Solar Power Year Round Without a Generator
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
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always amazes me how small this channel is given how great the content is. i always learn something or feel inspired from WFL videos
That's just common sense. I don't know why anyone would contest that. I've got a 7.4KW solar system and an hour or so ago the battery monitor was reporting no amps being used as the solar panels were providing between 400W and 500W in the mid-day snowfall and that happened to be just what we were using. For a family, this month we'll have used the generator ~20 hours. Pretty good.
Hush.. solar knockers need their commission
Nice work bud. I run my cabin on 9kwh of battery and it's plenty even with running a refrigerator (5 foot one) full time!
fridges don't run full time buddy, sorry but they stop and start on their own.
Thanks,
The simplicity of your system make this a lot clearer for me - wife and I are building off grid this year in Saskatchewan Canada, and I acquired about 15kwh of batteries on Black Friday sales, and bought an Anker 3800kwh solar generator along with a charge controller and a PowMr 3600 W inverter.
I bought a pallet of 31 - 405 W panels from the bankruptcy liquidation of Sunpower Solar. So I’ve spent about $10,000 on about $25,000-$30,000 worth of equipment.
Deals are out there if your patient and know what you want.
I definitely will be copying your method of connecting the bus bars from the panels to the charge controller, inverter and batteries!
This video helped A LOT, as most of what is out there way overcomplicates the systems - appreciate the help.
"You must have done it wrong..." Keep the video's coming. I enjoy your take on life!
Check out the vertical array arrangement. The method uses bifacial panels and by mounting them vertically (like a fence)- in a north to south alignment- spreads out the absorption more evenly throughout the day. It's counter-intuitive but it gets you more watts per day by maintaining a trickle charge when the Sun is low in the sky. and it flattens out the peak of mid-day absorption. What you get is more watts over the course of the day.
An advancement to that arrangement that I suggested was to arrange the panels in a zig-zag pattern (basically you're building a fence line of panels that has each individual panel turned to face the main absorption side of each panel about 15 degrees towards the Sun, so one panel facing east, turned slightly towards the Sun, then one panel facing west, turned slightly towards the Sun). this increases mid-day absorption without losing the advantage of early and late trickle-charging. Another brilliant booster was to install a reflective panel at the foot of the fence (on each side), to reflect sunlight up from the ground. This gave as much as a 10% increase in watts absorbed!
Altogether, you'll gain AT LEAST 20% with these alterations.
I appreciate your common sense and sense of humor. Thank you.
The other benefit of your system is you don't have the wild fire risk of having a power line running to your property. You do a better job of explaining your system than the youtube channels that are dedicated to it.
I knew shortly into this video that you obviously don''t use a microwave or probably an electric coffee maker as most people off grid do . Therefore you have been able to forego a generator . When using those two items especially in winter I fire the generator to keep from drawing power from my batteries in early morning or after dark and I have the same size ah capacity as you plus a 700i Ista Breeze wind turbine and more solar although I do see moving shading at times . My advice to most newbies ALWAYS have a generator for backup .....emergencies happen such as lightning strikes and tree limbs crashing through panels . Yes I've had both lol .
We run timers on our fridge and freezers and turn them off for about 8 hours at night during winter.
Very impressive !
I'm now considering solar on my 15 area camp
A lot of "server rack" batteries come with built in heating pads to keep them at the proper temps.
@AndirHon
"Server rack batteries provide their own heat." 😮 That's good to know. I'm just gathering information for the future when I build my own system. So, thanks for that tip. 0:15
You've done a great job. I like your system.
In some of the comments below It tickles me when people talk about being 'off grid' and then add that you could just use propane to run heating stove and dryer.
Why not run a natural gas line to the house instead? Off grid means providing all of your own energy needs as far as I can tell.
I love my Wattcycle batteries. I use them both for camping and as a backup for my house. I'm actually testing them at the moment (3 - 100Ah 12v) in parallel for my heating system to see how long it runs. So far so good.
You can absolutely tie your 2x24v and 4x12v banks together in parallel. No need to keep them separate. You will double the capacity of your power station easily. Both sets series, then paralleled together. They will charge and discharge in unison and self balance close enough. I have many different capacity banks paralleled together and it works great.
Yeah I said the same thing. Many people have done it including myself. It's totally fine.
There are a few ways to go about sizing your system to make it thru short cloudy days and bad weather. An expensive way , lots of batteries. Or the cheap way , more solar panels than you need. The downside on that is the space limitations for panels people may encounter. If you have room you get it easy. 5cu ft freezers are trivial to run, as are lights. It's heating and cooling and cooking/drying that eats energy. Cooling is usually not an issue , if its hot its usually sunny. Heating becomes the hard part.
Heat with firewood and propane, cook with propane, dryer propane. The rest is minimal
That’s the thing. You have all of the power storage in your batteries but then you have to keep them warm. So…there’s always a fee, even if you’re off grid.
You could probably get by just insulating the setup, but up here where it gets ccccold, we have to keep the batteries warm. I like your idea of having more power than you need to account for the generator. In a part time environment you will be fine. An inverter does require a certain amount of power draw itself and that needs to be included in the power demands. Very simple system, nice.
Nice trick. You can shrink shrinkwrap with a lighter. You just need to move it around a bit to keep the rubber from catching fire.
Yup that’s my goal, genny free. With that system you could also run a small toaster oven and single burner cook stove 9 months-ish of the year, as long as you have 2000 watts surge potential. And for three months in winter you use a wood cook stove or propane, cheers🎉
The silence and lack of fuel is worth quite a lot.
There it is, precisely.
Nice! That's a sharp looking rig.
Think of generators this way. If you need a generator with shore power (yes, I was in the Navy), then build your system with enough solar and batteries to survive for those days. Keep the generator for awhile. When funds and experience are developed increase the solar and batteries to replace the shore power. Sell the generator when you stop using it.
Great video. Love what you've done here.
Looks like a good solid system for sure.
For power in winter (and snow), you need to install those panels a bit higher, so that snow can slide down on the ground (what it probably does, if the sun warm up the panels - bu tnot, if the panels standing on the ground anyway). Or.... simply sweeping the snow by hand.... . For heating the battery, maybe sort of a pipe-heater is helpfull. Those can heat only the battery, and not heating the whole container. Maybe there is such with 24 Volts...always better to not be dependend on inverter. Its already only a flat band, that heats itself up.
Great video. Love seeing everyone’s solar setups!
Awesome! Thanks for this great build explanation. Would be cool to see just how much work you could do with that battery bank using electric chainsaws and other power tools.
AWESOME!!! I love this set-up! Exactly what I want!
Depends on how much storage capacity you have and how much you can scale down your electricity needs, if it becomes scarce.
It will always be enough to charge a phone, run a laptop and some LED Lighting.
Yeah, let's not talk about all the mining (drilling) that it takes to make that generator fuel they were saying you were going to need! and never mind that once the lithium is brought to the surface it is like 95% recyclable. Just try recycling your generator fuel! Also, generators are noise and will eventually wear out, probably long before those silent, no-moving-parts solar panels do; love what you're doing there, keep up the good work!
You did the symple way to help avoid the generator by doing a system of at least 50 percent over usage plus a decent sized battery storage unit. Most of the household solar systems being offered don't include a battery storage set up which I think is silly. Grid tied set ups to me are pointless where we are the main reason to go solar is to avoid the trouble of power outages.
A lot of people seem to think the reason is to reduce the power bill. They're stuck in that money mindset.
@@Trezker Where you live determines what you do. I am in northern California at about the latitude of southern Portugal. 3.9 kW peak solar and grid tied. I fortunately got in under Net Metering 2.0. That means I can use the grid as a battery averaged over each year. If I use more than I make I pay retail for the excess. If I make more than I use I get paid wholesale. So I make about $150 per year. There are connection fees, but they are cancelled by carbon trading credits paid by companies the emit lots of CO2. This won't last forever but is grandfathered in for over a decade. By then batteries will be even a better deal and I have a battery room. This is a three bedroom, three bath house with a shop in the basement. Power outages here are rare and usually caused by someone running into a power pole. It comes back in 4 to 12 hours. Oh, and it is an all electric house.
This is the perfect application for solar power.
yeah he barely has anything that uses high wattage
Great video and system! Gotta say that the red wire on the negative side of the circuits would make my middle school shop teacher a little upset. I guess me too.
Great Job!! Well done!! Your system is simple and performs well!! Over built which makes it reliable. By the way they make battery heat matts that use very little power and only come on by a thermostat. Then you would not have to heat the whole area.
Nice system. I am going to set up a similar size system this spring. I expect it will run the smaller tools in my shop. As finances permit I will double the panels and batteries. This should run the bigger tools like the compressor. I already have a 6800 watt low frequency inverter.
You don't need an inverter for your battery system.
Feed your battery to your power station through the solar port(Xt90).
You'll get at minimum a constant 400w+ from the battery to the power station.
And in the meantime, you can connect all your batteries into one station.
12v x 4= 48v and 24v x 2= 48v. Run those 2 in parallel and you're fine.
I've run 12v x 2 and single 24v together in series for years and it's fine.
There's this guy on YT. He ran 4x 12v 280ah batteries together with his 2x 48v rack batteries in one system.
The 45A rating on the MPPT is for the battery side. 1700w panels/51.2V(48v battery) = 33.2A. I'd guess he's using a 2series 2parallel setup on the panels if you assume the 42v open circuit voltage on my 440w panels. 4 in series is too high OCV (>150v) and 4 in parallel is too low to charge a 48v battery.
Nice setup, also have a small generator for my off-grid system, in 6 years I have never used it !!!
I've had a few days recently that I was only getting around 1200-1500 watts. That being the total from 4 x 4kw arrays. Any juice is better than no juice.
to spell it out, the other reason you don't need a generator is you aren't burning hundreds or thousands of watts at a time.
He could just make his system bigger to get the same ratios. Please use the mush you call brain.
@C4rb0neum or he could continue not using electricity wastefully. It's not rocket science.
i did the same as far as ober building my system. my camper has a 30 kwh 24 volt battery that i biilt myself. its a 4000 watt split phase inverter, 3 victron charge controllers, it has rooftop solar but also a couple ground mount arrays. im only in the camper a few days a month so the battery bank is always full by the time i get to the camper and rarely down to 50 percent by the time i leave again. i heat and cool and cook and heat water all with electric as well
Nice set up 👍😎
In solar systems overkill is best. I have a 200amp 24v system for my property entrance gate. Mine works great while people who laughed at my system had to disconnect the control arms because their weenie system wasn’t cutting it. Go big.
Great vid . I think the issue is energy trade off. Just because you dont have high consumption electric appliances there doesn't mean you dont consume that energy in another way relative to your life. My electric bill is lower in the winter bcuz im not using a/c . But my gas bill is higher. There are passive ways to do things but everything has its limitations. Sometimes people feel they avoided the generator by increasing the solar build. But you also gave up a optional power source. A 1000$ generator gives 9k of power at $30 bucks a day. Thats not great but its portable and if your solar is down its worth every penny. Solar is more money up front but it pays for itself overtime. So when you have a homestead there your energy consumption will increase and you will have to build the infrastructure that makes it works either out of wisdom or necessity/budget. This is not to shoot down your vid or success . I just want the new folks to understand the realistic application.. keep it rocking
I have calculated how much it would cost to run my house off grid with just solar here in Michigan. It would be about $150k. But 80% solar and the rest grid is about $30k.
This is such fantastic content, thank you so much!
Very informative video. That link for batteries is a good price, you can also purchase the xzny compact 24v 100ah for $299
Good application for off grid.
Good application for a permanent "camp site".
Oh, DC is the way to go. I run my office off of solar (usually) and I have an EcoFlow Delta Pro and I really have the AC inverter on it. If I leave that on overnight, I will drop 10-15% of my charge. I need to convert my monitor to run off of DC so I can just turn it off and leave it off.
I have solar, but I still need a backup generator because things don't always go as planned. It's good to have one just in case you need it.
I have actually found panels on skips and you can get cheap secondhand ones off old solar farms cheap has chips. I suppose your big advantage is plenty of land, I live off-grid in a town in a small house, I use lead acid, I do use a generator to charge the batteries but only very rarely, but I am going to be engineering this out. A great shame about tiny generators they do not have a water cooling loop to use the waste heat.
A generator making clean power is great to have as a backup to solar batteries. Top off and turn off when needed. I like to live as comfortable as possible IF possible.
Don’t forget the 3 grand you spent on your solar generator 😳. I do like your setup 👍
Nah, that power station is under $2k. $1799 as of right now.
RF is off the chart around solar panels...and batteries
Panels have become so economical, its the new roofing material.
my cat looked so indignant when you went "spspspspsp"
Lithium batteries also use complex circuitry in each battery. A potential weak point. Lead acid all the way
I kept my batteries in the shipping boxes for insulation
Very good video. This one earned you a sub. I really like the way you present information. Also, that system of bus bars and DC shut-off switches to determine where the PV input goes looked like a mess, until you explained it. That's actually a cool way of being able to charge two different "systems" with one solar array.
Now, most folks use a lot more power, so they can't afford to install enough battery to last a week, let alone two. They also can't afford to over-size their solar panel array, to the extent you have. So, you haven't needed a generator, but that actually came at quite a cost, based on your electricity needs. If you were to do an ROI calculation, you'd find that this system will just about never pay for itself, even with the free batteries, but that wasn't the point of having power out there on your forest lands.
No suckling at the utility’s teet. I love it!
Since those batteries are the same chemistry and voltage, you should be able to operate them in parallel successfully.
no one said he was smart
Excellent. Obviously have some film/video chops.
I use wool blankets over the top of my batteries in the winter. Unfortunately, in the Pacific Northwest, it gets cold and overcast, which means I need a generator.
Well Dun!
It should be pointed out that you aren't necessarily a normal consumer with rudimentary electrical wiring experience.
Most people wouldn't know to buy double the length of red wiring and use black shrink/electrical tape at the ends to denote negative wires. Slightly more confusing, but cheaper and fine if done correctly.
Also, technology is changing so rapidly. A more pertinent question is (assuming no free LiFePO4 batteries): Is it worth it to wait for Sodium Ion batteries and their much better cold resistance and long term lower price than investing in Lithium today?
Everybody said it is impossible.
One day one came along and didn't know it was impossible and did the impossible.
Get a marine batt switch used in boats to switch banks
A good source for DIY solar is Will Prose here on YT or his website mobile solar power. TONS of info on there.
Great video! I guess you figured out the best angle for the solar panels optimized for winter. 70 degrees?
Thanks I agree with you but I bought a generator anyway. So do you have to put in anything extra to keep the batteries warm. You answered my question about keeping them warm. I have another question how many watts are the solar panels that you have?
most big household appliances can be run off propane or natural gas too
DC consumption is super efficient inverters lose lots of energy because of idle draw and heat from the conversion
I still think you should look into getting a wood fired generator just for fun. :P If nothing else to help you get rid of all the excess wood around the property.
I live in Ireland which is further north and a lot cloudier & I’ve just come out of a big storm surviving on a generator.
But I was thinking that it might be feasible to have a temporary solar panel frame that I only need to install during winter, then in summer I’d put it away into storage to give space for growing vegetables.
I run a offgrid 11KW LTO system , a women is the largest energy load in the house.I need more of everything.Its going to be expensive.
Maybe on the west coast but in Michigan in December and January there is NOT enough sun to rely on solar without some other form of on Grid or backup system like a generator and batteries.
It sure seems like we don’t get too many sunny days during that time here is Eastern Ontario either. However, the flip side is really how much overbuild you have in the system. Gets a lot tougher to have 2 weeks of stand by time as your demands go up. At current prices it does seem a lot easier to afford the overbuild. Before long I might take the plunge to get started.
that depends what appliances you have...heat pumps will need grid in winter, gas furnace nope
I just bought an old husky 141 chainsaw to start learning how to cut some wood while I’m still a teenager
I have had an oiling problem with it though, so far I think I fixed it, but I’m yet to try it. If when I try it, it still doesn’t work, would you know what the problem is? I have already replaced the oiling pump gear in it since the old one was severely worn. I tried it and let it idle and it was only just starting to oil
Run your saw full bore while pointing the tip of the bar at a surface of light coloured wood. After a few seconds you should see a light strip of oil being flung off the chain onto the surface of the wood. If you see that then you’re good to go.
How long will the panels last before they need to be replaced
Typically 30 years. Ours have a 20 year warranty.
Good quality panels, about 30 plus years with some degradation.
I've got some pushing 20 plus that are fine.
What’s that big orange cord plugged into that lil current bush
I'm wondering why you don't combine your 48v of 12v with your 48v of 24v banks. I'm running overkill on my system too with 40kw of panels & 70kw of storage but I use way more power than you do but I do have a generator just in case & had to use it once in 5 months at the tail end of an extended string of crappy days.
poorly edumacated
Very nice 👌 👍
I had a generator but as the system improved i stopped using it, i think there is two weeks in the year where it would be useful but that doesn't really justify it.
Why can't you run series parallel, an run all 6 of your batteries in 24v configuration?
My tiny house with 16kWp without some grid help in winter is not possible, I called bs being offgrid, my 20kWp batteries last me only a day without sun… And I dont even have electric car yet. 200w in winter time is not life… Its just one router and fridge/freezer and few cameras… I have 3x victron multiplus 48/3000VA running at 244V
Not sure why no one has mentioned it but there is firewood in the background so you obviously don't run a heat pump which will use a lot of power. Of course you don't need a genny but it's always good to have one since you're offgrid. So stop gloating.
Awesome
Where do you live?? It does not work where I live not enough hours of day light and I will need to turn the panels during the year . I don,t see that hardware on yours And there is allso too much snow.
Might be different usecases. I know my family with inlaws and children the amount of power used to charge 5 phones, run a tv, heating, refrigeration, car charging, you name it, and living in a much colder region than yourself. You would really want a backup.
Is he permanently "camping" in the woods? 🤔
@@MrSummitville I don't know. My example is what my family might get up to when spending a weekend at a cabin
Sounds great until you inquire about the life span of the different components. 10-15 years for solar panels, 4-8 years on the Batteries. I like to think in terms of longevity. So I have gone with three propane only genies. I also have installed a methane digester, so our humanure and that of our cows and sheep all contribute to creating the gas we can run our genies on. So this system will last indefinitely.
10-15 for PV panels is low. You want find any decent panel that is warrantied for less than 12 years and many go to 25. Ditto for batteries like the PowerWall. 10-yr warranty, expected lifespan longer than that.
@@Eponymous300 And he Life Span of many Generators is ? lol here are 50 year old generators still functioning to his day.
@ Ah, so confronted with being ridiculously wrong, you change the subject.
super System...
I have free grid power. Here's how. My electricity provider has a "Free Nights" plan. The per kilowatt price is a couple cents higher, but from 9 pm until 6 am the next day, all I can use is free, so . . .
At night I charge a couple 2000 watt Jackery-style power stations for free.
Come daylight, I switch to stored free power to run my ac.
I should add, I heat & cool only my bedroom & onsuite (bath) and my ceiling and walls are insulated R-100.
What I paid extra for insulation & Harbor Freight power stations, more than offsets what grid-sourced using electricity in the daytime would cost.
My neighbor lives in a mobile home and pays $450 to $600 per month in power bills EACH MONTH.
MY electricity monthly bill is rarely over $55, including their $10 monthly "meter service fee"! 😊
Where can you get those batteries for $1500? I will buy some tomorrow for that price if I can! last time I checked with a few wholesalers, 10kW of LIPOs was more like $15,000. Even sealed lead was gonna run me around $3600 for 10kW
You are confusing watt hours with amp hours.
It's all realative on how much power you need.
someone that understands
Here comes the Rain
GE tc10323r transfer switch for your batteries
You can run your string of 12v batteries in parallel with your 24v batteries, no problem. That's what the BMS is for. At some point you'll need to add a balancer, though.
I can't recall who your power company would be but Pacific Power quoted me $10k per pole, and 1 pole every 1,000 ft minimum. Plus a transformer. Plus $5k just to connect up to the house (meter).
I'm about 100 miles north of you, so prices should be similar.
Instead I bought 30kw worth of solar panels for $2k, an inverter / charge controller for $750, and I'm working on getting 50kwh of batteries, which should run me about $1k if I keep my eyes open for deals. My entire setup this far is less than the house connection fee.
Not sure how someone online can assume how much power someone needs and make these claims, unless you explain how many watts of power you need, they will never know what your power requirements are.
what brand are panels ?
LG Neon Prime is the brand he said in the vid
@@susanholmes9671 thanks Sus :)
Wow this parallels exactly how the public solar generation systems work.
Has to be massively overbuilt to compensate for their down time, and at a cost massively higher then legacy systems. The solar panels remain highly susceptible to storm damage and the battery storage remaining the biggest weakness and the highest cost.
The concept is simply not scalable for us by a modern industrial economy. Of course even at this tiny scale you are not driving any large consumers. Am I correct you are only driving 12v systems?
Interesting your solar panels don't put out over 45 amps of power, I guess it's the way you have your panels connected. I have 4- 200 watts panels, and at times I'm getting over 40 amps, on average I'm getting 33-34 amps @ 500 watts. just something I'm thinking of buying in case my heat goes out and it gets too cold to charge my LIFEPO4 batteries, It's a lead acid battery that can be charged in extreme cold.
Lead is already mined and most batteries made are using recycled lead as its cheaper and available.
Lithium...its bad until the US is able to mine it locally. Then its lithium is king because of mining practices.