We live in Florida and get cloudy / rainy days more then you would think. We figured our battery backup for 22kw system (ac is not on battery backup). Instead of adding more batteries we decided to double our solar panel for those cloudy days. This was cheaper and has worked out. Thanks for your videos.
Well just remember to pay attention to the maximum charge rate of your batteries as people often overlook the fact that you can only push so much power into your battery at any given time. I have seen contractors void the warranty and destroy batteries because they drove too much current into them.
Good solution if you have the room. I have noticed it is vary rarely that I have zero production. Even most overcast days I still get significant production.
I have 4kw solar with a single Power Wall. Here on the California coast they supply all my electricity needs the vast majority of time. I do have a heat pump backed up by a Natural gas furnace, gas range, gas hot water and gas dryer. As my appliances need replacement I am switching out for all electric. Next purchases are a heat pump hot water heater, and then an induction range. Presently I use only about a third of the power I produce. I don’t have room on my roof for anymore solar panels and being in a condo I don’t have an area to ground mount them. So I will have to work within my 4kw production envelope.
This is by far the BEST video, because you actually brought out an appliance that is often used in a household and told us exactly how it would drain the battery…incredible and I am incredibly grateful for your channel! ♾💎✨
We live off a 15kw 24v system. It runs everything we need, but we only run a 110v water transfer pump, fridge, chest freezer, and lights everyday. We do have a microwave, rice cooker, Xbox and TV, but we only use those durring the day or when the generator is running. Our house is heated with a woodstove, and we use propane for a tankless water heater and stove/oven. Been living off grid for 5 years up here in Alaska, and started off with a 2kw battery bank, and slowly been upgrading as the years go by.
we have a switch to turn on our hot water heater. We turn it on 15 mins before taking a shower and its hot and good for about two showers. it also lengthens the life of your hot water heater.
I installed an Emporia energy monitor system before installing solar. It gives a very accurate understanding of energy usage. I like that you can look at loads in amps, watts or cost. They make a 16 circuit or 8 circuit monitor but it does have sensors to monitor total panel loads.
@@CountryLivingExperience I know at my house with my emporia energy monitor my second highest using device behind ac was the water heater. So I have since replaced with a heat pump style water heater. I put it in my garage cools my garage down and costs a third to run over conventional should go a long way helping your batteries go further.
Thank you for posting. We are currently configuring an off grid power system in Northern Nevada. I have saved this video for future reference. We will have a generator back up so we will have ability to charge when the sun is not producing power through the solar array(s).
I have also been on my own DIY Journey and built my system out this summer (My house is 100% electric), I'm in Upstate SC, so Helene had me off-grid for 7 days. I have 500AH of Lipo4 and 2 EG4-6000XP's, and 12K of solar. Battery management became high-priority on day 2 (as I woke up in a sweat at 1:20am from poor planning) I decided to drop both my chest freezers to 0 fahrenheit, and put timers on them so they were off from 10pm to 10am, neither went higher than 13 by morning. Also I've put a wrap blanket on my electric water heater and manually shut it off on the same schedule (I'm installing a timer this weekend) Always had enough hot water, and all I wanted during solar hours, we are a family of 3 (I'm fortunate and was getting 7 good sun hours every day) I ran my 12K generator with a Chargeverter every night from 8pm to 12am (or as needed) for 100% battery every night, ran 3 mini-splits every night and had enough battery left that solar could take over in the morning. It was an awesome acid test of "What will it take for me to go 100% off-grid" Now getting into winter sun, I know I'm going to overpanel significantly (at least double my current array) and quadruple my battery. My biggest lesson was "You better use or store that solar during peak sun" (I always made more than I could use or store) So Laundry, Cooking, etc was NOT a nighttime event. I installed my system to cut my utility bills initially, but now my goal is to disconnect the grid. I've gone this far, might as well do it.
I think its a great idea to lower the consumption when going offgrid. It saves you from the utility bills but also wears the battery bank. 5kw of hotwater when you are sleeping is not wise id say. Turn off the not used appliances. Use smart switches or smaller appliances..
I am a pensioner in South Africa where we have frequent power outages called "load shedding" so I put together a 24v 50ah lifepo4 battery with a 100v 20a solar charge controller and a 3000w inverter and 400w solar panels to help with my fridges and freezer during the day, at night I only run the 2 small fridges for about 4 hours during load shedding. Now I am planning a 24v 3000w system with a 24v 100ah lifepo4 battery and 920w solar. Later I plan to upgrade this second system batteries to 24v 200ah and the again to 300ah. I happen to be an electrician as well.
Jeez... Last year we used 5,5 kWh (on average) per day (that's 24 hrs, that is) with a two person household in a (approx.) 140 square meter (1507 sq ft) house, here in Spain. So we have one 4.8 kWh (100amp) Pylontech battery. Pretty good. Nice video, thnx for sharing.
I learn a ton from your videos. Just installing my system now. I have 20 solar panels and luckily a micro hydro system that makes about 3kw continuous . I have 6 LifePo4 batteries. Hopefully I’m good to go
@@av1204 Many areas in the contiguous 50 states only get 5 hours, on average, of prime sunlight that produces electricity from solar panels. So 3 kwh X 5 is only 15 kwh of power generation per day. ;)
I added mine up, factored in a week of autonomy, and I need a shocking amount of batteries and solar panels. I got 2 eg4-LL's (v2) and 1 6500ex inverter + the 6 slot rack. $5500 for a bit of battery backup to start, and I'll add solar and more batteries as I go. Our main power plant is now shut down and they say we'll have blackouts this summer. Wish me luck.
@@CountryLivingExperience Good luck: all of our main power plants may soon die, in which case we all must be self-(solar) powered. So it seems.I am nowhere near that, as yet in S Louisiana.
We had a timer switch installed on our hot water heater. We have a family of three and we let it run for four hours every day. That gives us enough hot water for all to take showers and wash dishes. If we need more we can change it to be on longer or shorter.
Thx a lot for all your efforts & congratulations on your set up. I only needed 2 batteries, but I decided to get 4 anyway. Because I got the best. The Discover AES 42-48-6650 gives me 6,650 amp per hour per battery. I will never run out of amp
AC, heat, and water heater are the biggest hits to your daily energy use. I only have 11kwh of lifepo4 batteries. However it’s just for outages, we are on grid. We only need it for cooking and keeping freezers running.
I HIGHLY recommend in buying 2.5-3.5x more solar KWH then what your daily consumption is to Help maintain enough energy being put into your battery bank storage and into your home that even when cloudy theres still enough energy getting to your home use and keeping your batteries charged
Great information for sure. Being East Texas bread, born and raised Texarkana. However living on lake Whitney, I still make the trip to Signature Solar to pick up my solar needs. You living very close by about 45 minutes I believe. Thanks for the great video, have a wonderful week. God Bless in all you do.
Thanks for the video. There’s a company here in the PNW that is working on developing solar roof “shingles”, so that your total roof becomes solar panels.
I would encourage you to look into Emporia Energy (or something similar) to monitor each breaker for energy use. I love mine and it allows me to track each circuit in my system!
Just starting my OFF GRID life, have a small solar system for my Tiny house. 10Kwat of starage and 1.2Kwatts of panels., that dosen't cut it. I suspect I will need 20 Kwatts of storage and 6 Kwatts of solar panels for those winter days. My night time load is about 1.5 Kwatts. I do have a small electric watter heater and I placed a power switch and I only turn it on during the day for about 20 min as needed; works well. I will check out those calculators you suggested. Thx!
Don't forget I'm completely off-grid here in northwest Ohio with only five 355w panels I'm running on 16 120ah lithium iron phosphate cells in 24v 5760wh now I have 8 277ah lithium cells on they way and then another 8 eventually because I want 16 of those 277ah cells as well to add to what I already have..Oh and I'm loving my new Senville Mini Split I talked to you about 😉
I would make sure the panels had two positions. One position for winter when the sun is lower in the sky. I would have my HW heater, clothes dryer, and cooking powered by propane or natural gas.
You did a great job explaining I am currently putting together my solar system components and like you I don't have deep pockets it is a pay as you go project. But calculating load requirements can be a huge pain simply because as you stated there are so many variables we cannot control. But you did well explaining in layman's terms we can all understand. Thanks
Thank you. Glad it was helpful. I did order one of the Emporia monitoring systems so I can better understand the loads. I’ll do a review on it once I study my loads for a few weeks.
I just ordered a 13000 watt system and have been watching these videos to gain information. My utility (FPL in Florida) installed a smart meter on my home several years ago. I can research my past usage. Last year in July I used 39 kWh a day. This year is much hotter and I am using 42 kWh a day. I am getting 11000 watts of panels so I should have enough power. I am getting 20 kWh of batteries so I will have to watch my night time usage.
In my system I use a shunt to monitor all power going in and out. It gives me an extremely accurate idea of what my usage is and will be in the future. Along with the charge level of my battery bank. Right now, I'm averaging about 20KW of power usage per day. I usually can produce a little more than that per day with my solar arrays. Hopefully this continues for 31 more days 😆
@Country Living Experience: A Homesteading Journey Very accurate. You can see both live and past data. This gives you a timeline for when devices are turned on. If you know how many watts a device uses, it's super easy to track when it was turned on and for how long. If you don't know how much power something uses, no problem. Just turn it on while monitoring your power output. I use a victron smart shunt. I highly recommend it.
Actually to say that correctly you are averaging 20 kWh of energy usage per day. Power is instantaneous consumption and energy is power consumption overtime.
I have been off grid for 14 months. We are all electric, including water well. So far our average daily use is 8.46kwh. Average daily generation is 9.81 KWh Max in one day generated is 25.6 kWh Max used in one day is 22 kWh. We heat with wood mostly but use the AC to cool. My arrays are two 15x240w for a total of 7.2 kw Battery capacity is 12.8 kWh I use low voltage relays to run my hot water heater ( I put 1500 watt elements in them) only at float voltage or higher, and to eliminate loads based on necessities. So most loads where energy can be stored are only on when charging. We usually start the day above 65% unless we run the AC all night. I run a LF 6 kw 230v split phase inverter! Get more panels and run most your loads during daylight hours and you won’t need to buy as many batteries.
I believe the difference was that I was heating with the mini-splits. The draw for heating is twice that of cooling. I run most large loads like dryer or stove during daylight hours. I am changing out the water heater soon for a heat pump water heater.
For energy monitoring I got Emporia Smart Home system. I still need to get one for my main panel and one for my workshop that's hybrid solar system. Another thing that we did was got a hybrid solar water heater. Uses 400 watts most of the time to heat the water. The main energy user is our whole house heat pump - non-geo thermal. 2 ton at 4k watts heating about 2k cooling. And yes, it is a cycle of getting more batteries and more panels. Till the system has grown to acceptable off-grid for the majority of the time. Regardless, the electric bill will decrease each time.
According to my Emporia Vue, my home consumes between 37kW and 42kW/day, every day (about 1,400kW/month). I would be draining and depleting this entire rack of batteries Day 1, and then take 7 days of 3-4 solar hours per-day to fill it back up again. Using the calculator at the altestore, it shows I will need 48 x 500W panels just to cover my current monthly load. I don't have the rooftop acreage to even come close to bring in the 23kW system needed to cover that usage.
You would only drain your entire rack if you had zero input from the panels. i.e. in a multi-day thunderstorm. Not sure why it would take you so long to charge them unless you only have a tiny amount of panels. You need to have enough panels to supplement your loads and charge in a reasonable amount of time. Keep adding panels up to the point where your inverters can't handle anymore input voltage. 48 is probably overkill but you should try to start with 20. Also, try to manage your loads on the cloudy days better. i.e. postpone laundry, etc.
If you install a propane tankless water heater on your electric water heater cold inlet , you will make it in the winter( 60c inlet ) whit your battery’s.. just turn the ignition switch of in the summer and let cold water run true it ..
I think the news said this pass winter was the most cloudy winter on record for Michigan & Ohio U right about going days on in with no solar I was to mad lol I ended up using my generator 4-5 diff times over the course of the whole winter & I'm in Toledo Ohio
insulation insulation, insulation. around the water heater, fridges, and freezers (just don't block airflow to the compressor), Not going to make a huge difference at one time, but every bit helps.
Well done explanation, the key things I picked up on is that your very continuous about what’s was running. Can’t just use the power as if it was grid.
Friendly advise - grab a few Tasmota energy monitoring plugs. Whatever you want, you can measure. One simple HTTP call and short script and you have online monitoring using csv text file.
Thank you so much for your videos! We are beginning our off-grid journey also in East Texas and doing so slowly to keep things affordable! Appreciate the encouragement to build our solar system over time. I know nothing about electrical and researching this has had to come in waves so it doesn’t hurt the brain too much 😂 What have you found as your average days of autonomy in summer and winter so far?
There are different ways you can it. I have a separate box set up for each individual room. Easier to keep up with for me. The only thing constantly running is my refrigerator, my lights are so efficient that they could run all day and night, I don't need ac because the way I have it insulated it stays in the 70s even in the Florida summers.
hi Thanks for sharing. If I may : You totally forgot the number 1 thing to do : ISOLATE your house. You could divide per 10 the amount of electricty needed for your heating. I live in a 300m2 house, well isolated, and almost have no need for heating. A stove might also be , on e your house is correctly isolated, a much more efficient - and cost effective - and ecological - solution - than putting - 50kWH of lithium battery. Best regards
Using solar for heat is crazy unless u uave a surplus of solar. It is very ineffecient when it comes to heat. Wood, coal, propane, and gas are the way to go for heat. Without the heat production many can get by on only 2-5 kw per day. So 1-2 of those $1600 batteries is a great syart. Nothing wrong with having 9 though. Have to save up 😅 like the last comment mentioned, adding solar panels can often be cheaper than more batteries to get you started and help cover. Your AC needs on the hottest days.
Here are some numbers to compare to his usage overnight. This guy's house used 28.5 kWh over a roughly 8 to 10 hour period. He ran some mini-splits for heating, old water heater, and fridges+freezers. I analyzed my previous house electricity usage in order to get a ballpark of what I would use and what I may need. My 1500 sq ft house used an average of 11.35 kWh per day during a 10 month period. I excluded July and August because I like my AC and I kept those numbers separate based on heavy AC usage or little/no AC. My toasty summer months average was 24.3 kWh per day. That's everything including the central air. I think the video author here is using a lot more electricity than he thinks for this test. Disclaimers regarding my house electricity usage: Heat and cooking was gas; no one was home during work hours so just the 1 fridge was running. Off hours was pretty typical use of a few lights plus big TV plus computer. For the AC, like I said I love my AC and I keep it cranked up during the summer. I want to say I set it maybe to 68 and leave it on all the time.
So you had no heating load, no 2nd fridge, no freezers, no heated dog bed, no electric hot water tank. Hmmm... no wonder your consumption was significantly lower than that shown in this video!
@@timb7814 you've just proved how much energy he wastes converting electricity to heat. He talks about his energy usage as if it is minimal when he is in reality burning watt-hours despite everyone being asleep in their beds. He is a living meme of the dog in the burning room with his coffee mug saying 'this is fine'.
I mean the fact that OP doesn't have a whole home/individual circuit shunt/hall battery monitor system tells me this guy is just a keyboard worrier spreading forum information. Immediate red flag.
The shorter days are starting to be noticeable on our power Opposite of you i have way more solar but less batteries. I keep adding batteries. Over 20kw of panels, 20kw inverters, and only 35kw of batteries. We hit 100% nearly everyday there is even partial sun. Two hours of mid day sun and that’s a good day to do laundry. Cloudy days not to bad but dark rainy days when it rains all day wow those are pitiful. Try adding a insulation wrap cover to your water heater that will help it not need to turn on overnight. It’s amazing the way we learn to use energy based on sun. We started in an rv so we would turn our water heater off at night. Still hot water in the morning anyway then flip a switch back on for it when the morning sun is up.
Awesome explanation!!! I'm just lost on how to do this for my ice cream truck here in hawaii😮...I need 10000 watts surge power..but only 8000 watts running...and the most I need it for is 8 hours. I need help...I need help...I'm dumb...lol...Mahalo for all your info..love your channel!!
Thank you. You just need an inverter that can handle 10kw or two inverters that can handle 5kw. Mobile platforms are very different. There is a channel that is called Explorist Life. They do a lot of solar installs in vans and RV's. You may find some valuable info there.
72 degrees is overkill, if 65 is too cold then you need to buy more blankets.. not to mention the part where a wood stove installed would cost about the same as 1 of your batteries and would add a lot of resilience and utility to your property unless you have no trees.
I’m in the exact same boat. Use more power then the 3.65kw of panels can provide. I have the 6 rack of Lifepower4’s. My shunt shows that I use somewhere around 175- 200ah a night. Last few days here in Post Oregon we’ve been socked in with freezing fog and have been running the generator during the day to keep up.
@@CountryLivingExperience yep NAWS had a 9% sale a few months ago so I bought another 3.65kw of panels and another charger controller. Just need county to hurry up with my permits.
Best Video I,ve seen about explaining these things BEST!!! Awesome work i will deff subscribe. I have a 6kw system here in Jamaica 2 Lithium batteries each 7.5kw 150 AH.
I have 2 banks of 6 eg4 batteries (not LL). Needing a wiring diagram to connect my 500A smart shunt to them. Banks are parallel to parallel. Pairing off on the two negatives. Would i need two smart shunts? One for each battery bank? Thanks.
I kind of feel better about my heat pumps now lol. We have a 2400 sq foot home 2 42k BTU outdoor condensers and 7 indoor air handler mini splits and with it being 20-30 degrees outside we have been using right around 3KWH overnight for heat that was with the fridge, freezer, 100 gallon fish tank with 3 filters running and a heater plus various other appliances, security lights / landscaping lights as well.
@@CountryLivingExperience yea Im surprised your mr cools are using that much for heat. I have the Mitsubishi hyper heat. Have to see what they use when its down in the single or negative digits but anything is cheaper than oil even if it goes up to 6KWH a hour sure beats the current price of $6 a gallon for home heating fuel.
Appreciate your updates. Just went live with my system yesterday with two EG4 6500 inverters like yours. Have 12,800 watts of panels and 6 - EG4 batteries, 30,700 watts. I do have grid die into inverters and first night batteries were drained and went to bypass to grid. Of course, no sun next day. Did read where batteries need to be charged from external source before using to be functional, I did not know. Charged overnight and will try again today. Do have sun. Again, appreciate the detailed explanations and the reference material.
Insane ammount of power usage especially for off grid living. I'd be happy to have 20% of that capacity. December and january fcks me real good,with 2 days of sunshine a month. I have two 220ah lead acid batteries and one panel. I have a couple 12w lights,and a laptop. Yeah living in eastern europe survival camp...
@@CountryLivingExperience I probably had a rude tone,sorry for that. Avoiding heating appliances that run on electricity can greatly reduce power consumption. Not sure if firewood is an option for you, or if it fits your lifestyle...Houses in texas don't even have chimneys I guess. But you guys got lots of sunshine, so I guess it works okay for you.
No worries. Firewood is an option and I have a wood stove. However, firewood is expensive where I live. We do have a lot of sun so we are trying too take advantage of that.
Have you considered outing wind turbine to your system.. what's nice about wind turbines is they don't need sunlight to work so its 3 in the morning every storm that comes in and I started turning you're making power.. your way that you can add a water turbine to the system.. what was the other two ways that you can get power to your system without running a generator to charge everything.. probably the least expensive out of all those would be the wind turbines
I am thinking of running 300AH lifepo4 batteries, 4 in a series to 48v, do that 3 times then running those 3 together in parallel to give me a total of 900AH and 48v. Would you put it together that way or do you think setting the bank up for 24v and 1800Ah with the 12 300AH batteries would be better?
Hi, very nice video. Couple of suggestions. 1. I like to monitor my usage using "SOLAR ASSISTANT". It runs on a Raspberry Pi and provides a timeline graphing of solar generation and loads. It's relatively easy to figure out what appliance is on at a particular time. 2. I think for most people 3 days of autonomous power yields a battery which is unaffordable. So perhaps you might define two or more modes depending on the weather forecast. Modes could be abundant solar, and no solar. If you know that tomorrow or the next day will fully charge your batteries you may want to keep all 3 mini-splits on. But if you know it will be overcast, switching to two or even one might be more appropriate. Of course a generator may be the only source of power for those weeks when there is no solar.
Yes to more panels! At the end of our head-scratching we determined we needed 16kW of solar panels to go off grid. And that may not even get us through a series of foggy winter days. And we went with tiltable going between 25 and 55 degrees. I think off-grid dreams will have to wait, but we will have some empirical data soon.
@@CountryLivingExperience Thanks! How many BTUs of mini-split did you run in your test? We're looking at leaving propane behinds and installing mini-splits too.
Also don't forget there is no such thing as a successful long-term off grid home that does not also have a generator. I have lived off grid for 24 years and I beat the hell out of my generator and cloudy and foggy weather. No amount of solar will do it.
You need insulation for hot water heater....then a timer. Even the grid i had a timer it was a hour a day for me so i could take a shower. It also had a bypass if hour wasnt enough. You really need one for an solar power solution.
Great explanation! I've had the Sense Utility Monitor installed for a few years now and that helps give a good usage of daily power requirements without having to look at all the energy stickers on all the appliances. I was able to take that information and have my bank sized to be able to power my home for 24 hours with no solar. Of course, like you said, when you can GET MORE BATTERIES, so I'm working on getting close to what you have for capacity, but I imagine you're taking your own advice and will be growing your bank even more. Keep up the great work!
Good evening, happy Christmas to you. I have to say this video was excellent . You really clearly identified all of the potential issues a new system builder will encounter. Your explanation of calculations for batteries and panels was excellent. Thank you for taking the time to put together such a clear and concise video covering all the basics.
Hello and thank you. I wave been trying to get a meetup together with some other TH-camrs someplace close to Tyler but have not had the time. I am happy to talk on email or facebook and answer any questions you may have.
I'm surprised with all the stuff you got, that none of it was a Sense, or an emporia Vue, to monitor your energy. That was the best way for us to discover our usage and specific appliance draws
Thank you sir for the very informative video about off-grid solar and sizing. I have one question sir, will the battery while being charged in the daytime also supply power to the house load when the solar power becomes insufficient?
See this is why I like Victron Solar equipment smart charge controllers smart Shunts and inverter/chargers because everything is controlled by the Victron bluetooth app that shows you everything on ur phone & how much power is being used my system is victron plus two of those 24-volt 3000w inverter chargers
@@CountryLivingExperience yes you would love the Victron Smart Shunt I have the 500 amp but they have a 1000 amp one to then download the Victron connect Bluetooth app on ur phone then you will be able to see how much power you're using I'm constantly monitoring my sola performance on my phone all of it..
@@CountryLivingExperience well I'm only using two Victron smart charge controllers and Shunt my inverter charges are not Victron they PowMr around $500 bucks each for a 24v 3000 watts with built-in Mppt
So if your batteries were completely drained and you had your grid connected to your inverter how much electricity would you use from your grid to recharge your batteries and how long would it take?
I don’t use the grid to charge. That is an option that I elected not to do. I charge from a generator or the panels. It will take probably 5 hours or more with the generator.
Great video. Can you charge lifepo4 batteries while under load? I’m building a battery bank for my house but I just want my solar panels to charge the batteries.
Hopefully I can add five more panels by this spring or summer from SanTan Solar honestly I wish i could just pack everything up and move from up here in Ohio
It is shockingly difficult to find a concise breakdown of reality like this video provides! I've been researching for months, as well as talking to one of the mentioned providers (that shall go unnamed) and have found piles of confusion and misinformation. Buyer beware! These companies are in business to sell systems, and their reps are very sensitive to customer sticker-shock, so they will assure you that what they are selling you "will be more than adequate" after their "calculations," when in fact, you will need BOATLOADS more batteries than they want to tell you (and thereby scare you away). I agree with some of the comments below that your house seems to be drawing an inordinate amount of juice. But "inordinate" is a matter of perspective, and, by contrast, we have a business that requires us to run multiple computers day and night, along with the other typical draws. In Tennessee we can go with a heat-pump, which is more energy-efficient than traditional HVAC. But I was sold THREE 48V 100Ahr batteries as "more than adequate," along with a 13KW solar array, and I have been discovering that we're going to need at least TWELVE batteries to be about a full day autonomous (which I consider to be minimal). It is exorbitantly expensive to get power up to our being-built house, so I'm having to adjust this off-grid system as we build and I discover more and more information. (Again, do NOT outright believe what these sales reps tell you about what you'll need!) But when we move in within the next four months, we'll probably have between 12 and 18 batteries and more like 18KW of solar panels, which should give us oversupply even on cloudy days and hopefully see us through a couple of outright rain days. It's definitely scary to have to figure this out on the fly, and, again, really reliable information on these points is hard to come by (including from the companies selling these systems!). It's a different ballgame when you no possibility of grid-power, and propane is outrageously expensive! We are just not going to go with propane; so it's electricity or nothing. Your video provided some excellent perspective, as well as useful research resources! The take-away is: It's FAR more involved and expensive to get fully off-grid than anybody is probably expressing, with this video as a stark contrast to that norm!
Glad we could represent our situation accurately. I am going to install an Emporia monitor soon. That will help me accurately see where I am using the most energy (more than likely the water heater). I am also installing a heat pump water heater soon. That should help reduce that load by 75% +/-.
a very nice video. but always in my mind how many kwh could win in winter in harsh conditions.For example i ve got a 10 kwh solar generator could it be generated at the worst situations in wintwer every mont at least 300 kwh that is our energy monhly needed.
Overall, this is a really good, down-to-earth video that's highly "relatable" (if that's really a word 🤠). The style of delivery is easy-going and friendly. That said, I'd like to offer a couple of thoughts. There are opportunities to find the info in the video, but in the entire video, you never actually said you were running 48 volts. So, someone who didn't realize that and is using something OTHER than 48 volts is in for a surprise. They're not going to get 5KW per battery. I know you're not trying to hide it, but it would have been helpful to specifically call it out. (Don't assume they've seen your other videos and already know about your setup.) You mentioned that you don't know how much power your water heater uses. With all of the options for inline meters available today, and given that most of the planet uses 240v, it seems like there should be options to put a meter on a load like that and get a daily average for consumption. It might be worth exploring. Days of autonomy: You said you used about 62% of your battery supply for a 12-hour test. That's pretty much 5% per hour. So, if you set a discharge floor of 20%, that's about 16 hours. If you discharge all the way to 0%, you've got 20 hours. To get to 48 hours of autonomy with a floor of 20%, you need three times the battery bank you currently have. At $1650 each, 27 of the 48v, 100Ah EG4s will cost you $44,500 plus taxes and some serious shipping charges -- for enough power for just TWO days. And that's before you upgrade your solar array(s) to charge all of that. And that's for an 1800sf house. Then what happens on day three? You've got a dark house and a $44,500 paper weight in the garage. I don't say that to be critical, but to be real. If we're going to get autonomy, I believe we have to be willing to do two things: - Reduce consumption. Don't run all three mini-splits. Share bedrooms. Heated dog bed -- *_seriously???_* Look for alternatives to other loads. I think it's a mistake to think of an autonomous day as just another day, with no changes to how we use power. I know why people use a worst case like that for the purposes of estimating things, but I think that can cost people a truckload of money. When the grid is gone, habits based on the grid being available have to change. Lots of families can't just "keep buying batteries, keep buying panels". If increasing supply isn't practical, decreasing demand seems critical. - Supplement sources. Heat with a fireplace. Use a generator to share some of the loads or to help recharge. Heat water with propane. Break out the grill and the Dutch oven. I live in one of the worst places in the country for solar, at a northern latitude that's famous for being cloudy and rainy. If you live where I do, being "solar elite" just doesn't work. No one here has solar of any consequence. If you're really "homesteading", is dependence on electricity for everything like cooking really the right choice? Why do people always title their videos with stuff like "You MUST do this?" Can't they just be happy with "Here's what I did"? A camera and an opinion doesn't make one an authority that must be followed, right?
Nice... We've been having rolling blackouts in South Africa for more than a decade, sometimes 8hrs off per day or the worst being 10 days without power in the Capital of Pretoria. 1) Assuming that you're not heating the house from the water-heater, I'd replace the water geyser element with a lower wattage one which slowly heats the water instead of heavy 5kw element. That's a lot of demand on the batteries. 2) I'd drop the drop the thermostat temp to 55C or 130F so that the element switches on once in a while instead of every 10min. 3) Water doesn't need to be super hot 24hrs a day. I'd put a timer to run the water heater in the late afternoon/evening and then again early morning instead of it running permanently. 4) Last resort is to replace the electric water-heater with a natural-gas or liquid-gas water-heater. This will reduce costs of having to buy a massive battery banks, esp in the beginning.
I have friends in South Africa. They tell me the stories of extremely unreliable power. I am in the process of changing the water heater to a heat pump which only uses 700w instead of 5000w.
@@CountryLivingExperience Yup, been crazy here. We are currently on "Stage 6" which means minimum of 6 hours per day without power for ever home and business in South Africa... It's been terrible for the economy. Now they want to shut down all the coalplants before even building alternative power... it's going to be a disaster. Anyway... Glad to hear of your strategy. 700W vs 5Kw, that's a massive difference for your system. It will hopefully mean that you will have a reserve in your batteries if you have a couple of rainy days? Is your stove/cooker also electric or do you use NG in USA? In south Africa everything used to be electric but many are installing LPG stoves for cooking and heating.
It should improve the battery life a lot. We have NG and LPG available. I have a backup LPG tank on our property and am in the process of connecting and getting a backup gas cooking stove. Both of those gasses have become more expensive but not compared to other countries. Texas has more natural gas reserves than Russia but current politics won't allow us to pull much of it out of the ground.
Having watched several people going solar the only way to be 100% solar is to have a panel array so huge that it copes with the 0.1% solar harvest days of winter.... BUT most people cannot afford this simply for capital outlay. Perhaps it's better to use a big generator for winter battery charging using also the generator's waste heat for keeping the battery shed warm. Yes you will need fuel but otherwise your health will be endangered
EG4-LL LiFePo4 Batteries: signaturesolar.com/eg4-ll-lithium-battery-48v-100ahd/?ref=countrylivingexperience
IF you talk to an electrician you can probably rig a timer to keep the water heater off at night. Or switch it out to on demand.
@@davefroman4700 I am installing a heat pump water heater shorty. Probably in the next two weeks.
We live in Florida and get cloudy / rainy days more then you would think. We figured our battery backup for 22kw system (ac is not on battery backup). Instead of adding more batteries we decided to double our solar panel for those cloudy days. This was cheaper and has worked out. Thanks for your videos.
Well just remember to pay attention to the maximum charge rate of your batteries as people often overlook the fact that you can only push so much power into your battery at any given time. I have seen contractors void the warranty and destroy batteries because they drove too much current into them.
I always hated that Florida was the "sunshine state". Arizona gets much more sun!
Good solution if you have the room. I have noticed it is vary rarely that I have zero production. Even most overcast days I still get significant production.
I have 4kw solar with a single Power Wall. Here on the California coast they supply all my electricity needs the vast majority of time. I do have a heat pump backed up by a Natural gas furnace, gas range, gas hot water and gas dryer. As my appliances need replacement I am switching out for all electric. Next purchases are a heat pump hot water heater, and then an induction range. Presently I use only about a third of the power I produce.
I don’t have room on my roof for anymore solar panels and being in a condo I don’t have an area to ground mount them. So I will have to work within my 4kw production envelope.
You aint lyin about Florida, when I first moved to Leesburg I asked someone "Is it always this cloudy?" They said yes, it is.
This is by far the BEST video, because you actually brought out an appliance that is often used in a household and told us exactly how it would drain the battery…incredible and I am incredibly grateful for your channel! ♾💎✨
Glad it was helpful!
We live off a 15kw 24v system. It runs everything we need, but we only run a 110v water transfer pump, fridge, chest freezer, and lights everyday. We do have a microwave, rice cooker, Xbox and TV, but we only use those durring the day or when the generator is running. Our house is heated with a woodstove, and we use propane for a tankless water heater and stove/oven. Been living off grid for 5 years up here in Alaska, and started off with a 2kw battery bank, and slowly been upgrading as the years go by.
Cool. We are adapting a house that was already all electric. We don’t have any extras like vid game consoles or tv either.
Great video no wasted time just pure analysis that’s what I like to see
Glad you enjoyed
I’ve been looking for a video like this for months and your the first to really use real life examples of what to expect great job 👏
Glad it was helpful!
we have a switch to turn on our hot water heater. We turn it on 15 mins before taking a shower and its hot and good for about two showers. it also lengthens the life of your hot water heater.
Nice modification
We use a hybrid water heater, which uses a heat pump when enabled. pulls about 500 watts when heating water. Made by Rheem.
I installed an Emporia energy monitor system before installing solar. It gives a very accurate understanding of energy usage. I like that you can look at loads in amps, watts or cost. They make a 16 circuit or 8 circuit monitor but it does have sensors to monitor total panel loads.
Awesome. I'll check the Emporia out.
@@CountryLivingExperience I know at my house with my emporia energy monitor my second highest using device behind ac was the water heater. So I have since replaced with a heat pump style water heater. I put it in my garage cools my garage down and costs a third to run over conventional should go a long way helping your batteries go further.
It looks like the Emporia are smart devices. Smart devices of any kind can be controlled outside of the owners control.
@@cj77733 I think you can opt to not enable features that would connect it to outside sources.
My Emporia only monitors energy usage it doesn’t control anything. They do have smart devices but I don’t use them.
Finally a specific number for how much power a house uses.
Thank you
You’re welcome
This was explained very well. As an instructor would in a educational setting.
Living in Dallas and building a cabin in Pineland. I plan on being completely off-grid.
I really enjoyed your video.
Awesome. Glad it was helpful.
Great that you point out people don't think about the loads they are using in the day time and having to charge the batteries at the same time.
Thanks!
Thank you for posting. We are currently configuring an off grid power system in Northern Nevada. I have saved this video for future reference. We will have a generator back up so we will have ability to charge when the sun is not producing power through the solar array(s).
Glad it was helpful!
Having lived in Michigan and Western Washington states I can say yes very cloudy and rainy.
I have also been on my own DIY Journey and built my system out this summer (My house is 100% electric), I'm in Upstate SC, so Helene had me off-grid for 7 days. I have 500AH of Lipo4 and 2 EG4-6000XP's, and 12K of solar. Battery management became high-priority on day 2 (as I woke up in a sweat at 1:20am from poor planning) I decided to drop both my chest freezers to 0 fahrenheit, and put timers on them so they were off from 10pm to 10am, neither went higher than 13 by morning. Also I've put a wrap blanket on my electric water heater and manually shut it off on the same schedule (I'm installing a timer this weekend) Always had enough hot water, and all I wanted during solar hours, we are a family of 3 (I'm fortunate and was getting 7 good sun hours every day) I ran my 12K generator with a Chargeverter every night from 8pm to 12am (or as needed) for 100% battery every night, ran 3 mini-splits every night and had enough battery left that solar could take over in the morning. It was an awesome acid test of "What will it take for me to go 100% off-grid" Now getting into winter sun, I know I'm going to overpanel significantly (at least double my current array) and quadruple my battery. My biggest lesson was "You better use or store that solar during peak sun" (I always made more than I could use or store) So Laundry, Cooking, etc was NOT a nighttime event. I installed my system to cut my utility bills initially, but now my goal is to disconnect the grid. I've gone this far, might as well do it.
I think its a great idea to lower the consumption when going offgrid. It saves you from the utility bills but also wears the battery bank. 5kw of hotwater when you are sleeping is not wise id say. Turn off the not used appliances. Use smart switches or smaller appliances..
Solar does cause you to modify behavior.
I am a pensioner in South Africa where we have frequent power outages called "load shedding" so I put together a 24v 50ah lifepo4 battery with a 100v 20a solar charge controller and a 3000w inverter and 400w solar panels to help with my fridges and freezer during the day, at night I only run the 2 small fridges for about 4 hours during load shedding. Now I am planning a 24v 3000w system with a 24v 100ah lifepo4 battery and 920w solar. Later I plan to upgrade this second system batteries to 24v 200ah and the again to 300ah. I happen to be an electrician as well.
That is wonderful. Glad you are continuing to build your system. I know the hardships in South Africa with electricity. I have friends who live there.
highly recommend getting a heatpump water heater they are insanely efficient
Absolutely! I have one waiting to be installed. A Rheem performance platinum.
Jeez... Last year we used 5,5 kWh (on average) per day (that's 24 hrs, that is) with a two person household in a (approx.) 140 square meter (1507 sq ft) house, here in Spain. So we have one 4.8 kWh (100amp) Pylontech battery. Pretty good. Nice video, thnx for sharing.
Thank you
I learn a ton from your videos. Just installing my system now. I have 20 solar panels and luckily a micro hydro system that makes about 3kw continuous . I have 6 LifePo4 batteries. Hopefully I’m good to go
Awesome
3kw continuous you could run a mansion with a heated pool.
@@av1204 I would assume 3 kilowatts PER HOUR, NOT 3 kilowatts per second/continously.
@@WilliamIraWoodIV 3 kw per hr is still 72kwh a day. My all electric house uses 22 kwh a day.
@@av1204 Many areas in the contiguous 50 states only get 5 hours, on average, of prime sunlight that produces electricity from solar panels. So 3 kwh X 5 is only 15 kwh of power generation per day. ;)
I added mine up, factored in a week of autonomy, and I need a shocking amount of batteries and solar panels.
I got 2 eg4-LL's (v2) and 1 6500ex inverter + the 6 slot rack. $5500 for a bit of battery backup to start, and I'll add solar and more batteries as I go. Our main power plant is now shut down and they say we'll have blackouts this summer. Wish me luck.
It is a shocking amount for sure. Just keep building it one piece at a time. Good luck.
@@CountryLivingExperience Good luck: all of our main power plants may soon die, in which case we all must be self-(solar) powered. So it seems.I am nowhere near that, as yet in S Louisiana.
We had a timer switch installed on our hot water heater. We have a family of three and we let it run for four hours every day. That gives us enough hot water for all to take showers and wash dishes. If we need more we can change it to be on longer or shorter.
Cool
Thx a lot for all your efforts & congratulations on your set up. I only needed 2 batteries, but I decided to get 4 anyway. Because I got the best. The Discover AES 42-48-6650 gives me 6,650 amp per hour per battery. I will never run out of amp
AC, heat, and water heater are the biggest hits to your daily energy use. I only have 11kwh of lifepo4 batteries. However it’s just for outages, we are on grid. We only need it for cooking and keeping freezers running.
They sure are the bulk of the loads. Glad you have a good backup for your critical items.
I HIGHLY recommend in buying 2.5-3.5x more solar KWH then what your daily consumption is to Help maintain enough energy being put into your battery bank storage and into your home that even when cloudy theres still enough energy getting to your home use and keeping your batteries charged
That is partially what I was alluding to.
Great information for sure. Being East Texas bread, born and raised Texarkana. However living on lake Whitney, I still make the trip to Signature Solar to pick up my solar needs. You living very close by about 45 minutes I believe. Thanks for the great video, have a wonderful week. God Bless in all you do.
Awesome. God bless y'all as well.
Are you solar on the lake? I am near Juniper Cove and contemplating the jump.
I am 20 min north of New Boston. It is a real blessing to live so close to Signature Solar.
The best video I've come across summarizing solar power so far. Thanks so much.
You're welcome
I use eyedro to monitor loads. It's working for me so far.
Cool
Thanks for the video.
There’s a company here in the PNW that is working on developing solar roof “shingles”, so that your total roof becomes solar panels.
You're welcome
Tesla does that already
I would encourage you to look into Emporia Energy (or something similar) to monitor each breaker for energy use. I love mine and it allows me to track each circuit in my system!
Awesome. Thank you. Someone else mentioned that today as well.
Just installed one of those myself this week. Love the results!
I turn off the hot water heater during a blackout. We use electric kettles to get hot water as needed. This saves us about 10KWh per day.
Good call
Just starting my OFF GRID life, have a small solar system for my Tiny house. 10Kwat of starage and 1.2Kwatts of panels., that dosen't cut it. I suspect I will need 20 Kwatts of storage and 6 Kwatts of solar panels for those winter days. My night time load is about 1.5 Kwatts. I do have a small electric watter heater and I placed a power switch and I only turn it on during the day for about 20 min as needed; works well. I will check out those calculators you suggested. Thx!
You're welcome. Keep building that system up.
Don't forget I'm completely off-grid here in northwest Ohio with only five 355w panels
I'm running on 16 120ah lithium iron phosphate cells in 24v 5760wh now I have 8 277ah lithium cells on they way and then another 8 eventually because I want 16 of those 277ah cells as well to add to what I already have..Oh and I'm loving my new Senville Mini Split I talked to you about 😉
Glad the Senville is working out for you.
I agree using an Emporia monitor is critical to figure out your loads.
Got one on the way. Thanks for all the viewers that have suggested it.
I would make sure the panels had two positions. One position for winter when the sun is lower in the sky. I would have my HW heater, clothes dryer, and cooking powered by propane or natural gas.
You did a great job explaining I am currently putting together my solar system components and like you I don't have deep pockets it is a pay as you go project. But calculating load requirements can be a huge pain simply because as you stated there are so many variables we cannot control. But you did well explaining in layman's terms we can all understand. Thanks
Thank you. Glad it was helpful. I did order one of the Emporia monitoring systems so I can better understand the loads. I’ll do a review on it once I study my loads for a few weeks.
I just ordered a 13000 watt system and have been watching these videos to gain information. My utility (FPL in Florida) installed a smart meter on my home several years ago. I can research my past usage. Last year in July I used 39 kWh a day. This year is much hotter and I am using 42 kWh a day. I am getting 11000 watts of panels so I should have enough power. I am getting 20 kWh of batteries so I will have to watch my night time usage.
Our heat is gas, electricity is pretty low in the winter. The AC is the killer.
In my system I use a shunt to monitor all power going in and out. It gives me an extremely accurate idea of what my usage is and will be in the future. Along with the charge level of my battery bank. Right now, I'm averaging about 20KW of power usage per day. I usually can produce a little more than that per day with my solar arrays. Hopefully this continues for 31 more days 😆
I have thought about getting one but how accurate is it. Is it going to tell you what appliance is drawing what load at what time, etc?
@Country Living Experience: A Homesteading Journey Very accurate. You can see both live and past data. This gives you a timeline for when devices are turned on. If you know how many watts a device uses, it's super easy to track when it was turned on and for how long. If you don't know how much power something uses, no problem. Just turn it on while monitoring your power output. I use a victron smart shunt. I highly recommend it.
Actually to say that correctly you are averaging 20 kWh of energy usage per day. Power is instantaneous consumption and energy is power consumption overtime.
I have been off grid for 14 months. We are all electric, including water well. So far our average daily use is 8.46kwh. Average daily generation is 9.81 KWh
Max in one day generated is 25.6 kWh
Max used in one day is 22 kWh.
We heat with wood mostly but use the AC to cool.
My arrays are two 15x240w for a total of 7.2 kw
Battery capacity is 12.8 kWh
I use low voltage relays to run my hot water heater ( I put 1500 watt elements in them) only at float voltage or higher, and to eliminate loads based on necessities. So most loads where energy can be stored are only on when charging.
We usually start the day above 65% unless we run the AC all night.
I run a LF 6 kw 230v split phase inverter!
Get more panels and run most your loads during daylight hours and you won’t need to buy as many batteries.
I believe the difference was that I was heating with the mini-splits. The draw for heating is twice that of cooling. I run most large loads like dryer or stove during daylight hours. I am changing out the water heater soon for a heat pump water heater.
All I can say objectively is, Well Done Sir!
Thank you kindly!
can't wait to go off grid!
For energy monitoring I got Emporia Smart Home system. I still need to get one for my main panel and one for my workshop that's hybrid solar system.
Another thing that we did was got a hybrid solar water heater. Uses 400 watts most of the time to heat the water.
The main energy user is our whole house heat pump - non-geo thermal. 2 ton at 4k watts heating about 2k cooling.
And yes, it is a cycle of getting more batteries and more panels. Till the system has grown to acceptable off-grid for the majority of the time. Regardless, the electric bill will decrease each time.
I am going to get an Emporia soon. I have a heat pump water heater that I still need to hook up and do a video on.
According to my Emporia Vue, my home consumes between 37kW and 42kW/day, every day (about 1,400kW/month). I would be draining and depleting this entire rack of batteries Day 1, and then take 7 days of 3-4 solar hours per-day to fill it back up again.
Using the calculator at the altestore, it shows I will need 48 x 500W panels just to cover my current monthly load. I don't have the rooftop acreage to even come close to bring in the 23kW system needed to cover that usage.
You would only drain your entire rack if you had zero input from the panels. i.e. in a multi-day thunderstorm. Not sure why it would take you so long to charge them unless you only have a tiny amount of panels. You need to have enough panels to supplement your loads and charge in a reasonable amount of time. Keep adding panels up to the point where your inverters can't handle anymore input voltage. 48 is probably overkill but you should try to start with 20. Also, try to manage your loads on the cloudy days better. i.e. postpone laundry, etc.
Great video. Really helps me to understand how weak my system is even for a backup to my gas generator. Need mo powa
Thank you.
Certainly always need mo powa.
Put the Water Heater on a Timer, it can be off at Knight.
Beautifully done as always! - SS
Thanks again!
If you install a propane tankless water heater on your electric water heater cold inlet , you will make it in the winter( 60c inlet ) whit your battery’s.. just turn the ignition switch of in the summer and let cold water run true it ..
I think the news said this pass winter was the most cloudy winter on record for Michigan & Ohio U right about going days on in with no solar I was to mad lol I ended up using my generator 4-5 diff times over the course of the whole winter & I'm in Toledo Ohio
insulation insulation, insulation. around the water heater, fridges, and freezers (just don't block airflow to the compressor), Not going to make a huge difference at one time, but every bit helps.
Well done explanation, the key things I picked up on is that your very continuous about what’s was running. Can’t just use the power as if it was grid.
Thank you. Yes, that is key. It is a totally different experience from the grid for sure.
Friendly advise - grab a few Tasmota energy monitoring plugs. Whatever you want, you can measure. One simple HTTP call and short script and you have online monitoring using csv text file.
Thanks for the heads up
Thank you so much for your videos! We are beginning our off-grid journey also in East Texas and doing so slowly to keep things affordable! Appreciate the encouragement to build our solar system over time. I know nothing about electrical and researching this has had to come in waves so it doesn’t hurt the brain too much 😂
What have you found as your average days of autonomy in summer and winter so far?
You’re welcome. Glad we could help. Weather is such a factor in days of autonomy that is hard to nail down. It fluctuates so much all the time.
There are different ways you can it. I have a separate box set up for each individual room. Easier to keep up with for me. The only thing constantly running is my refrigerator, my lights are so efficient that they could run all day and night, I don't need ac because the way I have it insulated it stays in the 70s even in the Florida summers.
hi
Thanks for sharing. If I may :
You totally forgot the number 1 thing to do : ISOLATE your house.
You could divide per 10 the amount of electricty needed for your heating.
I live in a 300m2 house, well isolated, and almost have no need for heating.
A stove might also be , on e your house is correctly isolated, a much more efficient - and cost effective - and ecological - solution - than putting - 50kWH of lithium battery.
Best regards
Using solar for heat is crazy unless u uave a surplus of solar. It is very ineffecient when it comes to heat. Wood, coal, propane, and gas are the way to go for heat. Without the heat production many can get by on only 2-5 kw per day. So 1-2 of those $1600 batteries is a great syart. Nothing wrong with having 9 though. Have to save up 😅
like the last comment mentioned, adding solar panels can often be cheaper than more batteries to get you started and help cover. Your AC needs on the hottest days.
An easy way to tell how much energy you use is to look at your light bill before you go off grid. 😀
It is not that simple.
Right now Im using 17-22 kwh a day in 24 hours in a 4600 sq ft house in Northern Virginia. Your house is using over double what I use....
Here are some numbers to compare to his usage overnight. This guy's house used 28.5 kWh over a roughly 8 to 10 hour period. He ran some mini-splits for heating, old water heater, and fridges+freezers.
I analyzed my previous house electricity usage in order to get a ballpark of what I would use and what I may need. My 1500 sq ft house used an average of 11.35 kWh per day during a 10 month period. I excluded July and August because I like my AC and I kept those numbers separate based on heavy AC usage or little/no AC. My toasty summer months average was 24.3 kWh per day. That's everything including the central air.
I think the video author here is using a lot more electricity than he thinks for this test.
Disclaimers regarding my house electricity usage: Heat and cooking was gas; no one was home during work hours so just the 1 fridge was running. Off hours was pretty typical use of a few lights plus big TV plus computer. For the AC, like I said I love my AC and I keep it cranked up during the summer. I want to say I set it maybe to 68 and leave it on all the time.
So you had no heating load, no 2nd fridge, no freezers, no heated dog bed, no electric hot water tank. Hmmm... no wonder your consumption was significantly lower than that shown in this video!
@@timb7814 you've just proved how much energy he wastes converting electricity to heat. He talks about his energy usage as if it is minimal when he is in reality burning watt-hours despite everyone being asleep in their beds. He is a living meme of the dog in the burning room with his coffee mug saying 'this is fine'.
Yeah I was thinking the same this 😅😂
I mean the fact that OP doesn't have a whole home/individual circuit shunt/hall battery monitor system tells me this guy is just a keyboard worrier spreading forum information. Immediate red flag.
The shorter days are starting to be noticeable on our power Opposite of you i have way more solar but less batteries. I keep adding batteries. Over 20kw of panels, 20kw inverters, and only 35kw of batteries. We hit 100% nearly everyday there is even partial sun. Two hours of mid day sun and that’s a good day to do laundry. Cloudy days not to bad but dark rainy days when it rains all day wow those are pitiful. Try adding a insulation wrap cover to your water heater that will help it not need to turn on overnight. It’s amazing the way we learn to use energy based on sun. We started in an rv so we would turn our water heater off at night. Still hot water in the morning anyway then flip a switch back on for it when the morning sun is up.
Wawoo brother your system is so amazing and thank you very much for shearing very helpful knowledge
Best regards from Philippines 🇵🇭
Salamat
Awesome explanation!!! I'm just lost on how to do this for my ice cream truck here in hawaii😮...I need 10000 watts surge power..but only 8000 watts running...and the most I need it for is 8 hours. I need help...I need help...I'm dumb...lol...Mahalo for all your info..love your channel!!
Thank you.
You just need an inverter that can handle 10kw or two inverters that can handle 5kw. Mobile platforms are very different. There is a channel that is called Explorist Life. They do a lot of solar installs in vans and RV's. You may find some valuable info there.
M A H A L O !!!@@CountryLivingExperience
72 degrees is overkill, if 65 is too cold then you need to buy more blankets.. not to mention the part where a wood stove installed would cost about the same as 1 of your batteries and would add a lot of resilience and utility to your property unless you have no trees.
I’m in the exact same boat. Use more power then the 3.65kw of panels can provide. I have the 6 rack of Lifepower4’s. My shunt shows that I use somewhere around 175- 200ah a night. Last few days here in Post Oregon we’ve been socked in with freezing fog and have been running the generator during the day to keep up.
Keep adding to your array. I will be doing that soon. The more the better for sure.
@@CountryLivingExperience yep NAWS had a 9% sale a few months ago so I bought another 3.65kw of panels and another charger controller. Just need county to hurry up with my permits.
Awesome!
Best Video I,ve seen about explaining these things BEST!!! Awesome work i will deff subscribe. I have a 6kw system here in Jamaica 2 Lithium batteries each 7.5kw 150 AH.
Thank you. Glad it was helpful.
You should install a timer on your water heater. Keeps the water heater off while you are sleeping
Cool. I am switching it out for a heat pump water heater soon.
sense makes easy to use monitor. also get hybrid hotwater heater.... saves 2-3 kwh a day.
Yep, I have a heat pump water heater waiting to be installed. Been sitting here for a month...lol.
I have 2 banks of 6 eg4 batteries (not LL). Needing a wiring diagram to connect my 500A smart shunt to them. Banks are parallel to parallel. Pairing off on the two negatives. Would i need two smart shunts? One for each battery bank? Thanks.
I kind of feel better about my heat pumps now lol. We have a 2400 sq foot home 2 42k BTU outdoor condensers and 7 indoor air handler mini splits and with it being 20-30 degrees outside we have been using right around 3KWH overnight for heat that was with the fridge, freezer, 100 gallon fish tank with 3 filters running and a heater plus various other appliances, security lights / landscaping lights as well.
3kwh is not bad for all of that.
@@CountryLivingExperience yea Im surprised your mr cools are using that much for heat. I have the Mitsubishi hyper heat. Have to see what they use when its down in the single or negative digits but anything is cheaper than oil even if it goes up to 6KWH a hour sure beats the current price of $6 a gallon for home heating fuel.
For sure. Fuel oil is out of control. We used to have it in Michigan years ago.
Appreciate your updates. Just went live with my system yesterday with two EG4 6500 inverters like yours. Have 12,800 watts of panels and 6 - EG4 batteries, 30,700 watts. I do have grid die into inverters and first night batteries were drained and went to bypass to grid. Of course, no sun next day. Did read where batteries need to be charged from external source before using to be functional, I did not know. Charged overnight and will try again today. Do have sun. Again, appreciate the detailed explanations and the reference material.
Awesome that you got your system up and running!
Insane ammount of power usage especially for off grid living. I'd be happy to have 20% of that capacity. December and january fcks me real good,with 2 days of sunshine a month. I have two 220ah lead acid batteries and one panel. I have a couple 12w lights,and a laptop. Yeah living in eastern europe survival camp...
It's a modern house fitted to go off-grid that's why. If I was building from the ground up, it would use less.
@@CountryLivingExperience I probably had a rude tone,sorry for that. Avoiding heating appliances that run on electricity can greatly reduce power consumption. Not sure if firewood is an option for you, or if it fits your lifestyle...Houses in texas don't even have chimneys I guess. But you guys got lots of sunshine, so I guess it works okay for you.
No worries. Firewood is an option and I have a wood stove. However, firewood is expensive where I live. We do have a lot of sun so we are trying too take advantage of that.
try adding an Emporia Vue gen 2 to your distribution panel to monitor up to 16 circuits works great
Have you considered outing wind turbine to your system.. what's nice about wind turbines is they don't need sunlight to work so its 3 in the morning every storm that comes in and I started turning you're making power.. your way that you can add a water turbine to the system.. what was the other two ways that you can get power to your system without running a generator to charge everything.. probably the least expensive out of all those would be the wind turbines
I have not considered it since I do not live in a windy area. It would not be money well spent here.
I am thinking of running 300AH lifepo4 batteries, 4 in a series to 48v, do that 3 times then running those 3 together in parallel to give me a total of 900AH and 48v. Would you put it together that way or do you think setting the bank up for 24v and 1800Ah with the 12 300AH batteries would be better?
The first question is....what is the voltage of the inverter you are running?
well explained mate, were in the same position, we all seem to be time poor to get it all done
Thank you
Hi, very nice video. Couple of suggestions.
1. I like to monitor my usage using "SOLAR ASSISTANT". It runs on a Raspberry Pi and provides a timeline graphing of solar generation and loads. It's relatively easy to figure out what appliance is on at a particular time.
2. I think for most people 3 days of autonomous power yields a battery which is unaffordable. So perhaps you might define two or more modes depending on the weather forecast. Modes could be abundant solar, and no solar. If you know that tomorrow or the next day will fully charge your batteries you may want to keep all 3 mini-splits on. But if you know it will be overcast, switching to two or even one might be more appropriate.
Of course a generator may be the only source of power for those weeks when there is no solar.
Yes to more panels! At the end of our head-scratching we determined we needed 16kW of solar panels to go off grid. And that may not even get us through a series of foggy winter days. And we went with tiltable going between 25 and 55 degrees. I think off-grid dreams will have to wait, but we will have some empirical data soon.
For sure.
At least you are working on figuring it out unlike some others who just give up. Keep working on it and you will get it dialed it perfectly.
@@CountryLivingExperience Thanks! How many BTUs of mini-split did you run in your test? We're looking at leaving propane behinds and installing mini-splits too.
@@ericbraun4652 I have 1 - 12k btu unit and 3 - 9k btu units.
@@CountryLivingExperience The Mr. Cool mini splits are amazing. I put one in our insulated conex box and works great
Also don't forget there is no such thing as a successful long-term off grid home that does not also have a generator. I have lived off grid for 24 years and I beat the hell out of my generator and cloudy and foggy weather. No amount of solar will do it.
You need insulation for hot water heater....then a timer. Even the grid i had a timer it was a hour a day for me so i could take a shower. It also had a bypass if hour wasnt enough. You really need one for an solar power solution.
That set up is very familiar. very nice
Cool
Great explanation! I've had the Sense Utility Monitor installed for a few years now and that helps give a good usage of daily power requirements without having to look at all the energy stickers on all the appliances. I was able to take that information and have my bank sized to be able to power my home for 24 hours with no solar. Of course, like you said, when you can GET MORE BATTERIES, so I'm working on getting close to what you have for capacity, but I imagine you're taking your own advice and will be growing your bank even more. Keep up the great work!
Thanks. I'll check out that Sense monitor. Always keep buying more ;-)
Good evening, happy Christmas to you. I have to say this video was excellent . You really clearly identified all of the potential issues a new system builder will encounter. Your explanation of calculations for batteries and panels was excellent. Thank you for taking the time to put together such a clear and concise video covering all the basics.
Merry Christmas! Glad the video was helpful and informative.
Awesome video. Really good information! Thank you !
Glad it was helpful!
Thank U for posting this educational post, I subscribed Cheers !
You’re welcome
I am installing these same inverters with 840ah of battery and 16000 watts of panels which it max for those inverters on my house right now
Cool. Keep building up.
Hi, Tyler resident here. I would love to talk to you about your system one on one if you are available sometime. Enjoy your videos a lot
Hello and thank you.
I wave been trying to get a meetup together with some other TH-camrs someplace close to Tyler but have not had the time. I am happy to talk on email or facebook and answer any questions you may have.
Very clearly expressed. Thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
I'm surprised with all the stuff you got, that none of it was a Sense, or an emporia Vue, to monitor your energy. That was the best way for us to discover our usage and specific appliance draws
I do now. I did a video on the Emporia. I had never heard of those monitoring systems before making this video.
Thank you sir for the very informative video about off-grid solar and sizing. I have one question sir, will the battery while being charged in the daytime also supply power to the house load when the solar power becomes insufficient?
You're welcome. Yes, that is how the system works when you have batteries.
See this is why I like Victron Solar equipment smart charge controllers smart Shunts and inverter/chargers because everything is controlled by the Victron bluetooth app that shows you everything on ur phone & how much power is being used my system is victron plus two of those 24-volt 3000w inverter chargers
Victron is great and expensive. I can probably add a shunt to this system too.
@@CountryLivingExperience yes you would love the Victron Smart Shunt I have the 500 amp but they have a 1000 amp one to then download the Victron connect Bluetooth app on ur phone then you will be able to see how much power you're using I'm constantly monitoring my sola performance on my phone all of it..
@@CountryLivingExperience well I'm only using two Victron smart charge controllers and Shunt my inverter charges are not Victron they PowMr around $500 bucks each for a 24v 3000 watts with built-in Mppt
I love your channel! Have a blessed day.
Thank you very much! God bless you as well.
So if your batteries were completely drained and you had your grid connected to your inverter how much electricity would you use from your grid to recharge your batteries and how long would it take?
I don’t use the grid to charge. That is an option that I elected not to do. I charge from a generator or the panels. It will take probably 5 hours or more with the generator.
Great video. Can you charge lifepo4 batteries while under load? I’m building a battery bank for my house but I just want my solar panels to charge the batteries.
Thanks. Yes, you can charge them under load.
@@CountryLivingExperience thanks 🙏
Hopefully I can add five more panels by this spring or summer from SanTan Solar honestly I wish i could just pack everything up and move from up here in Ohio
Sense Home monitoring unit tracks KW usages and finds devices as it runs.
It is shockingly difficult to find a concise breakdown of reality like this video provides! I've been researching for months, as well as talking to one of the mentioned providers (that shall go unnamed) and have found piles of confusion and misinformation. Buyer beware! These companies are in business to sell systems, and their reps are very sensitive to customer sticker-shock, so they will assure you that what they are selling you "will be more than adequate" after their "calculations," when in fact, you will need BOATLOADS more batteries than they want to tell you (and thereby scare you away).
I agree with some of the comments below that your house seems to be drawing an inordinate amount of juice. But "inordinate" is a matter of perspective, and, by contrast, we have a business that requires us to run multiple computers day and night, along with the other typical draws. In Tennessee we can go with a heat-pump, which is more energy-efficient than traditional HVAC. But I was sold THREE 48V 100Ahr batteries as "more than adequate," along with a 13KW solar array, and I have been discovering that we're going to need at least TWELVE batteries to be about a full day autonomous (which I consider to be minimal). It is exorbitantly expensive to get power up to our being-built house, so I'm having to adjust this off-grid system as we build and I discover more and more information. (Again, do NOT outright believe what these sales reps tell you about what you'll need!) But when we move in within the next four months, we'll probably have between 12 and 18 batteries and more like 18KW of solar panels, which should give us oversupply even on cloudy days and hopefully see us through a couple of outright rain days.
It's definitely scary to have to figure this out on the fly, and, again, really reliable information on these points is hard to come by (including from the companies selling these systems!). It's a different ballgame when you no possibility of grid-power, and propane is outrageously expensive! We are just not going to go with propane; so it's electricity or nothing.
Your video provided some excellent perspective, as well as useful research resources! The take-away is: It's FAR more involved and expensive to get fully off-grid than anybody is probably expressing, with this video as a stark contrast to that norm!
Glad we could represent our situation accurately. I am going to install an Emporia monitor soon. That will help me accurately see where I am using the most energy (more than likely the water heater). I am also installing a heat pump water heater soon. That should help reduce that load by 75% +/-.
a very nice video. but always in my mind how many kwh could win in winter in harsh conditions.For example i ve got a 10 kwh solar generator could it be generated at the worst situations in wintwer every mont at least 300 kwh that is our energy monhly needed.
Overall, this is a really good, down-to-earth video that's highly "relatable" (if that's really a word 🤠). The style of delivery is easy-going and friendly.
That said, I'd like to offer a couple of thoughts. There are opportunities to find the info in the video, but in the entire video, you never actually said you were running 48 volts. So, someone who didn't realize that and is using something OTHER than 48 volts is in for a surprise. They're not going to get 5KW per battery. I know you're not trying to hide it, but it would have been helpful to specifically call it out. (Don't assume they've seen your other videos and already know about your setup.)
You mentioned that you don't know how much power your water heater uses. With all of the options for inline meters available today, and given that most of the planet uses 240v, it seems like there should be options to put a meter on a load like that and get a daily average for consumption. It might be worth exploring.
Days of autonomy: You said you used about 62% of your battery supply for a 12-hour test. That's pretty much 5% per hour. So, if you set a discharge floor of 20%, that's about 16 hours. If you discharge all the way to 0%, you've got 20 hours. To get to 48 hours of autonomy with a floor of 20%, you need three times the battery bank you currently have. At $1650 each, 27 of the 48v, 100Ah EG4s will cost you $44,500 plus taxes and some serious shipping charges -- for enough power for just TWO days. And that's before you upgrade your solar array(s) to charge all of that. And that's for an 1800sf house. Then what happens on day three? You've got a dark house and a $44,500 paper weight in the garage. I don't say that to be critical, but to be real. If we're going to get autonomy, I believe we have to be willing to do two things:
- Reduce consumption. Don't run all three mini-splits. Share bedrooms. Heated dog bed -- *_seriously???_* Look for alternatives to other loads. I think it's a mistake to think of an autonomous day as just another day, with no changes to how we use power. I know why people use a worst case like that for the purposes of estimating things, but I think that can cost people a truckload of money. When the grid is gone, habits based on the grid being available have to change. Lots of families can't just "keep buying batteries, keep buying panels". If increasing supply isn't practical, decreasing demand seems critical.
- Supplement sources. Heat with a fireplace. Use a generator to share some of the loads or to help recharge. Heat water with propane. Break out the grill and the Dutch oven. I live in one of the worst places in the country for solar, at a northern latitude that's famous for being cloudy and rainy. If you live where I do, being "solar elite" just doesn't work. No one here has solar of any consequence. If you're really "homesteading", is dependence on electricity for everything like cooking really the right choice?
Why do people always title their videos with stuff like "You MUST do this?" Can't they just be happy with "Here's what I did"? A camera and an opinion doesn't make one an authority that must be followed, right?
There are devices like Sense and others that let you "clamp" on the power to the electric water heater to see what the power draw is and how often.
Thank you. We got one called the Emporia Vue not long after this video was made.
Nice... We've been having rolling blackouts in South Africa for more than a decade, sometimes 8hrs off per day or the worst being 10 days without power in the Capital of Pretoria.
1) Assuming that you're not heating the house from the water-heater, I'd replace the water geyser element with a lower wattage one which slowly heats the water instead of heavy 5kw element. That's a lot of demand on the batteries.
2) I'd drop the drop the thermostat temp to 55C or 130F so that the element switches on once in a while instead of every 10min.
3) Water doesn't need to be super hot 24hrs a day. I'd put a timer to run the water heater in the late afternoon/evening and then again early morning instead of it running permanently.
4) Last resort is to replace the electric water-heater with a natural-gas or liquid-gas water-heater.
This will reduce costs of having to buy a massive battery banks, esp in the beginning.
I have friends in South Africa. They tell me the stories of extremely unreliable power.
I am in the process of changing the water heater to a heat pump which only uses 700w instead of 5000w.
@@CountryLivingExperience Yup, been crazy here. We are currently on "Stage 6" which means minimum of 6 hours per day without power for ever home and business in South Africa... It's been terrible for the economy. Now they want to shut down all the coalplants before even building alternative power... it's going to be a disaster.
Anyway... Glad to hear of your strategy. 700W vs 5Kw, that's a massive difference for your system. It will hopefully mean that you will have a reserve in your batteries if you have a couple of rainy days?
Is your stove/cooker also electric or do you use NG in USA? In south Africa everything used to be electric but many are installing LPG stoves for cooking and heating.
It should improve the battery life a lot.
We have NG and LPG available. I have a backup LPG tank on our property and am in the process of connecting and getting a backup gas cooking stove. Both of those gasses have become more expensive but not compared to other countries. Texas has more natural gas reserves than Russia but current politics won't allow us to pull much of it out of the ground.
If your system logs current draw, the water heater will stick out on the graph as a big spike.
Thanks for the heads up.
Having watched several people going solar the only way to be 100% solar is to have a panel array so huge that it copes with the 0.1% solar harvest days of winter.... BUT most people cannot afford this simply for capital outlay.
Perhaps it's better to use a big generator for winter battery charging using also the generator's waste heat for keeping the battery shed warm. Yes you will need fuel but otherwise your health will be endangered
Having redundant systems is always a wise move. I have several systems to heat, etc.