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You really can't be independent of electricity unless you have a good solar system in an area where there is a lot of sunshine. And to create enough electricity to power a whole house, incl. stove and water heater is astronomical.
While true... some are much less dependent or at least 'could' be. I would like to be more self sufficient in the event of the need arising, in the context of the forum.
You really can't be independent of electricity unless you have a good solar system in an area where there is a lot of sunshine. And to create enough electricity to power a whole house, incl. stove and water heater is astronomical.
Most people when they try to approach this question, look only at the immediate effect a loss of grid power would have, without thinking about the delivery of gasoline, propane, food and water to their location.
As someone (possibly Nor'Easter) pointed out, a couple years ago: the first step in becoming independent of the grid should be an assessment of what you are using and what you can pare it down to.
With all of the nifty utilities, it isn't unreasonable to use, per person, per day:
100 gal water
2 gallons propane (or 2 ccf natgas)
2 gallons gasoline
20 kilowatt hours electricity.
For off grid, you might want to set an intermediate goal of 10% of that, plan your system, then try to pare it down from there.
But the question for this thread is "how dependent are you, today?"
My personal usage is about half of what I outlined, above, and I know from having some little outages, that 10% isn't out of the question. With 10% of what I am using, now, I could go for a month without too much trouble.
Our family is not dependent on the grid at all.. That's not to say we don't use the grid, we do, but I could easily disconnect and be fine.
Our home is solar powered. Grid tied solar.. but when the grid goes down, as it frequently does here in the rural countryside whenever a storm blows through, I just flip a couple switches and my grid tied solar system becomes an off grid system. Enough to power the entire house just as if the grid was still working.
Can't post pictures here? Crap..
We also have a portable generator that we converted to use gasoline, propane, or natural gas.. and if those fuels run short, I built a stainless steel wood gassifier to provide fuel.
Probably never need it though.. solar works great!
Isn't solar providing electricity? The question is "how dependent are you on electricity"?.
Point is we are all VERY dependent on electricity. How we manage that dependency is critical, like what your doing.
Our family is not dependent on the grid at all.. That's not to say we don't use the grid, we do, but I could easily disconnect and be fine.
Our home is solar powered. Grid tied solar.. but when the grid goes down, as it frequently does here in the rural countryside whenever a storm blows through, I just flip a couple switches and my grid tied solar system becomes an off grid system. Enough to power the entire house just as if the grid was still working.
Can't post pictures here? Crap..
We also have a portable generator that we converted to use gasoline, propane, or natural gas.. and if those fuels run short, I built a stainless steel wood gassifier to provide fuel.
Probably never need it though.. solar works great!
I just ordered 1200 W of solar panels for the system I'm building. Still undecided on which solar generator to buy or build. 3500 W system is my goal with capacity to deliver 2200 watts continuous at a minimum. 1600 W of solar would be better, but That's all I had a coupon for.
I also prefer many panels (redundancy)vs high wattage capacity high dollar panels. In other words, I didn't buy the 400 W expensive panels, instead I bought many/multiple 100W panels. Not to mention the price was for a limited time. 1200W for $600, new Renogy compact panels. Room/space is a non issue for me.
Any solar is better than no solar, but smaller panels will end up costing you more money in the long run..
Smaller panels mean more wire, more MC4 connectors, more mounting hardware..
Other than that, nothing wrong with twelve 100w panels or three 400's.
Most common large panels these days are in the 50 cent/watt range. you can get some of the chinese panels for around 42 cents.. and there's nothing wrong with them. I think the Renogy are chinese too but not sure. Renogy isn't very high quality. Its not the bottom no-name crap, but sort of in the middle to lower half on the quality and reliability scale.
For serious off grid stuff, you want to stick with Outback, SMA, Victron, etc.
Redundancy is a non-issue with solar panels as even the cheaper units have a ridiculously low failure rate.. But when it comes to inverters and charge controllers, watch out.. the cheap stuff has a high failure rate.
Those "Solar Generators" are all over-priced garbage made with the cheapest crap they can find.. one was responsible for burning a guy's garage down.
Build your own.. its more expensive, but that's because you won't use dirt cheap chinese crap.
I'm considering building my own, but the EcoFlow Delta Pro does check all the boxes for me. The Titan seems to be very well made to military specs. When I was working at my former employer (electric power company) we used 100W Renogy panels for remote communications (DC battery bank), very robust panels that could take abuse. Never an issue.
I got these panels at $.20 per W (new) and since the failure rate is so low, and space isn't an issue, then inexpensive panels are good. For permeant/stationary mounting where space is limited and money is no object ... yes high quality, efficient panels are the way to go. Definitely.
This set up I'm gonna mount on a trailer and use for my shop and other remote needs on my property. I appreciate the advice. Just starting my build for my shop. If it all works out then I'll consider a stationary set up for my house with both solar and wind.
I wouldn't buy a solar generator, but that's just my opinion after reading about them over the last few years since they became popular.
One thing I would strongly suggest you do is to familiarize yourself with how much energy they store and how much you expect to use. The one thing I see most often is that people don't comprehend how much energy storage they are buying and how much they think they need.
The Titan stores 2000 watt-hours, which isn't enough to run a refrigerator for a day. Even a desktop computer drawing 100 watts will burn 2400 watt-hours of energy every 24hrs. Its a pitifully small amount of energy storage designed to keep a couple of led lights going, charge a few cell phones, and run an emergency radio.
It's basically the equivalent of two smaller sized deep cycle marine batteries..
10 kilowatt-hours is generally the smallest battery size I would ever recommend for someone who wants to keep a modicum of power flowing into their home.
I'm not familiar with all the models of these "solar generators", but I do know they generally have a high failure rate.
You can battery stack Titan with 2000wh batteries... up to 6 batteries, but their chemistry is older, Li-ion.
I have no issues building my own coming from an electrical utility back round.
When I left the power company, construction cost quotes for just/only the solar array was priced at $.03 kw which is competitive with NG facilities. Of course the foot print is huge. Total cost were vastly higher after all was said-n-done.
Occasionally we go out camping for a week or so and we can survive without electricity for that long, but darn, it is the high point of the year to get home after a week in the wilds and to get a long hot shower.
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