperatures, depending on the SEER rating. I think mine provides usable heat down to -10 degrees F.
I have tried using radiant water floor heating and did not find it to be efficient method for heating my home. I also have a neighbor who has not found it effective as well. Currently, I utilize wood heat as primary heating, heat pump for heating when the sun is adequate, and electric baseboard heaters as load dump during excess production periods.
just smart , thanks
i like this video gives some more iders to go off.
BUT there is some down side to how your setup works i see that power inverter so what happens when that inverter dies like my inverter did then your down money to buy new one or get it fix , and what size tank you have as my kids love the gas hot water as they have long showers if i have a tank i bet i get home to have a cold shower maybe when the kid move out of home it be better,
i let you know there is a better way my mate has a 240v hot water tank he just put 4 250w panels just linked to just go right on the heater on the tank get 120v and wow it works he gets over 70c every day its just him so he happy it works and does the job for him fine but big family like mine hmm still need to think about it abit more i get there in the end.... but good work on the off grid setup
You always risk the possibility of losing a piece of equipment including the inverter. In one of these videos, I demonstrate how a cheap Chinese inverter can supply the power for the heater as well since it is a resistive load and not an inductive one. The bottom line is this series of videos only suggests another way of storing energy instead of expensive batteries. Everyone's situation is different so the solution that works well for me doesn't work for everyone.
Steve Robertson but hey you trying thats the best way to find out if some thing works i started trying in 2011 i got my power bill down to $200 from $600 with things to try i lost a wind gen in a storm i lost the grid tie for that in the storm before that that was a sun 1000g wind grid tie with dump load so i when away from grid ties and just got inverters know. i lost a hf 4000w inverter and know i got bigger 8000w lf inverter i find alot better i the heavy loads .. i have to get bigger charge controller for my solar panels to go on my 5x200ah battery bank then i hope im done for abit i can turn the grid power off ...
i'm getting there so you living it in my eyes you are the one fully off grid keep up the good work your helping to save to world you do know!!!!
weasel rodent Thank you!
I have a swimming pool that i want heated. The dimensions of the pool are 40x17 feet and the depth of the pool is 4 feet. Temperature in my area during peak winters goes to 9°C at night and 22°C in the morning. What is the best way to heat the pool, solar electric or solar thermal? Also, how can size the required system? I want to heat the pool to 28°C.
good ideas. love it. really really great. but why can't people use a solar water heater to help heat their home after their home water tank is hot? and it seems odd to me that it only takes you 2 hours to heat your water electrically with PV, when solar water heaters are actually over twice as efficient per square foot. i mean, if you used the same size array the solar water heater should only take an hour or be able to heat 2x water in 2 hours. is it that it takes a long time just to get the solar water system hot enough to start working? maybe there are way better solar water panel technologies as compared to the 90s? evacuated tube? the woodstove water heat is great to see. I have been thinking of that for a long time. thanks!
My personal theory is this: A person should use what ever works for them, and use what is comfortable for them. For me the solar electric option makes the most sense. In New Mexico, I had a solar water heater which worked great in the summer, and would only heat the water to luke-warm in the winter. I can still get hot water in a couple hours in the winter, but because I only get as few as 4 sun-hours in the winter, I need all that power elsewhere. The wood heated water in the winter would pretty much be required to supplement in either case. But in summer, the excess electricity really pays off because after the water is hot, I can run electric chain saws, mowers, electric log splitters, etc with no problems. I cannot get this form of energy from a solar water heater, and I certainly don't need to heat my house in the summer. Like I said, just my personal thoughts on the subject.
I heat water at my camp with PV and I only have 900W. I should say that also runs my refrigerator, so heating water is actually a dump load. I typically can divert more than 2.5KWH to heating. I use two small office type water heaters in series. I heat one, then the other and then both if I have enough power. With more panels there is no limit to the the number of heaters I could operate. I PWM only one element at a time, others are fully on or off. 100% of my potential panel power is always used somewhere. The future of solar is in control systems. These are cheap and simple to build. My entire controller only cost about $25. It seems insane to use evacuated tubes with all the plumbing, pumps and other hardware when you can just run a wire. With prices these days PV heating beats these other systems hands down. They never tell you about all the heat losses these systems have.
Very well stated, and I couldn't agree more. Thanks for sharing your input.
I wonder if you could do something similar with AC. Have a large compressed bottle with compressed liquefied gas. That stores "thermal energy" if you can somehow keep evaporating it. Might work best if you could just use normal air for this.
Excellent video.... 👍
Steve.you are.a cool dude i like.what you are putting out
Thanks Jon!
The thing I'm needing to know is when u wrap a coil winding in a generator and if u don't have enough wire to make the full coil could u soder two wire's together to finish the coil? You might know so I figured cause u understand elc from what I have seen. But either way it don't hurt to ask. Thank for all your videos.
Billy, you sound like my kind of fellow, and it's probably something I would try. But from a professional standpoint, I have to say that you should always use one continuous piece of wire for best results. When I was in middle school, I wound a motor from scratch in my shop class, but I had no clue what I was doing. That's as close to winding anything I ever got, so I'm really not the man to get advice from on your project.
I like your idea sir. Question: Are you running any kind of charge controller between the panels and the "cheap Chinese inverter" of are you plugging them directly in?
Steve bakker the panels go to a charge controller to charge batteries. Then batteries to inverter. It allows the batteries to act as a shock absorber for cloudy periods and charge during sunny periods.
@@OffGridLivingSteve Got it. I like this idea and am going to implement it. There is a 2-panel dedicated solar water heater sold on Amazon for $750. Well reviewed. We are in a temperate climate (never freezes in winter) so maybe the solar heater would work year round (you can add panels if need be).
But I just priced out components (minus batteries) for a 1400W solar set up (six 350W panels, SunnySky charge controller, cheap Chinese inverter) for $1800. Still, I like the idea of having a system that is multi-purpose. My main solar system does not make enough power to a) heat water, b) run an air conditioner, and c) charge my EV. Once the sun comes up this aux system could do all three, during daylight hours, in phases. And the system could provide night power in emergencies. I just happen to have 16 72AH LFP cells laying around after a battery upgrade, so....
Thanks for the idea!
Hi, i have epever 50amps mppt. Charge controller shuts off when battery is full, so i want to add something to redirect that energy to my water boiler. If you have some ideas i would be very thankful... 😁
Hi Steve ,I have seen people running a heat element straight from a solar panel into a container of sand for heat storage what do you think . I have a 150 watt panel and a old electric hot water tank. I would like to see if it would work . I saw a video of people in Finland heating a massive sand battery to heat a small town . Another fellow heated bricks . what do you think .
Hey Steve, one more, im stuck at square one. Been looking at all the ripoff mounts for over a year now. I like your setup because its using typical pipes in most of it which i hyave access to. Do you have a source for those pipe brackets, and how about the rails? Thanks, Jerry
+Nitro Digital I apologize for the tardiness of my response. TH-cam doesn't always notify me of comments like it once did. I purchased my rails and brackets from solarhome.com
Hello Steve - I want to make sure that I understood your description correctly: Are you running 2 inverters off of the same solar array? You'd mentioned your main inverter and then second (cheaper Chinese made) inverter. Can you please share the schematic, Thanks
guliver1999 My wife and I moved to hawaii last month and all I have is my cell phone. No computer. No ability to draw schematics. However you just hook each inverter to your batteries, each negative to negative and each positive from the inverters to battery positive
Hi Steve,
Great video.
Whats your setup for using air compressor for diversion? Compressor used? Air storage and size? What to you use compressed air for, tools, etc.?
Since the air compressor's pressure switch is only single throw (it can't turn on something else when it turns off the compressor), I use it in the summer and the electric baseboard heaters in winter. The compressor is a 240V 1HP that I bought from Harbor Freight years ago. There is a myriad of air tools available from air wrenches to nail guns. I'm currently looking for an old 250gal propane tank to add for more air storage.
To heat an outdoor hot tub, using a simple in/out stainless steel coiled piping, could I simply wire a (gage ?) copper wire from the solar panel around that piping (grounding ?) and also use it as a sauna heat source to spray water onto; maybe covered in a clay/cob covering? What W of solar panel would I need?
So in this day and age 5/22, what would you expect the cost to set up a system to only heat hot water from scratch? Any advice, links, list of what you suggest is appreciated. I have a good size home in New England. I have an indirect water heater that runs off an oil boiler. This past winter I used 2 coal stoves to heat my home. I wan't/need domestic hot water.
Hello, why not use direct DC with a MPPT to power the heat element? I have some leftover solar modules and I want to use them without first transforming the current to AC. But of course with a mppt and a temperature controller and backup safety system. I wonder If you have some arguments where I did not think of that could change my mind...
maartenvt DC will arc across the contacts on the thermostat and either burn them away or fuse them together. If they burn away, it won’t heat water. If they fuse together, you could suffer a potential steam explosion. AC doesn’t have those arcing problems, so I’ve always used it. I’ve also recently upgraded to a hybrid water heater. It uses 90% LESS electricity!