Knowledge is power, and that was a very powerful video! I respect how you don't set out with an agenda or a point to prove, you just present information for people to consider. Really great stuff.
Great video. I believe it's worth saying that with propane you have less chance of getting a gummed up carb so less maintenance may be an additional advantage. And IMO storing and transferring propane is safer than the same with gasoline.
I have 2000 gallons of propane that will store forever to heat my home. If I had 2000 gallons of a gasoline I would have a giant BOMB and be terrified lol.
Excellent video actual costing are very handy I am to the stage of needing batteries. (older solar panels in Australia grid tied) So cost verses benefit analysis is very handy.
Great information! My set up is for grid down not off grid. I have a 2000 watt inverter generator, and batteries banks with multiple portable solar panels. Multiple options has been my plan. With my battery banks & solar I feel I am pretty much indefinitely able to power a 12 volt frig/freezer, lights, fans for cooling, and power the fan for my furnace. Generator is my back up to recharge battery banks. I try to rotate my gasoline every 12 weeks, I store enough fuel to run generator about 4 hours per day for about 90 days if needed.
Any experience with the inverter VS regular generator? I'm just getting into this Battery power craze? But I had a battery backup pellet stove (not grill but I had one of those too) that was great and looking for more ways to use 12v / 24v for refrigerator and freezer!
I've got an off grid shop situation, for various reasons, solar is not a viable option. But a battery/inverter system is. I can charge that 6 to 8 kw system with a smaller generator, running at an optimized level for a couple of hours, for much less than a 8kw generator that would idling most of the time.
This is a very important point you are able to run your generator at its most efficient speed and at a consistent speed. This not only costs less per watt but also is best for the longevity of your generator
So the one argument almost everyone in the solar world tries to avoid is the energy density. Don't get me wrong, I love my solar generators and they have their purposes, but they all suffer from the energy density issue. Since fuel is just a form of energy storage, trying to compare apples to apples would be 1 gallon of gas is about 6lb or 2.83Kg. So get 2.83Kg of propane and 2.83Kg of lithium battery, bonus points for getting 2.83Kg of LFP and 2.83kg of NMC to compare, and see how long you can run loads on that much energy storage.
That is an analysis with a completely different purpose. Energy storage by weight when considering the storage container as well, would be gasoline. A battle for most efficient energy storage for emergency use, not considering weight, would be propane hands down. For a very low price you can store massive amounts of energy for a nearly indefinite period of time. Batteries are very expensive and eventually degrade, and gasoline goes bad over time. That might be a fun numbers exercise. I'll put it in my list of future video ideas.
So I just thought of this. It's true that propane and gasoline are relatively cheaper gallon but you can't store gas per gallon. You have to store it in a gas can or tank or something. The same with propane. Propane is not that expensive and it does last forever but a large propane tank or a whole bunch of small propane tanks would start to get very expensive.
Very informative video. Most of this information I knew or at least assumed. But never knew all the exacting details. Thank you for doing this, it was very helpful.
Great comparisons of things that are different. Propane compared to gas generator is easy - propane. Tank never rusts, fuel never goes bad. Cold climates simply require bigger tanks.
Tanks underground in cold ,and for hot days the tanks will no loose as much ,,,,,, propane will leak some as well see tank design it will leak some slowly over time say 5 precent and it is for out door use for that causes as well
Great test, given your results and assuming intermittent winter use, I would stick with gas for most of the season but trying to keep stored fuel to a minimum because of the alcohol present. A small bottle of propane then provides a backup to the backup !
great information, I have opted for all of the above.....lol. Joking aside i have a good solar array at 3.4Kw and two 3K inverters. 18Kw battery storage and a 2Kw dual fuel generator. I already stored gas for my lawn mower and propane for my grill so i just add to the amount i store. I like that propane can store for years and that gas works(in the cold) when nothing else will and that solar carry's the load most days. I use my solar system every day to offset my electric bill and if the grid is not available then i have the options of gas or propane to charge the battery and keep my house powered up. After a year with this plan my only change is to get a smaller more efficient generator to charge the battery
I runh a similar system with 2) LV6548 split phase for 13.5kw back feeding my main panel - In the am I switch to solar, after peak solar they start to draw from 4 SOK 100ah server rack batteries and I usually have to switch back to grid around 9-12 depending on how much the central air is going on - repeat the next day. I suggest you look at the new EG4 100 amp 48 volt battery charger - you can now charge while inverting if need be and adjust the output. I have an old 6500 honda and can do max continuous 5500 so I bump it down to 80 amps.
34kWp…I still get 5% production on the darkest days. I have 143kWh battery, so never needed my 10kW lp Gen. 17MWH produced last yr. No power bill, no additional taxes paid to greedy, corrupt people.
Yep have 3 years worth of output data on my 9.25 kwp system. My lowest output was 6kwh/day and that only happened 12 times in 3 years. Normal low cloudy output is 12-16kwh/day. Sunny day max outputs 41-58kwh/day.
Dave I can’t recall if you touched on this but another reason to go with an inverter generator over a non inverting genset is just the clean power. I have a fair amount of dollars invested in my Victron setup and I want the best quality AC in that I can get. The inverters on the market today are packed with electronics. I have older generators that I just wont connect to the AC in because I don’t want dirty power being passed into my house or inverters. Old generators work great for power tools out in the back 40 so I still keep them around. My Honda 3000 inverter does the work for the home/inverters
That is why you buy the new EG4 100 amp 48 battery charger - it does not care about the AC source AND even better you can invert and charge at the same time. Just about all the name brand older generators have sufficiently clean sinewave to run electronics just by the nature of how they work, it's when people do not use a generator rated at least 30% over the load they want to run is where you run into issues with voltage sag and spikes etc. Frequency does not matter as just about all electronics are designed for multiple countries and can handle frequency drift no problem and electronics are build way more robust today. People ran sensitive electronics for years on non inverter generators with no issues
I am going to watch the video, but even before I do, I can tell you, propane and solar combination is the best. Solar primary with natural gas/propane backup for overcast days. Gasoline is too hard to store for sustained periods. Gasoline also makes your engine dirtier, more maintenance. Lets see how well I fare.
This is true and a good point. I have heard though that because of the way propane Burns it's a little harder on a generator. I guess it burns faster more like an explosion when gasoline Burns a little slower so it's more like a firm push on the cylinder.
Based on numbers supplied here and for my dual fuel generator, another way to put things into perspective is seeing 15 lbs propane tanks are fairly ubiquitous, a 15 lbs propane tank will roughly get you the same energy out of your generator as 2 gallons of gasoline. Granted 15 lbs propane tank swaps tend to be a lot more expensive than getting a larger propane tank and taking it down to a fueling station, however that manifests where you live. An added thing is if you are doing this a lot, an inverter generator can handle shifting loads on ECO mode and provide stable power for electronics as well, but what they don't handle are hard starting single phase motors in ECO mode. Regular mode has more kinetic energy in faster moving parts to absorb the rapid surge in power demand as one of these single phase motors kicks on. Of course the generator uses more fuel to spin faster in the first place while in regular mode. It is unfortunate that they don't put super-capacitors in these inverter generators to absorb the amperage spike. So when you start looking into how to save money on fuel, the first thing would be to do something about hard starting electric motors such as fridge, air conditioner, power tools, etc. I am not naming an exact solution as there are multiple ways to go about this and different devices have different solutions for them for different prices. For example, a newer fridge may have soft start hardware in it and a variable speed inverter based air conditioner / heat pump will soft start, plus the inverter based air conditioners / heat pumps are far more efficient than their "single stage" counterparts. Then depending on how much you are using the solution, you can start thinking about the extra up front costs of adding in other systems like batteries and inverters and even solar-battery-inverter. With the price of batteries and inverters going down over the past several years and the utility of having quiet power, especially at night, at least a small battery-inverter setup starts making sense real fast. When you get into habitual / permanent daily use, battery-inverter and especially solar-battery-inverter sizing up makes a lot more financial sense. Plus maybe a big storm knocks out power, you probably don't want to setup your portable generator outside in the middle of the storm, especially if say the eye of a hurricane is directly over you, you probably want to wait a little longer for a longer lasting calm before taking out your generator. So a battery-inverter deal can be inside your place and as long as you still have a roof and storm surge / other flooding hasn't come into your place, you can fire up the battery-inverter setup. So primary goal of emergency power on occasion, well maybe you just get an inverter generator as they are cheap enough now and size up some fuel such as propane as it stores well and burns cleanly to run the generator in regular mode and inefficiently power your place through that power emergency. This is you have a system that works, it is rarely used, and you spent the least amount of money on it as possible while also being the least hassle system. Now you are thinking the power goes out a lot (the grid is kind of sucky where I live), and/or I want electrical power when camping off grid and / or have hobbies that require electrical power outdoors, but I don't really spend that much time camping or the hobby doesn't actually need that much power on an outing. Well this quickly gets into an additional battery-inverter setup and maybe the outdoor hobby has hardware that direct connects to the battery, granted it is a compatible voltage. Say a typical hobby charger will run off of 24V batteries directly and if you have two 24V batteries, you could have wiring harnesses for both parallel 24V operation and series 48V operation, granted smaller scale use you may just select 24V and call it a day. The first thing is to get your hard start stuff on the battery-inverter so you can set the generator into ECO mode and save on fuel I would think. Then you quickly get into quiet overnight power with the battery-inverter setup and even say an electric cooler that can run directly off of the batteries you have as electric coolers will often take up to 30V max DC. You usually don't need that much power overnight anyway, so this keeps the battery setup small and cheap. Then with more use, you size up the inverter-battery setup in a more permanent setup so you can run the generator less and cruise on batteries more. Doing this a lot, then you look into solar panels so you can run the generator as little as possible. All of this latter stuff, you are looking at a bulky fixed setup, and maybe 48V DC for current systems available out there. I really think a 400V DC standard needs to be utilized more for permanent setups (and something like charging an EV you use a buck-boost converter to charge your 400V EV battery and various doubling and halving schemes to handle 800V EVs), but this is a topic for another day.
I know a guy with a generator to charge his batteries, I hear him fire it up and run it for hours while I am in blissful silence with my 2kw solar/9kw lithium set up that gives me more power than I need 90% of the time. He also needs to fill up his lpg tank every 2 weeks and I regularly go 3 months before a refill. The fact that free energy falls out of the sky for anybody to use just makes a generator look as primitive as they sound, we just need those thin film perovskite panels to become practical for a portable set up.
I think the big benefit of Propane other than the storage life is the wide utility. You can cook directly with propane, trading the energy losses from inverters into energy losses in atmospheric heat dissipation and heat transfer inefficiencies. A large home propane tank can directly power a lot of appliances that would otherwise use a LOT of electricity, like stoves, hot water heaters , and dryers. Personally I would never in my life use a gas powered dryer, and I do like my induction range more than my gas one, but in certain situations where grid power is limited and solar is only viable 10 months out of the year, propane can be a viable option to consider.
Other benefits of Propane besides it's shelf life is, that it doesn't gum up carbs, doesn't perish fuel lines, doesn't require a fuel pump. doesn't need to be primed, doesn't need to be emptied from the generator etc for storage, So as a Emergency power system Propane power is really great.
As much as people complain about their electric bill, it's still pretty cheap considering the infrastructure required and how much energy you can get, and on-demand too.
I'd love to see a comparison on using a generator to charge batteries during low solar days vs having a larger battery bank. If you have a 48 volt bank and need to add capacity, it can get very expensive but a gallon of gas is cheaper. At least I think so.
Yes, probably much cheaper. I plan to do an analysis like that in the future. I like to use actual data so I am building a bit larger battery than my current one to make a practical experiment and answer that question.
This was a very well done video, but some bad and missing information. For generators, I would highly recommend using only ethanol free if available. Gas in general, but mostly ethanol free because it does not attract water like ethanol gas, easily lasts 6 months without fuel stabilizer. Also you said stabilizers only last 6 months, while Sta-bil brand advertises 2 years on their storage additive. Another point with the generators is oil changes that was missed. You will need to keep around some oil and change it every 25-200 hours(depending on the quality of the generator, and how far you choose to push it). Maybe it isn't a big deal for this video because you were mostly testing short term usage, but it is an often overlooked factor that requires effort and probably some mess depending on design. I would always go for solar now that I have it, it is silent and is useful all the time, instead of just being stored away and only used once a year at the most, unless you camp often. For a mobile situation, I would probably try to use a solar generator type of battery, and solar panels or not, you can plug it in somewhere hopefully and some can charge most of the way in an hour. I hope you see my input as positive, thanks for the video and testing!
Great comparison! For an occasional use off-grid cabin it seems like it's a good deal to equip it with a combination of solar and a propane burning generator and a bank of batteries large enough to run typical overnight loads. Run the generator when you need to use the microwave oven or other high power appliances. Cook with propane. If you're going to stay at the cabin for long periods it probably makes sense to add enough solar and batteries so you only rarely have to run the generator - to avoid having to haul propane very often. Interesting to see how efficient (cheaply) the electric utility is able to provide energy! A small generator doesn't suffer any of the losses the utilities do in transmission and step down transformers. But the utilities make up for this with scale. For electrical generation from combustion the thermodynamics of a large generator are much much better than for a small generator. And a utility likely buys fuel (coal, natural gas, oil) at a good discount. For a renewable electric generation like solar, wind, or hydro, the utility is able to develop and purchase the equipment at scale discount, and then they only have to pay for capital, maintenance and depreciation.
Battery temperature shouldn't be a big issue. High end batteries have heaters which only run when there's a combination of low pack temperature and charging voltage at the terminals. When there's no charging voltage the heater is off. For a cabin, batteries might be installed in an insulated cellar of sorts - below the frost line. They'd probably be happier there in the summer too.
Thanks! A key reason utilities have better efficiency is they don't use internal combustion engines to produce power. The internal combustion engine is very inefficient sending a great deal of energy out as wasted heat in the exhaust. As you mentioned, there are ways to manage the battery temperature, but it is something that has to be considered for those in cold climates.
@@ProjectsWithDave all engine efficiency tends to improve with scale - larger engines tend to be more thermodynamically efficient. A 2 MW Cat diesel generator might produce 15kWh per gallon, which I think is around 4.6kWh per kG of diesel - about 3 times more efficient than your small gasoline generator. Some of that is due to scale where the large engine has higher volume to surface area ratio of its combustion chambers which means less heat energy is wasted in the cooling system. And it's practical to put turbochargers on big engines, which capture heat and kinetic energy from the exhaust stream, and on a diesel increases mechanical energy delivered per unit of fuel. Utility scale generators are even better.
Natural gas has less energy than propane. It really would come down to the cost per unit. Also remember that big storm in Texas a few years ago? A lot of people lost power because the grid was using the same type of fossil fuels as people's homes were so there was a competition there. Also I got really cold and so some things solidified in the lines. I know it's crazy to think that natural gas is going to solidify the lines but it's not just pure natural gas. But that means is if you were needing a generator during a serious storm and you didn't have LNG you might lose your natural gas feed which would mean you lose your generator. Natural gas seems like such an obvious answer but in a true emergency it might just not be available. also might get cut out in an earthquake.
@josephwheeler1 I can't remember a period when natural gas wasn't cheaper than propane even whe. Taking into account btu output. My generator will run off LP or Natural gas. If things got bad enough such as your example of an earthquake your propane ain't gonna stay filled forever and likely won't get refilled anytime soon if it were bad enough in the area. I can remember only one time in my life where natural gas went down and that was because a man dug up a major feed line and killed himself during that incident. It took time to switch over to another major feed to the city.
Great stuff! Along the "save" line, have you ever thought about running the alternator hooked on to a compressed air tank itself filled by a battery run dc motor? If feasible at all, that would eliminate both solar and fossil fuel and the batteries would be charged as effectively. Regards.
Every time energy transfers there is a large loss. Going from Sun to electricity in the solar panel loses a lot. Going from electricity into a battery loses a lot. Going from the battery into an electric compressor to compress air loses a huge amount. Again a huge amount is lost once you go from that compressed air to some kind of an alternator to generate electricity. Any system like this would only be good for a very specific use case and would not work well for the average person. I'm not going to do the math but I did study about compressed air systems for a while as a job I was doing. It turns out compressed air is one of the worst ways to store energy because it requires so much energy to compress the air. A lot of that energy is lost as heat due one of the gas laws. I don't recall which one right off and I don't want to look it up or I'll have to rewrite my comment. It always happens when you compress gas. That energy is lost and you don't get it back when you decompress the gas. The gas does get colder when you decompress it but you're not getting back even close to the same amount of energy that you lost compressing at all. A hint to think about this is you want to convert energy in as few steps as possible to be as efficient as possible. This works as a rule but it's not always the case. For example inverter generators are slightly more complicated than normal generators. They gain efficiency though because they can vary the RPM of the generator and not because they're really violating this fewer steps rule.
I am thinking of purchasing a Maxspeeding rods generator like the one used in your video - but don't know anything about them. Are they reliable? Do they work on propane? I have seen TH-cam posts that say they don't handle the propane well. Thank you for your time!
I've run mine mostly on propane with no issues. I can't say what the long term durability is, but they are so cheap I suppose you could just replace it when it fails and still be ahead. You can see more testing with it in this video: th-cam.com/video/lVlsI_yXF-I/w-d-xo.html I don't know if this code still works, but you can try it. Get $50 off the MaxPeedingRods MXR3500S Dual Fuel Inverter Generator code "Everyday" : bit.ly/40eKkw2
If you are changing batteries the inverter generator it best because it will throttle back as the batteries get near their full charge. I’ve been using a small Honda for about 20 years at a remote cabin charging batteries when the solar doesn’t keep up. When I was living at the remote cabin I’d run the generator every other night for a couple hours as I didn’t have solar then. I’d use about 6 gallons of gas in 3 weeks doing this. Our 4048 inverter will add up to 2 KW from a generator to the 4K the inverter puts out.
I'm in Ohio and my 4,000 sq ft house is all electric. We could probably go with any backup method in the summertime but we can use 3,500 KW in January and February. That makes solar a challenging investment. Especially when my electric only cost me $0.11 per kilowatt-hour. I'll likely do some sort of solar deployment with backup propane heat. I like that propane is better for long-term storage.
So with that inverter generator what is the DC output of the generator I'm looking at going solar and want a backup power supply also since inverter generators have an inverter I'd like to use the generators inverter for my power needs
Over time, solar will always win out, because the fuel is free I run 3 freezers with a solar setup. I have a Bluetti charging with 1200 watts of solar, and a small 12v battery bank charging with 400 watts of panels. I use the Bluetti as my inverter, plug the battery bank in every night, and run the freezers 24/7 with no problem, assuming moderate sun. The freezers are older, so not very efficient, and will pull around 5 kwh per day in summer. I recently bought the four 395-watt biracial panels for $125 each. For roughly $2k, I effectively save myself $.60 a day. That's a joke, of course, because I just have that set up as a test. I use the 12v batteries for other things like running a sprayer or a trolling motor, and I use the Bluetti around the farm. I use around 90kwh per day during July and August because I live in GA, and AC isn't optional. That's why I don't even consider going solar at home. I would need a $70k system to do what we do now for under $400 a month, and that is WAY oversized for the other 8 months a year. Like most "preppers," I have all of the above. I have the ability to generate probably 12kw per day during a sunny summer day, but I don't have the battery capacity to store all that power. I have 3 generators. One Honda 2k, one Champion dual fuel 3.5k, and one old Multiquip 6k that is really a job site generator. I'm fortunate to have a farm, so I always have 20 gallons of gas on hand that gets cycled through equipment. The propane advantage is in being able to store so much without worries. We have an RV, and we process chickens, so I routinely have 200 pounds of propane on hand. Fuel won't be a problem for us. We have a generator plug and can run all our 120v house stuff in the small generators. We have a window unit in one room because we won't be able to run our central AC. The camper gives us the ability to take hot showers, since our home is all-electric, and the water heater is too much for my generators. We could almost live "normal" lives for at least a week if the power goes out. Anything longer than that, the zombies will probably overrun us.
You have to remember we're going to have a gas shortage here pretty soon, everybody's too young to remember the 70s when you couldn't get gasoline😢 that will wipe a smile right off your face
There are lots of ways to look at this. Fuel for a generator isn't free, you are paying someone to collect it for you. The sun's energy isn't free either, you have to collect it. The solar panel is an up-front payment for a collection service. Both have to be converted to a usable form. For the fuel that is a generator, for the solar power that is an inverter. That's the "logic" for this analysis.
heard some van life people they got rid of propane/diesel as a checklist to get rid off. consider internal combustion engine cars already poor vs EVs. generators would have to convert that mechanical energy to electricity. to be fair, this process ignores the heat content of fuel. there is still purpose for fossil fuels as a heat source
It depends on the type of inverter/charger you have. Some can handle it some can't. I recommend getting inverter generators to avoid "dirty" power issues.
It's likely more acceptable to have a bulk tank of propane, than a similar bulk tank of gasoline. Solar panels are better for long power outages simply because they harvest some power every day, their downside is their size for useful power. I was reading of a friend in CA who was snowed in and mains free for some weeks, eventually he and neighbours had to take a generator to the petrol station to run the pumps to buy more fuel - not all fuel stations are OK with bodges like that!
If money isn't an issue. Solar (And depending for what), Gasoline powered whatever the cheapest and available. Gas/Propane not so available. Talking about non Utility direct conected power/gas. And wood ?
My choice would be an over sized solar system that produces your needed power on shortest winter days have enough battery storage to cover at least 3 days of use. Yes you are paying in advance for your energy usage maybe add a B2B so you can use your vehicles alternator for an emergency back up. 4 hours of good sun System 8 x 400w solar panels 4 x 200ah lithium batteries 30A B2B Victron 12/12 30 12v Victron 3000VA power inverter
I would love to see the cost of a system like this divided out over the number of years it's expected to last but include the cost of maintenance etc. And good friend of mine paid like $27,000 for his solar system and then he had to pay another $5,000 to have someone take it off while had something repaired on his roof. There must be some maintenance after the 10 or 15 or 20 year mark. Having solar is cool but I don't have enough saved up to pull the trigger on a good enough system. I'd rather wait a few years than give up most of the gains to some financing company.
How do we charge our batteries with a dual fuel generator like the one used here? For example, I have a Growatt 3K with a battery bank of AGM batteries. If I use the Growatt, will I damage it if the generator is NOT an inverter generator? Does the Growatt handle the charging voltage, current, and profile? Do I need a separate battery charger to plug into the generator and then charge the batteries with that charger? How is this done?
Most inverters do not require a smooth sine wave input, so a conventional generator should be ok, but always check with your manufacturer. If your inverter only has one AC input, you would need a transfer switch to switch between mains power and generator power. You can see a similar setup in this video: th-cam.com/video/BzMAW8kW0CU/w-d-xo.html
Just about all of the All in One inverters are sensitive to frequency accuracy and stability and will not lock on or stay locked on to a generator if there is more than 0.3hz per second of freq wobble so you need the inverter genset. You cannot charge and invert at the same time so if that is your goal buy a separate charger like the EG4 from signature solar and you can run any old crappy genset and adjust the charger output for the size generator you are using. I have a 6500 honda/ 5500kw continuous and 80 amps is where things are happy
@@tyronetrump1612 Thanks! I have the same HONDA and after seeing the EG4 charger on DIY with Will P., I thought about doing exactly what you suggest. If I switch to LFEPo4, what makes them happy regarding the charge current? Is higher better or is there an optimum for Li? Thanks again!
@@benkanobe7500 Don't think the batteries are "happier" or care with high vs low charge amperages but for the SOK 100 amp hour server rack batteries they recommend 0-63 amps with 100 amp max continuous. The BMS on the battery will keep you out of trouble and you can set the external charger to do the same with max voltage . I prefer my inverter to do it's protecting before the battery BMS has to step in so you could set your external charger accordingly . I set my inverter for 57.6 volts absorption, 55 volts float and 48 volts for cutout ( the battery BMS cuts out at 46 volts) . I highly recommend the Lifepo4 server rack batteries - they are pricey. I went with the SOK as the cells interconnect links are bolted vs spot weld so if you ever had to replace a cell....
For permanent off grid setup solar is ideal. But in a state of emergency when you need power on demand and guaranteed gas followed by propane is the way to go. You can’t count on the sun during emergencies.
I agree. For emergencies, it makes sense to have a dual fuel generator first, than add solar for the situation where fuel becomes expensive or unavailable.
@@reidharward but you can stockpile fuel ahead and even during an emergency, you can’t stockpile the sunshine if your equipment is damaged or dare I say 🫢there is no sunshine
@josealvarez9517 There is no way to insure the fuel you've stockpiled is not going to go bad. Gasoline has a notoriously short shelf life. There are a lot fewer moving parts in a solar generator and batteries store energy for those times when the sun doesn't shine. Also, solar panels work on cloudy days, and what are going to do once you burn through your fuel supplies? Face it, it's more reliable, and cheaper.
@@reidharward if you had someone in your home that depended on a ventilator would you put all your stock in just solar? When you need full power on demand for a specific situation gas/propane is the way to go. And yes gas can go stale but the chemistry and cycles in the batteries of a solar bank also have a finite lifespan so you’re talking in circles. Solar is an option but it’s not the only correct option for emergencies.
One problem with propane is it depends on the state or province you live in those small bottles are a very expensive way to buy propane 20 pound bottles are cheaper and fairly portable for longer run time a 30 or 40 pound bottle give more run time and a 100 or bigger tank while not being portable give a longer run time buying propane as a liquid is the cheapest way to buy for off grid living a 250 gallon or bigger needs a delivery service and fòr for us in a province that produces propane propane it's a way to go cheapest yet is natural gas for those hooked up to natural gas methane is free just need to set up a digester
I was just using the small bottles to allow me to accurately measure the fuel used for the test. They are not a good choice for running a generator, they freeze up too quickly and are a very expensive way to purchase propane.
It's true that there's no direct comparison between a gasoline power generator and solar panels. You have to think about your use case and what the total cost is going to be. Small gas generators sell for as little as around $100 brand new so with that plus $5 of gas your fridge could be running for a few hours after an outage. Maybe double that for good measure. If you wanted a similar system but solar you have to buy the panels Plus batteries Plus the inverter. You get the best bang for your buck if you buy a lot of stuff so a small system it's going to be more expensive per watt. We're talking $100 or so for the inverter Plus 100 or so for the panel Plus 100 or so for the battery. That will give you a crappy system it doesn't have very much power, takes forever to charge, and doesn't last very long. That's not that different from the generator but it's extremely limited because you can't just buy more sun. If you spent $400 to $600 on a generator I could probably power most things in your house but not at the same time. As long as you give it gas you're good to go. To be able to run almost indefinitely on solar you would be in the thousands of dollars range. By that time it's not really an emergency use system so you would have to change your use case to make it worth it. The last big hurdle for solar is where are you going to put the panels.? If you don't own your own home this is a hard one. Also if you don't install them on your roof are you figuring the price of your land in on the total cost of the system? For example if your solar panel takes up half of your yard and you lose use of it there's a cost associated with that. You could say that you are already paying for it so it doesn't matter but that's not really a good comparison. Mounting solar panels also has a cost that needs to be figured in. Solar is cool but the startup costs and work involved tend to be quite high. I just recently helped one of my friends design and install a system for her van. After all the wiring and switches it was many thousands of dollars.
All valid points. That's why I recommend starting with a small generator. Adding solar later gives you additional flexibility for when fuel is not available. Also, when done right, over time it can be cheaper.
Get more Solar and Off Grid information on my new website here: projectswithdave.com Here is a link to the Propane/Gasoline/Solar Calculator and Project Information: projectswithdave.com/solar-power-vs-propane-or-gasoline-generator/
Batteries may not charge below freezing, but solar panels work fine. If you have your batteries in someplace held above freezing, cold days may actually be the highest output from your solar panels because they produce less power when hot. Same with a grid-tie inverter. The run-time factor is totally messed up: Gas or propane are a few hours. Solar is over 25 years! That's a bit over my remaining life expectancy, so I will never pay an electric bill for the rest of my life.
For this analysis I assumed a scenario of intermittent use, but you can modify the spreadsheet to consider long term use if you like and see how it changes the results.
A non inverter generator can actually be more efficient than an inverter generator if you are running the generator near it's full capacity. Say you're using a 3000w normal generator charging a battery at 2700w vs a 3000w inverter gen at the same wattage. Since the inverter generator has to go from AC to DC back to AC it has efficiency loses that a normal gen doesn't. Obviously this only matters if you're using it at near your gens full capacity output otherwise an inverter gen will be way more efficient.
That was my assumption as well. I would need to run a lot more test at varying loads with generators that are more similar than the ones I used to prove that out.
Most of our emergency power outages are the outcome of winter storms, solar isn't going to keep up with demand, assuming the panels aren't buried and there is any sunlight to harvest. Most people out here keep 200-1000 gallons of propane on hand, can run a generator for few weeks
Dave, my generator is my Prius so I'm limited to 1500 w. Been trying to figure out what battery pack I can safely charge , best fit, with the limit of my generator. I would only use in an emergency situation. Can you recommend any suggestions to how to get a correct calculation?
You've stacked the deck to favor your bias, solar. Why didn't you add 5,10,10 years of usage for gasoline and propane. Also you left out the cost of repairs and replacements to the fragile solar panels into your calculations. Basically you're trying to convince yourself and others that solar is the way to go which is tremendously deceitful and wrong. Solar is bullshit for 95% of the USA. Only a tiny band in the sunbelt of USA without trees can use it with any kind of value - you know it yourself.
Knowledge is power, and that was a very powerful video! I respect how you don't set out with an agenda or a point to prove, you just present information for people to consider. Really great stuff.
Thank you for this science - the charts, the calculator, the consistent methodology. Fantastic! Now we can gain knowledge instead of guessing.
Glad it was helpful!
Great video. I believe it's worth saying that with propane you have less chance of getting a gummed up carb so less maintenance may be an additional advantage. And IMO storing and transferring propane is safer than the same with gasoline.
I have 2000 gallons of propane that will store forever to heat my home. If I had 2000 gallons of a gasoline I would have a giant BOMB and be terrified lol.
@@mattpkpBut on The Walking Dead they’re still finding gas that’s 10 plus years old and it’s just fine lolol.
Excellent video actual costing are very handy I am to the stage of needing batteries. (older solar panels in Australia grid tied) So cost verses benefit analysis is very handy.
Great information! My set up is for grid down not off grid. I have a 2000 watt inverter generator, and batteries banks with multiple portable solar panels. Multiple options has been my plan. With my battery banks & solar I feel I am pretty much indefinitely able to power a 12 volt frig/freezer, lights, fans for cooling, and power the fan for my furnace. Generator is my back up to recharge battery banks. I try to rotate my gasoline every 12 weeks, I store enough fuel to run generator about 4 hours per day for about 90 days if needed.
Any experience with the inverter VS regular generator? I'm just getting into this Battery power craze? But I had a battery backup pellet stove (not grill but I had one of those too) that was great and looking for more ways to use 12v / 24v for refrigerator and freezer!
I've got an off grid shop situation, for various reasons, solar is not a viable option. But a battery/inverter system is. I can charge that 6 to 8 kw system with a smaller generator, running at an optimized level for a couple of hours, for much less than a 8kw generator that would idling most of the time.
Yes, that works much more efficiently than running a generator continuously.
This is a very important point you are able to run your generator at its most efficient speed and at a consistent speed. This not only costs less per watt but also is best for the longevity of your generator
So the one argument almost everyone in the solar world tries to avoid is the energy density. Don't get me wrong, I love my solar generators and they have their purposes, but they all suffer from the energy density issue. Since fuel is just a form of energy storage, trying to compare apples to apples would be 1 gallon of gas is about 6lb or 2.83Kg. So get 2.83Kg of propane and 2.83Kg of lithium battery, bonus points for getting 2.83Kg of LFP and 2.83kg of NMC to compare, and see how long you can run loads on that much energy storage.
That is an analysis with a completely different purpose. Energy storage by weight when considering the storage container as well, would be gasoline. A battle for most efficient energy storage for emergency use, not considering weight, would be propane hands down. For a very low price you can store massive amounts of energy for a nearly indefinite period of time. Batteries are very expensive and eventually degrade, and gasoline goes bad over time. That might be a fun numbers exercise. I'll put it in my list of future video ideas.
So I just thought of this. It's true that propane and gasoline are relatively cheaper gallon but you can't store gas per gallon. You have to store it in a gas can or tank or something. The same with propane. Propane is not that expensive and it does last forever but a large propane tank or a whole bunch of small propane tanks would start to get very expensive.
Very informative video. Most of this information I knew or at least assumed. But never knew all the exacting details. Thank you for doing this, it was very helpful.
Glad it was helpful!
Great comparisons of things that are different. Propane compared to gas generator is easy - propane. Tank never rusts, fuel never goes bad. Cold climates simply require bigger tanks.
Tanks underground in cold ,and for hot days the tanks will no loose as much ,,,,,, propane will leak some as well see tank design it will leak some slowly over time say 5 precent and it is for out door use for that causes as well
Excellent video. Anyone headed down this road would get a ton of benefit from following yr advice.
Great test, given your results and assuming intermittent winter use, I would stick with gas for most of the season but trying to keep stored fuel to a minimum because of the alcohol present. A small bottle of propane then provides a backup to the backup !
great information, I have opted for all of the above.....lol. Joking aside i have a good solar array at 3.4Kw and two 3K inverters. 18Kw battery storage and a 2Kw dual fuel generator. I already stored gas for my lawn mower and propane for my grill so i just add to the amount i store. I like that propane can store for years and that gas works(in the cold) when nothing else will and that solar carry's the load most days. I use my solar system every day to offset my electric bill and if the grid is not available then i have the options of gas or propane to charge the battery and keep my house powered up. After a year with this plan my only change is to get a smaller more efficient generator to charge the battery
I runh a similar system with 2) LV6548 split phase for 13.5kw back feeding my main panel - In the am I switch to solar, after peak solar they start to draw from 4 SOK 100ah server rack batteries and I usually have to switch back to grid around 9-12 depending on how much the central air is going on - repeat the next day. I suggest you look at the new EG4 100 amp 48 volt battery charger - you can now charge while inverting if need be and adjust the output. I have an old 6500 honda and can do max continuous 5500 so I bump it down to 80 amps.
34kWp…I still get 5% production on the darkest days. I have 143kWh battery, so never needed my 10kW lp Gen. 17MWH produced last yr. No power bill, no additional taxes paid to greedy, corrupt people.
I agree here. It's amazing how many people think you make no power on cloudy or rainy days
Yep have 3 years worth of output data on my 9.25 kwp system. My lowest output was 6kwh/day and that only happened 12 times in 3 years. Normal low cloudy output is 12-16kwh/day. Sunny day max outputs 41-58kwh/day.
Dave I can’t recall if you touched on this but another reason to go with an inverter generator over a non inverting genset is just the clean power. I have a fair amount of dollars invested in my Victron setup and I want the best quality AC in that I can get. The inverters on the market today are packed with electronics. I have older generators that I just wont connect to the AC in because I don’t want dirty power being passed into my house or inverters. Old generators work great for power tools out in the back 40 so I still keep them around. My Honda 3000 inverter does the work for the home/inverters
Yes, that's a good point. Also, there are appliances like microwaves that don't run well on conventional generators.
That is why you buy the new EG4 100 amp 48 battery charger - it does not care about the AC source AND even better you can invert and charge at the same time.
Just about all the name brand older generators have sufficiently clean sinewave to run electronics just by the nature of how they work, it's when people do not use a generator rated at least 30% over the load they want to run is where you run into issues with voltage sag and spikes etc. Frequency does not matter as just about all electronics are designed for multiple countries and can handle frequency drift no problem and electronics are build way more robust today. People ran sensitive electronics for years on non inverter generators with no issues
I am going to watch the video, but even before I do, I can tell you, propane and solar combination is the best. Solar primary with natural gas/propane backup for overcast days. Gasoline is too hard to store for sustained periods. Gasoline also makes your engine dirtier, more maintenance. Lets see how well I fare.
This is true and a good point. I have heard though that because of the way propane Burns it's a little harder on a generator. I guess it burns faster more like an explosion when gasoline Burns a little slower so it's more like a firm push on the cylinder.
Another awesome video, every single video you put out, I learn something. Thank you so much.
Based on numbers supplied here and for my dual fuel generator, another way to put things into perspective is seeing 15 lbs propane tanks are fairly ubiquitous, a 15 lbs propane tank will roughly get you the same energy out of your generator as 2 gallons of gasoline. Granted 15 lbs propane tank swaps tend to be a lot more expensive than getting a larger propane tank and taking it down to a fueling station, however that manifests where you live.
An added thing is if you are doing this a lot, an inverter generator can handle shifting loads on ECO mode and provide stable power for electronics as well, but what they don't handle are hard starting single phase motors in ECO mode. Regular mode has more kinetic energy in faster moving parts to absorb the rapid surge in power demand as one of these single phase motors kicks on. Of course the generator uses more fuel to spin faster in the first place while in regular mode. It is unfortunate that they don't put super-capacitors in these inverter generators to absorb the amperage spike. So when you start looking into how to save money on fuel, the first thing would be to do something about hard starting electric motors such as fridge, air conditioner, power tools, etc. I am not naming an exact solution as there are multiple ways to go about this and different devices have different solutions for them for different prices. For example, a newer fridge may have soft start hardware in it and a variable speed inverter based air conditioner / heat pump will soft start, plus the inverter based air conditioners / heat pumps are far more efficient than their "single stage" counterparts.
Then depending on how much you are using the solution, you can start thinking about the extra up front costs of adding in other systems like batteries and inverters and even solar-battery-inverter. With the price of batteries and inverters going down over the past several years and the utility of having quiet power, especially at night, at least a small battery-inverter setup starts making sense real fast. When you get into habitual / permanent daily use, battery-inverter and especially solar-battery-inverter sizing up makes a lot more financial sense. Plus maybe a big storm knocks out power, you probably don't want to setup your portable generator outside in the middle of the storm, especially if say the eye of a hurricane is directly over you, you probably want to wait a little longer for a longer lasting calm before taking out your generator. So a battery-inverter deal can be inside your place and as long as you still have a roof and storm surge / other flooding hasn't come into your place, you can fire up the battery-inverter setup. So primary goal of emergency power on occasion, well maybe you just get an inverter generator as they are cheap enough now and size up some fuel such as propane as it stores well and burns cleanly to run the generator in regular mode and inefficiently power your place through that power emergency. This is you have a system that works, it is rarely used, and you spent the least amount of money on it as possible while also being the least hassle system. Now you are thinking the power goes out a lot (the grid is kind of sucky where I live), and/or I want electrical power when camping off grid and / or have hobbies that require electrical power outdoors, but I don't really spend that much time camping or the hobby doesn't actually need that much power on an outing. Well this quickly gets into an additional battery-inverter setup and maybe the outdoor hobby has hardware that direct connects to the battery, granted it is a compatible voltage. Say a typical hobby charger will run off of 24V batteries directly and if you have two 24V batteries, you could have wiring harnesses for both parallel 24V operation and series 48V operation, granted smaller scale use you may just select 24V and call it a day. The first thing is to get your hard start stuff on the battery-inverter so you can set the generator into ECO mode and save on fuel I would think. Then you quickly get into quiet overnight power with the battery-inverter setup and even say an electric cooler that can run directly off of the batteries you have as electric coolers will often take up to 30V max DC. You usually don't need that much power overnight anyway, so this keeps the battery setup small and cheap. Then with more use, you size up the inverter-battery setup in a more permanent setup so you can run the generator less and cruise on batteries more. Doing this a lot, then you look into solar panels so you can run the generator as little as possible. All of this latter stuff, you are looking at a bulky fixed setup, and maybe 48V DC for current systems available out there. I really think a 400V DC standard needs to be utilized more for permanent setups (and something like charging an EV you use a buck-boost converter to charge your 400V EV battery and various doubling and halving schemes to handle 800V EVs), but this is a topic for another day.
This video was very well done.... Good information easy to
I know a guy with a generator to charge his batteries, I hear him fire it up and run it for hours while I am in blissful silence with my 2kw solar/9kw lithium set up that gives me more power than I need 90% of the time. He also needs to fill up his lpg tank every 2 weeks and I regularly go 3 months before a refill. The fact that free energy falls out of the sky for anybody to use just makes a generator look as primitive as they sound, we just need those thin film perovskite panels to become practical for a portable set up.
Solar is hard to beat in the long run!
Great video and analysis, just what I was looking for, Thanks again
Great to hear, thanks!
Great video with a lot of valuable information. Thank you for you effort. Subscribed 👍🏻
I think the big benefit of Propane other than the storage life is the wide utility. You can cook directly with propane, trading the energy losses from inverters into energy losses in atmospheric heat dissipation and heat transfer inefficiencies. A large home propane tank can directly power a lot of appliances that would otherwise use a LOT of electricity, like stoves, hot water heaters , and dryers. Personally I would never in my life use a gas powered dryer, and I do like my induction range more than my gas one, but in certain situations where grid power is limited and solar is only viable 10 months out of the year, propane can be a viable option to consider.
Other benefits of Propane besides it's shelf life is, that it doesn't gum up carbs, doesn't perish fuel lines, doesn't require a fuel pump. doesn't need to be primed, doesn't need to be emptied from the generator etc for storage, So as a Emergency power system Propane power is really great.
Yes, thanks for adding these additional benefits for propane. Not cleaning out the remaining fuel for storage is a huge bonus!
As much as people complain about their electric bill, it's still pretty cheap considering the infrastructure required and how much energy you can get, and on-demand too.
Yes, producing your own power is not a minor undertaking.
I'd love to see a comparison on using a generator to charge batteries during low solar days vs having a larger battery bank. If you have a 48 volt bank and need to add capacity, it can get very expensive but a gallon of gas is cheaper. At least I think so.
Yes, probably much cheaper. I plan to do an analysis like that in the future. I like to use actual data so I am building a bit larger battery than my current one to make a practical experiment and answer that question.
@@ProjectsWithDave Thanks! I'll look forward to it.
your info has been helpful, thanks.
This was a very well done video, but some bad and missing information.
For generators, I would highly recommend using only ethanol free if available. Gas in general, but mostly ethanol free because it does not attract water like ethanol gas, easily lasts 6 months without fuel stabilizer. Also you said stabilizers only last 6 months, while Sta-bil brand advertises 2 years on their storage additive.
Another point with the generators is oil changes that was missed. You will need to keep around some oil and change it every 25-200 hours(depending on the quality of the generator, and how far you choose to push it). Maybe it isn't a big deal for this video because you were mostly testing short term usage, but it is an often overlooked factor that requires effort and probably some mess depending on design.
I would always go for solar now that I have it, it is silent and is useful all the time, instead of just being stored away and only used once a year at the most, unless you camp often. For a mobile situation, I would probably try to use a solar generator type of battery, and solar panels or not, you can plug it in somewhere hopefully and some can charge most of the way in an hour.
I hope you see my input as positive, thanks for the video and testing!
Thanks for adding your thoughts.
Great video
500ml of fuel in Australia is like $1 of fuel, gets expensive running a genny.
Great comparison!
For an occasional use off-grid cabin it seems like it's a good deal to equip it with a combination of solar and a propane burning generator and a bank of batteries large enough to run typical overnight loads. Run the generator when you need to use the microwave oven or other high power appliances. Cook with propane. If you're going to stay at the cabin for long periods it probably makes sense to add enough solar and batteries so you only rarely have to run the generator - to avoid having to haul propane very often.
Interesting to see how efficient (cheaply) the electric utility is able to provide energy! A small generator doesn't suffer any of the losses the utilities do in transmission and step down transformers. But the utilities make up for this with scale. For electrical generation from combustion the thermodynamics of a large generator are much much better than for a small generator. And a utility likely buys fuel (coal, natural gas, oil) at a good discount. For a renewable electric generation like solar, wind, or hydro, the utility is able to develop and purchase the equipment at scale discount, and then they only have to pay for capital, maintenance and depreciation.
Battery temperature shouldn't be a big issue. High end batteries have heaters which only run when there's a combination of low pack temperature and charging voltage at the terminals. When there's no charging voltage the heater is off. For a cabin, batteries might be installed in an insulated cellar of sorts - below the frost line. They'd probably be happier there in the summer too.
Thanks! A key reason utilities have better efficiency is they don't use internal combustion engines to produce power. The internal combustion engine is very inefficient sending a great deal of energy out as wasted heat in the exhaust. As you mentioned, there are ways to manage the battery temperature, but it is something that has to be considered for those in cold climates.
@@ProjectsWithDave all engine efficiency tends to improve with scale - larger engines tend to be more thermodynamically efficient. A 2 MW Cat diesel generator might produce 15kWh per gallon, which I think is around 4.6kWh per kG of diesel - about 3 times more efficient than your small gasoline generator. Some of that is due to scale where the large engine has higher volume to surface area ratio of its combustion chambers which means less heat energy is wasted in the cooling system. And it's practical to put turbochargers on big engines, which capture heat and kinetic energy from the exhaust stream, and on a diesel increases mechanical energy delivered per unit of fuel. Utility scale generators are even better.
Would have liked to seen a comparison with natural gas.
Unfortunately, I don't have access to natural gas at my location.
Natural gas has less energy than propane. It really would come down to the cost per unit. Also remember that big storm in Texas a few years ago? A lot of people lost power because the grid was using the same type of fossil fuels as people's homes were so there was a competition there. Also I got really cold and so some things solidified in the lines. I know it's crazy to think that natural gas is going to solidify the lines but it's not just pure natural gas. But that means is if you were needing a generator during a serious storm and you didn't have LNG you might lose your natural gas feed which would mean you lose your generator. Natural gas seems like such an obvious answer but in a true emergency it might just not be available. also might get cut out in an earthquake.
@josephwheeler1 I can't remember a period when natural gas wasn't cheaper than propane even whe. Taking into account btu output. My generator will run off LP or Natural gas. If things got bad enough such as your example of an earthquake your propane ain't gonna stay filled forever and likely won't get refilled anytime soon if it were bad enough in the area. I can remember only one time in my life where natural gas went down and that was because a man dug up a major feed line and killed himself during that incident. It took time to switch over to another major feed to the city.
Evading energy tax is the only reason for me to run solar. Here at 52°N in the Netherlands.
Are the taxes designed to push people towards solar?
Great stuff! Along the "save" line, have you ever thought about running the alternator hooked on to a compressed air tank itself filled by a battery run dc motor? If feasible at all, that would eliminate both solar and fossil fuel and the batteries would be charged as effectively. Regards.
Every time energy transfers there is a large loss. Going from Sun to electricity in the solar panel loses a lot. Going from electricity into a battery loses a lot. Going from the battery into an electric compressor to compress air loses a huge amount. Again a huge amount is lost once you go from that compressed air to some kind of an alternator to generate electricity. Any system like this would only be good for a very specific use case and would not work well for the average person. I'm not going to do the math but I did study about compressed air systems for a while as a job I was doing. It turns out compressed air is one of the worst ways to store energy because it requires so much energy to compress the air. A lot of that energy is lost as heat due one of the gas laws. I don't recall which one right off and I don't want to look it up or I'll have to rewrite my comment. It always happens when you compress gas. That energy is lost and you don't get it back when you decompress the gas. The gas does get colder when you decompress it but you're not getting back even close to the same amount of energy that you lost compressing at all. A hint to think about this is you want to convert energy in as few steps as possible to be as efficient as possible. This works as a rule but it's not always the case. For example inverter generators are slightly more complicated than normal generators. They gain efficiency though because they can vary the RPM of the generator and not because they're really violating this fewer steps rule.
Great testing.
Thank you!
I am thinking of purchasing a Maxspeeding rods generator like the one used in your video - but don't know anything about them. Are they reliable? Do they work on propane? I have seen TH-cam posts that say they don't handle the propane well. Thank you for your time!
I've run mine mostly on propane with no issues. I can't say what the long term durability is, but they are so cheap I suppose you could just replace it when it fails and still be ahead. You can see more testing with it in this video: th-cam.com/video/lVlsI_yXF-I/w-d-xo.html
I don't know if this code still works, but you can try it. Get $50 off the MaxPeedingRods MXR3500S Dual Fuel Inverter Generator code "Everyday" : bit.ly/40eKkw2
thank you for getting back to me! Much appreciated!@@ProjectsWithDave
If you are changing batteries the inverter generator it best because it will throttle back as the batteries get near their full charge. I’ve been using a small Honda for about 20 years at a remote cabin charging batteries when the solar doesn’t keep up. When I was living at the remote cabin I’d run the generator every other night for a couple hours as I didn’t have solar then. I’d use about 6 gallons of gas in 3 weeks doing this. Our 4048 inverter will add up to 2 KW from a generator to the 4K the inverter puts out.
Thanks for adding your actual real world use case.
I'm in Ohio and my 4,000 sq ft house is all electric. We could probably go with any backup method in the summertime but we can use 3,500 KW in January and February.
That makes solar a challenging investment. Especially when my electric only cost me $0.11 per kilowatt-hour.
I'll likely do some sort of solar deployment with backup propane heat. I like that propane is better for long-term storage.
It's hard to go 0ff-grid in Ohio. A grid tie system with some emergency backup makes the most sense.
So with that inverter generator what is the DC output of the generator I'm looking at going solar and want a backup power supply also since inverter generators have an inverter I'd like to use the generators inverter for my power needs
The DC output is very small, it is designed for mainly AC output.
Over time, solar will always win out, because the fuel is free
I run 3 freezers with a solar setup. I have a Bluetti charging with 1200 watts of solar, and a small 12v battery bank charging with 400 watts of panels. I use the Bluetti as my inverter, plug the battery bank in every night, and run the freezers 24/7 with no problem, assuming moderate sun. The freezers are older, so not very efficient, and will pull around 5 kwh per day in summer.
I recently bought the four 395-watt biracial panels for $125 each. For roughly $2k, I effectively save myself $.60 a day.
That's a joke, of course, because I just have that set up as a test. I use the 12v batteries for other things like running a sprayer or a trolling motor, and I use the Bluetti around the farm.
I use around 90kwh per day during July and August because I live in GA, and AC isn't optional. That's why I don't even consider going solar at home. I would need a $70k system to do what we do now for under $400 a month, and that is WAY oversized for the other 8 months a year.
Like most "preppers," I have all of the above. I have the ability to generate probably 12kw per day during a sunny summer day, but I don't have the battery capacity to store all that power. I have 3 generators. One Honda 2k, one Champion dual fuel 3.5k, and one old Multiquip 6k that is really a job site generator. I'm fortunate to have a farm, so I always have 20 gallons of gas on hand that gets cycled through equipment.
The propane advantage is in being able to store so much without worries. We have an RV, and we process chickens, so I routinely have 200 pounds of propane on hand. Fuel won't be a problem for us.
We have a generator plug and can run all our 120v house stuff in the small generators. We have a window unit in one room because we won't be able to run our central AC.
The camper gives us the ability to take hot showers, since our home is all-electric, and the water heater is too much for my generators.
We could almost live "normal" lives for at least a week if the power goes out. Anything longer than that, the zombies will probably overrun us.
Thanks for the in-depth breakdown of your activity.
The other mitigating factor is that propane does not degrade like gasoline does. It can be stored indefinitely whereas gasoline cannot.
I like to have options. A dual fuel generator and a solar source provides a lot of flexibility.
Just have all three
You have to remember we're going to have a gas shortage here pretty soon, everybody's too young to remember the 70s when you couldn't get gasoline😢 that will wipe a smile right off your face
Flexibility is the name of the game....
Fuel is the sun for solar panel which is free. The cost of the generator is more akin to the cost of the panel.
There are lots of ways to look at this. Fuel for a generator isn't free, you are paying someone to collect it for you. The sun's energy isn't free either, you have to collect it. The solar panel is an up-front payment for a collection service. Both have to be converted to a usable form. For the fuel that is a generator, for the solar power that is an inverter. That's the "logic" for this analysis.
heard some van life people they got rid of propane/diesel as a checklist to get rid off. consider internal combustion engine cars already poor vs EVs. generators would have to convert that mechanical energy to electricity. to be fair, this process ignores the heat content of fuel. there is still purpose for fossil fuels as a heat source
How are you dumping "dirty" power into your batteries with that old gen. I thought that was a no go?
It depends on the type of inverter/charger you have. Some can handle it some can't. I recommend getting inverter generators to avoid "dirty" power issues.
It's likely more acceptable to have a bulk tank of propane, than a similar bulk tank of gasoline. Solar panels are better for long power outages simply because they harvest some power every day, their downside is their size for useful power. I was reading of a friend in CA who was snowed in and mains free for some weeks, eventually he and neighbours had to take a generator to the petrol station to run the pumps to buy more fuel - not all fuel stations are OK with bodges like that!
I think there is value in having multiple sources of power if you can afford it. A dual fuel generator with some solar give lots of options.
who works at petrol station if there is no power?
A 1 cycle engine with 11kw output will make a lot of power to charge batteries.
If money isn't an issue. Solar (And depending for what), Gasoline powered whatever the cheapest and available. Gas/Propane not so available. Talking about non Utility direct conected power/gas. And wood ?
The conventional generator should have it's max efficiency at 100% load, while the inverter generator is able to drop rpm at lower loads to save gas.
My choice would be an over sized solar system that produces your needed power on shortest winter days have enough battery storage to cover at least 3 days of use. Yes you are paying in advance for your energy usage maybe add a B2B so you can use your vehicles alternator for an emergency back up.
4 hours of good sun
System
8 x 400w solar panels
4 x 200ah lithium batteries
30A B2B Victron 12/12 30
12v Victron 3000VA power inverter
I would love to see the cost of a system like this divided out over the number of years it's expected to last but include the cost of maintenance etc. And good friend of mine paid like $27,000 for his solar system and then he had to pay another $5,000 to have someone take it off while had something repaired on his roof. There must be some maintenance after the 10 or 15 or 20 year mark. Having solar is cool but I don't have enough saved up to pull the trigger on a good enough system. I'd rather wait a few years than give up most of the gains to some financing company.
I think inverter generators have cleaner power so you get more energy out of it.
No we burn firewood and everything in our house is 12 volt and everything works just fine😮 and yes we have plenty of hot water
i don't think the scoping was necessary. Keep them short and sweet.
Thanks for the constructive feedback.
How do we charge our batteries with a dual fuel generator like the one used here? For example, I have a Growatt 3K with a battery bank of AGM batteries. If I use the Growatt, will I damage it if the generator is NOT an inverter generator? Does the Growatt handle the charging voltage, current, and profile? Do I need a separate battery charger to plug into the generator and then charge the batteries with that charger? How is this done?
Most inverters do not require a smooth sine wave input, so a conventional generator should be ok, but always check with your manufacturer. If your inverter only has one AC input, you would need a transfer switch to switch between mains power and generator power. You can see a similar setup in this video: th-cam.com/video/BzMAW8kW0CU/w-d-xo.html
@@ProjectsWithDave Thanks!
Just about all of the All in One inverters are sensitive to frequency accuracy and stability and will not lock on or stay locked on to a generator if there is more than 0.3hz per second of freq wobble so you need the inverter genset. You cannot charge and invert at the same time so if that is your goal buy a separate charger like the EG4 from signature solar and you can run any old crappy genset and adjust the charger output for the size generator you are using. I have a 6500 honda/ 5500kw continuous and 80 amps is where things are happy
@@tyronetrump1612 Thanks! I have the same HONDA and after seeing the EG4 charger on DIY with Will P., I thought about doing exactly what you suggest. If I switch to LFEPo4, what makes them happy regarding the charge current? Is higher better or is there an optimum for Li? Thanks again!
@@benkanobe7500 Don't think the batteries are "happier" or care with high vs low charge amperages but for the SOK 100 amp hour server rack batteries they recommend 0-63 amps with 100 amp max continuous. The BMS on the battery will keep you out of trouble and you can set the external charger to do the same with max voltage . I prefer my inverter to do it's protecting before the battery BMS has to step in so you could set your external charger accordingly . I set my inverter for 57.6 volts absorption, 55 volts float and 48 volts for cutout ( the battery BMS cuts out at 46 volts) .
I highly recommend the Lifepo4 server rack batteries - they are pricey. I went with the SOK as the cells interconnect links are bolted vs spot weld so if you ever had to replace a cell....
Thanks
I'll stick to SOLAR
COOP
...
For permanent off grid setup solar is ideal. But in a state of emergency when you need power on demand and guaranteed gas followed by propane is the way to go. You can’t count on the sun during emergencies.
I agree. For emergencies, it makes sense to have a dual fuel generator first, than add solar for the situation where fuel becomes expensive or unavailable.
You can't rely on the infrastructure that delivers gas to your local gas station in some emergencies.
@@reidharward but you can stockpile fuel ahead and even during an emergency, you can’t stockpile the sunshine if your equipment is damaged or dare I say 🫢there is no sunshine
@josealvarez9517 There is no way to insure the fuel you've stockpiled is not going to go bad. Gasoline has a notoriously short shelf life. There are a lot fewer moving parts in a solar generator and batteries store energy for those times when the sun doesn't shine. Also, solar panels work on cloudy days, and what are going to do once you burn through your fuel supplies? Face it, it's more reliable, and cheaper.
@@reidharward if you had someone in your home that depended on a ventilator would you put all your stock in just solar? When you need full power on demand for a specific situation gas/propane is the way to go.
And yes gas can go stale but the chemistry and cycles in the batteries of a solar bank also have a finite lifespan so you’re talking in circles. Solar is an option but it’s not the only correct option for emergencies.
One problem with propane is it depends on the state or province you live in those small bottles are a very expensive way to buy propane 20 pound bottles are cheaper and fairly portable for longer run time a 30 or 40 pound bottle give more run time and a 100 or bigger tank while not being portable give a longer run time buying propane as a liquid is the cheapest way to buy for off grid living a 250 gallon or bigger needs a delivery service and fòr for us in a province that produces propane propane it's a way to go cheapest yet is natural gas for those hooked up to natural gas methane is free just need to set up a digester
I was just using the small bottles to allow me to accurately measure the fuel used for the test. They are not a good choice for running a generator, they freeze up too quickly and are a very expensive way to purchase propane.
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Was he running that first generator off orange juice?
😂Not orange juice, just a convenient container for exact measurements.
It's true that there's no direct comparison between a gasoline power generator and solar panels. You have to think about your use case and what the total cost is going to be. Small gas generators sell for as little as around $100 brand new so with that plus $5 of gas your fridge could be running
for a few hours after an outage. Maybe double that for good measure. If you wanted a similar system but solar you have to buy the panels Plus batteries Plus the inverter. You get the best bang for your buck if you buy a lot of stuff so a small system it's going to be more expensive per watt. We're talking $100 or so for the inverter Plus 100 or so for the panel Plus 100 or so for the battery. That will give you a crappy system it doesn't have very much power, takes forever to charge, and doesn't last very long. That's not that different from the generator but it's extremely limited because you can't just buy more sun. If you spent $400 to $600 on a generator I could probably power most things in your house but not at the same time. As long as you give it gas you're good to go. To be able to run almost indefinitely on solar you would be in the thousands of dollars range. By that time it's not really an emergency use system so you would have to change your use case to make it worth it. The last big hurdle for solar is where are you going to put the panels.? If you don't own your own home this is a hard one. Also if you don't install them on your roof are you figuring the price of your land in on the total cost of the system? For example if your solar panel takes up half of your yard and you lose use of it there's a cost associated with that. You could say that you are already paying for it so it doesn't matter but that's not really a good comparison. Mounting solar panels also has a cost that needs to be figured in. Solar is cool but the startup costs and work involved tend to be quite high. I just recently helped one of my friends design and install a system for her van. After all the wiring and switches it was many thousands of dollars.
All valid points. That's why I recommend starting with a small generator. Adding solar later gives you additional flexibility for when fuel is not available. Also, when done right, over time it can be cheaper.
Get more Solar and Off Grid information on my new website here: projectswithdave.com
Here is a link to the Propane/Gasoline/Solar Calculator and Project Information: projectswithdave.com/solar-power-vs-propane-or-gasoline-generator/
Why not wind power?
Cost/Watt is not competitive with solar and it's not very portable.
Batteries may not charge below freezing, but solar panels work fine. If you have your batteries in someplace held above freezing, cold days may actually be the highest output from your solar panels because they produce less power when hot. Same with a grid-tie inverter.
The run-time factor is totally messed up: Gas or propane are a few hours. Solar is over 25 years! That's a bit over my remaining life expectancy, so I will never pay an electric bill for the rest of my life.
For this analysis I assumed a scenario of intermittent use, but you can modify the spreadsheet to consider long term use if you like and see how it changes the results.
A non inverter generator can actually be more efficient than an inverter generator if you are running the generator near it's full capacity. Say you're using a 3000w normal generator charging a battery at 2700w vs a 3000w inverter gen at the same wattage. Since the inverter generator has to go from AC to DC back to AC it has efficiency loses that a normal gen doesn't. Obviously this only matters if you're using it at near your gens full capacity output otherwise an inverter gen will be way more efficient.
That was my assumption as well. I would need to run a lot more test at varying loads with generators that are more similar than the ones I used to prove that out.
In a emergency solar power is better because that maybe the only thing available
Most of our emergency power outages are the outcome of winter storms, solar isn't going to keep up with demand, assuming the panels aren't buried and there is any sunlight to harvest.
Most people out here keep 200-1000 gallons of propane on hand, can run a generator for few weeks
Dave, my generator is my Prius so I'm limited to 1500 w. Been trying to figure out what battery pack I can safely charge , best fit, with the limit of my generator. I would only use in an emergency situation. Can you recommend any suggestions to how to get a correct calculation?
Can you clarify what you are doing? What method are you using to get power from your Prius? What do you want to be able to run with it?
@@ProjectsWithDave think I was working this question the wrong way. Trying to answer you has actually solved my question, lol. Thanks for the help.
Tholar? Really?
SOLAR is better for the EARTH 😊
Gasoline sours after a few months unless stabilized and even then it goes bad in less than 9 months
I've never had a problem storing ethanol-free gasoline for two years with stabilizer. It almost never last that long but I've never had any go bad.
I think the bad side of solar are the batteries degradation. I prefer propane inverter generators for emergencies.
Batteries are the limiting factor. I expect we will continue to see improvements in that space over the years.
You've stacked the deck to favor your bias, solar. Why didn't you add 5,10,10 years of usage for gasoline and propane. Also you left out the cost of repairs and replacements to the fragile solar panels into your calculations. Basically you're trying to convince yourself and others that solar is the way to go which is tremendously deceitful and wrong. Solar is bullshit for 95% of the USA. Only a tiny band in the sunbelt of USA without trees can use it with any kind of value - you know it yourself.