Real deal solar/battery/inverter setup using grid tie as a backup- video here

[wash11]

Lots of solar talk here lately so this feels timely.

I have worked with the guy in this video since 2015 on several off-grid systems and system upgrades. He's an engineer at Northern Arizona Wind and Sun and one of the sharpest guys I know.

In the video he shows how he designed and built a system that runs his house 100% on solar and batteries without feeding power back to the utility company yet is still grid tied with the sole purpose of using the utility in place of a backup generator when extra power is needed.

His monthly bill is $13 which is the basic service fee. In extreme weather he'll see a usage charge (which is less than what I would pay to run my propane powered 15k genie). The tech has come so far in recent years. This is pretty exciting stuff considering all the gear can safely be mounted outdoors and the prices are no longer obscene for those willing to pay for true energy independence.

 

[wash11]

Sneak peek of a project happening at our place using this same gear. Our backup will be generator since we are off the grid by several miles but the idea that all this gear can reliably be mounted outdoors is a game changer in many ways.
This is a 12k Solark inverter (stackable) with 1000+ amp hours of lithium batteries meant to power 4 RV spots. Minus the grounding, this is a complete stand-alone set-up. By mounting everything outdoors no storage space is lost and the whole thing is easy to move anywhere. Weather dependent, we are a couple weeks away from this going live.

 

[Waterjunky]

What are your concerns with temperature fluxuation and the lithium batteries? My understanding is they really want to be about the same temp as you do. I work with small scale 12v at remote locations. its all solar and battery. A few groups are crossing over to Lithium and its a bit of a mess. They don't like the extreme temps both hot and cold. I have hardware from El Centro to the top of the Sierra's. I just run good AGM's and they work at all temps and run for many years.

Thoughts?
always interested in what others are making work.

 

[wash11]

What are your concerns with temperature fluxuation and the lithium batteries? My understanding is they really want to be about the same temp as you do. I work with small scale 12v at remote locations. its all solar and battery. A few groups are crossing over to Lithium and its a bit of a mess. They don't like the extreme temps both hot and cold. I have hardware from El Centro to the top of the Sierra's. I just run good AGM's and they work at all temps and run for many years.

Thoughts?
always interested in what others are making work.

They won't charge at low temps but battery heaters are a quick, easy and inexpensive as well as proven fix. These batteries will be put in a box with such heaters (design not figured out yet, we have till November before its an issue). From a practical standpoint, our experience with lithium over our old agm's has had way more positives. Actually, other than initial cost there have been no negatives with the batteries installed in the house. This is our first experience going outdoors so I'm sure there will be a learning curve as with anything we've done.

 

[Xtrmwakeboarder]

Looks bad ass. I remember you running through the original setup in the closet.

 

[Racey]

The 2 major benefits of the lithium is the number of Charge/Discharge cycles. and the Charge rate. This is super important for Solar system use because once the sun goes down you are fully in discharge mode all night long while your AC etc is running. And once the sun is up the battery can absorb a shitload of current all at once and rapidly charge back up.

A lithium battery can do thousands and thousands of charge discharge cycles from 10%-100%,

if you are doing 10%-100% cycles on an AGM you will only get a couple hundred cycles before the battery shits the bed, and you cannot charge at even a fraction the rate of a Lithium.

It will be interesting to see how they hold up to the heat though.

 

[wash11]

Looks bad ass. I remember you running through the original setup in the closet.

That closet setup is still the bomb. This is a whole new project to run four rv spots. Obviously it will have limits in this configuration. Four rvs won’t be able to run multiple ac’s at the same time etc. 90% of the year ac isn’t required here so not a huge issue. A little trial and error on our part but the gear and design have proven themselves. As always, we’ll just push them to the max and give you real world feedback.

 

[mesquito_creek]

What are your concerns with temperature fluxuation and the lithium batteries? My understanding is they really want to be about the same temp as you do. I work with small scale 12v at remote locations. its all solar and battery. A few groups are crossing over to Lithium and its a bit of a mess. They don't like the extreme temps both hot and cold. I have hardware from El Centro to the top of the Sierra's. I just run good AGM's and they work at all temps and run for many years.

Thoughts?
always interested in what others are making work.

I am swinging my lifepo4 battery bank from the mid 90s in the summer to 40 degrees in the winter. The winter (low temps) are more problematic to the chemistry than hot. In my case my winter loads are very low so the daily cycle is maybe 10-20% of capacity making it less hard on that condition. Having said all that, lifepo4 is pretty tough and my down side will be less over all life. At the same time, I am fully prepared for the battery bank to calendar age, not age from cycles or heat/cold. Some people would want 20 years out of their lithium batteries but not me. I will be more than happy to get 10 years, then repurpose them for whatever capacity they have left and move on to the next latest and greatest battery tech for the next 10 years.

I am at the 2 year mark on my lifepo4 and I think I have used up a bout 200 cycles of the 3,000-5000 I have left. LOL.

I have 29 years in the electric utility industry and I think this type of set up has the ability to be very disruptive to the industry, much like cell phones to landlines and streaming to cable TV. There are still people with landlines and cable/satellite TV, but they are a shell of their past selves and I wouldn't be investing in their long term survival. I can't wait to see direct TV subs crater if the NFL follows through with taking the games away from the Direct TV death grip.

Utility economics are base on growth whether you believe it or not. IF you stagnate growth or better yet introduce net loss of customer acquisition and sales, you will have a problem.

 

[Waterjunky]

Make no mistake, I am not advocating AGM batteries for this. I am just watching and learning about the Lithium. The AGM is sill best for me due to not commonly deep cycling them and the temperature extremes I deal with. That said, I am watching the tech change and evolve.

One of these days, I will be doing something with my house. SMUD is one of the cheapest power suppliers in CA, They are also one of the most reliable. All of this means I am not in the front of the foot race on the home side. I already have solar and have been looking at options for generators and batteries. I have a generator already but have concerns about quality of the power on it. The battery side of these are evolving so fast, I am thinking its best to wait just a little longer. The Lithium would probably be fine outdoors at my location as I am rarely over 100F and very rarely under freezing.

Very interesting and rapidly changing subject.......

 

[mesquito_creek]

Make no mistake, I am not advocating AGM batteries for this. I am just watching and learning about the Lithium. The AGM is sill best for me due to not commonly deep cycling them and the temperature extremes I deal with. That said, I am watching the tech change and evolve.

One of these days, I will be doing something with my house. SMUD is one of the cheapest power suppliers in CA, They are also one of the most reliable. All of this means I am not in the front of the foot race on the home side. I already have solar and have been looking at options for generators and batteries. I have a generator already but have concerns about quality of the power on it. The battery side of these are evolving so fast, I am thinking its best to wait just a little longer. The Lithium would probably be fine outdoors at my location as I am rarely over 100F and very rarely under freezing.

Very interesting and rapidly changing subject.......

Good lifepo4 batteries have both low temp and high temp protection and will not take a charge in the over/under temp state. Some of the budget batteries even have low temp heater pads installed internally from manufacture. Cold is really bad if you try to charge them, you will kill them. Heat not so much in that is a little hard on them but it doesn't kill them right off the bat. There are lots of people with very long life cycles of lead/agm if they don't hurt them, so if there isn't a problem you are trying to solve with lifepo then agm works just as good as anything else.

 

[pull-on]

That closet setup is still the bomb. This is a whole new project to run four rv spots. Obviously it will have limits in this configuration. Four rvs won’t be able to run multiple ac’s at the same time etc. 90% of the year ac isn’t required here so not a huge issue. A little trial and error on our part but the gear and design have proven themselves. As always, we’ll just push them to the max and give you real world feedback.

Funny you mentioned the RV spots. I read a while ago, that you added them to your property. Do you actually rent them out?

 

[wash11]

Funny you mentioned the RV spots. I read a while ago, that you added them to your property. Do you actually rent them out?

Renting them out is an option for us if we ever need some extra scratch. For now, it's just nice to have a cool place for our friends to land on the weekends.

 

[Tom Slick]

Lots of solar talk here lately so this feels timely.

I have worked with the guy in this video since 2015 on several off-grid systems and system upgrades. He's an engineer at Northern Arizona Wind and Sun and one of the sharpest guys I know.

In the video he shows how he designed and built a system that runs his house 100% on solar and batteries without feeding power back to the utility company yet is still grid tied with the sole purpose of using the utility in place of a backup generator when extra power is needed.

His monthly bill is $13 which is the basic service fee. In extreme weather he'll see a usage charge (which is less than what I would pay to run my propane powered 15k genie). The tech has come so far in recent years. This is pretty exciting stuff considering all the gear can safely be mounted outdoors and the prices are no longer obscene for those willing to pay for true energy independence.

Great video. Where can we get more information about this system, cost, installation in our area, etc.?

 

[wash11]

Great video. Where can we get more information about this system, cost, installation in our area, etc.?

928-526-8017 ask for James. He designs the system for you and ships you the parts and likely has a lead on a good installer in your area. Don't forget to turn in your receipt at tax time for a 24-26% tax break I believe. Plus, there's no sales tax when you buy the stuff. Rumor has it, tax break is going back up to 30% again.

On the project pictured, the bill from Wind and Sun was under $22,000. In some cases, less than the cost of a real back up generator, transfer switch and install. The tech and the pricing are starting to pencil out for more and more people.

 

[fishing fool]

Will Prowse just did a review on the Sol Ark 15K

 

[DaveC]

928-526-8017 ask for James. He designs the system for you and ships you the parts and likely has a lead on a good installer in your area. Don't forget to turn in your receipt at tax time for a 24-26% tax break I believe. Plus, there's no sales tax when you buy the stuff. Rumor has it, tax break is going back up to 30% again.

On the project pictured, the bill from Wind and Sun was under $22,000. In some cases, less than the cost of a real back up generator, transfer switch and install. The tech and the pricing are starting to pencil out for more and more people.

Including all parts? Panels, batteries and inverter?

here James take my money…..

question #2: what size did you go with the solar panels?

 

[wash11]

Including all parts? Panels, batteries and inverter?

here James take my money…..

question #2: what size did you go with the solar panels?

Yes. That included wire, conduit, fittings, ground rods, battery cables and all the misc stuff to make this work. He also designed in a bitchin transfer switch to handle load balancing. RV air conditioners put a pretty big strain on things during start-up so we've addressed that up front. Here is the breakdown from Wind and Sun.

 

[wash11]

Will Prowse just did a review on the Sol Ark 15K

Good info. It's all pretty technical and pretty easy to dismiss how much Solark has pushed the goal post. With a failing power grid and no reasonable short term solutions, being independent is the best answer and these guys have made it possible for people that don't slay the big bucks.

 

[mesquito_creek]

And if you don’t have to mount your inverter outside, there are a couple of less expensive inverters that work extremely well. Will Prowse has reviews on them all…

 

[DaveC]

Yes. That included wire, conduit, fittings, ground rods, battery cables and all the misc stuff to make this work. He also designed in a bitchin transfer switch to handle load balancing. RV air conditioners put a pretty big strain on things during start-up so we've addressed that up front. Here is the breakdown from Wind and Sun.
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Thanks. I was looking at this yesterday. I just need a 7.5-10k system with more battery capacity(double). But this is good info

 

[wash11]

Thanks. I was looking at this yesterday. I just need a 7.5-10k system with more battery capacity(double). But this is good info

It's possible that we'll need more battery as well. The install allows more batteries with very little work. Unique to lithium's is the ability to add more and not worry about the age of existing batteries. We're really looking forward to using this new system. The farm business will keep adding freezers till we find its limits.

 

[BLOWN HOWARD]

Yes. That included wire, conduit, fittings, ground rods, battery cables and all the misc stuff to make this work. He also designed in a bitchin transfer switch to handle load balancing. RV air conditioners put a pretty big strain on things during start-up so we've addressed that up front. Here is the breakdown from Wind

Yes. That included wire, conduit, fittings, ground rods, battery cables and all the misc stuff to make this work. He also designed in a bitchin transfer switch to handle load balancing. RV air conditioners put a pretty big strain on things during start-up so we've addressed that up front. Here is the breakdown from Wind and Sun.
View attachment 1145295

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Whats the additional cost for the container?

 

[wash11]

It’s a container we’ve had for several years. Nothing special about it other than it’s paid for already. All this junk can be mounted to a house or a shed-whatever you have. The ability to mount outdoors makes anything possible.