DIY Solar Suggested Personal Prerequisites

[45North]

Going solar off-grid means understanding and accepting certain constraints and restrictions relative to your former grid-tied lifestyle with unlimited power (at a price). In a nutshell, you will be constantly trying to balance cumulative intermittent Power Consumption (all household loads) with power Regeneration from the sun through your PV panels - with all the uncertainty that entails: shade, seasons, weather, snow, etc. Batteries will provide the buffer between the two. For best results, you and your family members should be aware of this balancing act, accept it, and, in some cases, willingly modify your power consumption behaviour accordingly. Failure to do this will not result in a happy implementation! Living off-grid will not be business-as-usual: minimizing power demands at the outset is a good place to start.

Also, before you begin a DIY Solar project you should ask yourself if you have these personal characteristics:

• are you comfortable with the uncertainty of living the balancing act as described above?
• are you comfortable with math? You don't necessarily have to be a STEM person (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) but designing and running a solar power system will definitely require some calculations. Are you OK with that?
• Assuming you are not already familiar with electricity, do you have the time and inclination to learn something new? We all live busy lives. You'll have to commit some time to this, otherwise just hire a professional tradesman to do it like you would with any other improvement around the house for a job that you don't understand enough about to DIY.

You will get lots of help on here from many experienced people who are very generous with their time. But they are not your Momma! You will still need to be the champion of your project and take primary responsibility for it. Ask lots of questions, but do your homework first!

 

[schmism]

This reads like the typical, we had half or a quarter of the budget we really need for the our system so we get to nag people/kids to scrape by on every skimped watt we can.

Lets be clear, properly designed, with good reliable backup power (while it may be expensive) can be just the same living as on grid.

 

[timselectric]

I don't intend to sacrifice any comfort or convenience.

 

[crossy]

I don't intend to sacrifice any comfort or convenience.

Yeah, that's why we went grid-tie hybrid.

We will soon have enough batteries that we won't need to net-meter (technically illegal here in Thailand but "everybody does it") but the grid is still there for those big loads or backup for the days when the sun has a hangover.

Of course being in a place where the sunshine is year round certainly helps.

The solar game has no one-size-fits-all solution. All a great fun and learning experience.

 

[timselectric]

It's nice to start out with grid. And gradually lesson your dependency on it.

 

[Don B. Cilly]

Yeah well, it's mostly the "family members", isn't it?
But in my experience, they tend to learn. And to like it.
The "trick" seems to be to show them what happens if the batteries go flat. Then hint at the fact that, with minimal care, they won't go flat.

I used to charter smallish sailboats a lot. First few days, I was always going around switching lights off.
After a few days - we mostly had no solar/wind, engine or generator to recharge - most of the guests got the idea.

Likewise, off-grid houses. First few months, oh, this is inconvenient. After a while, if the people I was living with were not complete muppets (they tended not to be) hey, you left that light on, do you really need it?

Likewise, water. On small sailboats, after you have to go into a crowded port and beg, borrow or steal ;·) fresh water, like, once, people tend to get the idea that leaving a tap on when not needed, etc., may not be the best operating procedure. Or in off-grid houses after the first or second water lorry.

Most people seem to have a "Robinson Crusoe" switch, they just don't know it. :·)
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