Please recommend equipment for this solar panel

[Nick R.]

Hello,
I have one of these solar panels, I would not mind to add more in the future, I have room for 4 panels.

480W | Black Solar Panel | QCELL - Q.PEAK DUO XL-G10​

Deailed specs:

https://xolar.ca/shop/products/solar-panels/q-peak-duo-xl-g10-480w-black/?attachment_id=4550&download_file=g5mc6jphs02u0

Could you recommend me please parts for a DIY rig, with battery (starting with 1 solar panel) and I also would like to be able to connect a 120V / 25A 3000 AC WATTS generator.

In winter time the main purpose is to use it as an emergency power supply to my gas boiler, which provides heating and hot water. The boiler has a low power consumption, max 120 W, for a small pump and electronics. I also would like to use the solar system to provide backup or maybe even main power for a desktop and a laptop computer.

In the summer time I would like to add max 3 more panels (4 in total), and beside powering the computers, I would like to power a 240V variable speed pool pump, which can run as low, as 5-600 Watts.

Thank you very much!

 

[GregTR]

You have a lot of requirements there...

Is it a grid tied or off-grid setup?

if you need to power 500-600W of water pump, another 150W for your hot water heater, another 200W for your electronics and lights, you're looking at a steady 1kW base load for 24 hours. That would mean you'd need 1kWh of storage for each hour of power outage and you'd need a solar system producing 24 kWh a day to meet this demand all day every day.

Estimating with 5 solar hours a day you'd need a 5kW solar panel array to achieve that capacity so you'd need 10 of those panels to fulfill all these needs.

If you also want a generator to be able to step in, you can go with an automatic or manual transfer switch and bear the inconvenience of the switching.

So you will need a 5kW solar inverter and you'll need a similarly sized battery inverter if you want to charge it with all the excess solar.

You cannot buy a small inverter now and add to it later, you'd have to replace/upgrade the inverter later if you didn't size it right from the start.

You can do microinverters but there is not one on the market that would use all that power, the Enphase IQ8A will only output 350W from that panel. And with microinverters you still need to solve the problem of a transfer switch and find a battery charging inverter that can drive the microinverters when off-grid.

These small projects often balloon into large ones or end up costing a lot more along the way than they would have had you gone with the right solution to start with.

 

[Nick R.]

You have a lot of requirements there...

Is it a grid tied or off-grid setup?

if you need to power 500-600W of water pump, another 150W for your hot water heater, another 200W for your electronics and lights, you're looking at a steady 1kW base load for 24 hours. That would mean you'd need 1kWh of storage for each hour of power outage and you'd need a solar system producing 24 kWh a day to meet this demand all day every day.

Estimating with 5 solar hours a day you'd need a 5kW solar panel array to achieve that capacity so you'd need 10 of those panels to fulfill all these needs.

If you also want a generator to be able to step in, you can go with an automatic or manual transfer switch and bear the inconvenience of the switching.

So you will need a 5kW solar inverter and you'll need a similarly sized battery inverter if you want to charge it with all the excess solar.

You cannot buy a small inverter now and add to it later, you'd have to replace/upgrade the inverter later if you didn't size it right from the start.

You can do microinverters but there is not one on the market that would use all that power, the Enphase IQ8A will only output 350W from that panel. And with microinverters you still need to solve the problem of a transfer switch and find a battery charging inverter that can drive the microinverters when off-grid.

These small projects often balloon into large ones or end up costing a lot more along the way than they would have had you gone with the right solution to start with.

Thank you very much for your reply.

Sorry, I was not clear in describing my goal.

It would be an off-grid setup, in a sense, that it is in my house, but completely independent from the grid power. For the various appliances I would just manually switch the power source. For the boiler on demand - in case of power outage, for the computers I would use solar as permanently as possible and for the pump manually switching between solar and grid for the night.

In winter time the absolute main goal is to keep the heating going if the electric power goes down - and maybe a couple of LED lights.
Powering the computers is an extra, would be nice to have luxury.

In the summer I would use it only for the computers and the pump (for max. 4-5 hours during the day) - but the pump is an extra luxury, not a necessity.

Thank you again.