diy solar

diy solar

Unintended consequences of Solar that we see

OffGridForGood said:
Or the truck delivery guy while they are waiting to be unloaded, looks up and sees the PV panels, "wow solar; does that run your whole shop?!" - (yes it does!).
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i wish all the sales people attempting to sell me solar would look up before knocking on my door. every time they show up i just stand there pointing up until they go away
 
OffGridForGood said:
without any significant snow, I sure wouldn't bother with tilting! - just pick a good overall angle for the whole year, set it and forget it!
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YES, Im at 44 degrees north latitude and my ground mount is at 42 degrees. This makes spring and fall a lot better that a fixed 20 degree and in summer with the longer days I dont need more power.
 
rustythorn said:
i wish all the sales people attempting to sell me solar would look up before knocking on my door. every time they show up i just stand there pointing up until they go away
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Door to door solar PV sales are illegal in some states here.

As a rule of thumb in Australia, do not buy a solar PV / battery system from direct mail, door to door, or from TV or Facebook "specials" being spruiked by famous ex-cricketers. Many do and get lucky with a system which actually isn't half bad but it's a heck of a lottery with equipment and especially the quality of installation which can be somewhat dubious given the corners they must cut.

These are often the 6.6 kW/5kWp PV systems installed for A$ 3000 (~US$ 2000) or 9.9 kW systems installed for A$4200 (~US$2800).
 
For one of my systems at least, it has a slight cooling effect on the roof in the summers so AC is run a little less. Another one is still to be seen, but had to cut some trees that were in the way, so not sure if it balances out
 
seneysolar said:
I find myself watching tv at the cabin where it used to be rustic living with campfires every night. Then the cell booster showed up.... no longer a cabin, just house #2. Dang solar...
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Any pictures? Sounds really cool
 
Brucey said:
Gorgeous.
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Thank you. It was my first go at solar back in 2017. Like most cabins its in a continous state of construction/finishing. Im making small tweaks to the solar along with it. Those are old pictures, i have since replaced the fuse block with a better quality blue sea, added surge protection for the PV, hooked up a soft start controller for the well, and added a stand alone battery charger for redundancy.
 
Zwy said:
Different loads at different times and there is a thing called snow. I did a video about tilting panels in winter, it showed a neighboring town that installed grid tie to lower the electricity cost to run the sewer plant. Fixed angle with snow on top and cold temps (-20°F) led to 10 days of total lost production for that system until it finally thawed while I was producing 50 Kwh/day with clear skies and no snow on my panels.

If you are grid tie, sure, fix the angle. If off grid or maximizing off grid usage, tilting in areas of snow and cold temps may mean the difference between running a generator or switching back to grid.
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I mean... you can fix the angle for best snow clearing angle...
 
Well in my case the unintended consequence was wasting money and starting experimenting with grid-tie first.

My initial thought was to save a few cents with a small DIY grid-tie system (no contract with power Co. because my system is fairly small so basically most of the output is self consumed by the house anyways).
But it turned out to be expensive.

I wish I had the knowledge and vision at the beginning, to what I am achieving currently: Partial home backup in case of a power outage.

I started experimenting with a few flexible panels and cheap grid-tie inverters. Then I upgraded to larger glass panels and found out that the cheap microinverters were trash. So I upgraded that too.

Then I wanted to have energy storage, so I got an 24v 3k AIO with around 5kwh of DIY LIFEPO4 storage.

I really lost count of how much money I spent in the last 5 years or so, experimenting, buying components, upgrading, etc...

I did learn alot (especially from this forum, Will Prowse and other YouTubers), but I think it was a high price to pay for this learning curve, building my solar vision and requirements.

My PV is setup on a fairly small pergola, now I want to upgrade that too, so that I will be able add more solar.

BTW, I totally agree with what many have stated here, about
maintenance and having other members of the house being able to handle the complexity of the system, should there be a fault.
 
Check tuition at a trade school, you may reevaluate whether this cost you too much.
And what you learned was very hands-on and practical.

Also compare cost to turnkey. You likely saved a lot of money over the labor component.
You can now build a big system, making fewer mistakes than you would have doing it up front.
 
DIYrich said:
Poor people subsidizing through higher rates, rich people who can afford, and take advantage of tax credits, to install solar.

Poor people having energy insecurity because of increasingly unreliable electric grids, whereas wealthy people can install batteries.
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In many places the poor can also install batteries through subsidies. It is a process to go through but it can be done.

It is those in the middle that will really suffer.
 
I feel even 'those in the middle' can start small, an inverter and battery, use off-peak power rates for load shifting-only, to start.
Put aside the monthly difference in utility electric bill towards adding a few PV panels - watch for used panels.
Build up slowly from there.
Join the DIY Solar Forum to learn from others, and save the $$ errors and mistakes might waste.
It took 4 years to go from a single inverter and one server rack battery to what you see in my signature block, working in stages. baby steps. It takes longer, and it takes patience.
 
OffGridForGood said:
adding a few PV panels - watch for used panels.
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not sure what it's like there, but the weird thing in the UK is that used solar panels from solar farms are all over eBay and other marketplaces, but are about the same cost as a new panel of twice the capacity..... yet are still selling. Most people haven't caught on that panels have dropped in price a lot recently.....
 
Electrician contacted me: for the the cost of a 3-hour drive, and my time, I am getting some used panels for "free".
I was told "the owner was concerned there will be an e-waste fee" and was glad to find a zero cost way of disposal.
These are on a commercial building, preparing for a new roof.

Unintended consequence: I have a 200 mile drive, and will get to help my buddy with his own solar set up - using his half of the salvaged PV panels!
 
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