Need my plan critiqued please

I was going to go with a full blown solar system mainly for off the grid living in the event of an emp or major gamma burst, however I found out that the inverters and controllers would be destroyed in those events rendering the system useless.

so here is my plan. Get two yeti 6.2 Home energy kits which each include a yeti solar Generator 1,400 And have one in the main house which can run 4 breakers so I’d put the well pump on there, the modem, and one fridge. The other 6.2 I would put in the pool house (where we would live if the grid was down for months. That one would power a fridge, deep freeze, ceiling fans and lights. Then I would buy a yeti 3,000 as an extra so when I need to pull a 1,400 off to charge I can replace with the 3,000. So I would always have a fully charged gen ready to go. I would use 6 of their panels that with full sun will charge in 6-8 hours I believe. I would also install a solar AC unit to cool during the day. Wood burning stove for heat in the winter. Traeger grill for baking and cooking as well as a black stone griddle and a Weber gas gril.

the solar gens comes with faraday bags to store in to protect them from an emp attack. Do you think this is a doable plan? What am I missing or is this not enough.

thanks in advance for your input

After an EMP event you will not need the modem; the Weber grill with a 20 lb. tank will burn for about 20 hours.
The peak battery capacity of each "6.2 Home energy kit" is 1425Wh.
The four "Yeti tanks" are lead acid cells with a peak capacity of 1200 Wh.

What is the power consumption of the well pump, two fridges, a deep freeze, ceiling fan and lights? How does the power required by these devices compare to the capacity of system you are proposing?

" I would use 6 of their panels": their 100 watt panels are "chain-able" up to 4--according to their literature.
The approximate charge time is stated as 29-57 hours for the "Goal Zero Yeti 1400"--according to their literature.
" if the grid was down for months": Months, (haa, haa, funny), it will be years (if ever restored); USA has no stockpile of power transformers.

"I found out that the inverters and controllers would be destroyed in those events rendering the system useless." That is correct these devices will need to be held in abeyance, uninstalled and stored within a Faraday cage. (That includes this Yeti inverter and controller.) After the event they can be installed. Make sure you have all the parts you will need--there will be no Home Depot, Lowe's, or hardware stores.


What am I missing? Water, then food, etc. Read Forstchen's book "One Second After"

mopat said:

After an EMP event you will not need the modem; the Weber grill with a 20 lb. tank will burn for about 20 hours.
The peak battery capacity of each "6.2 Home energy kit" is 1425Wh.
The four "Yeti tanks" are lead acid cells with a peak capacity of 1200 Wh.

What is the power consumption of the well pump, two fridges, a deep freeze, ceiling fan and lights? How does the power required by these devices compare to the capacity of system you are proposing?

" I would use 6 of their panels": their 100 watt panels are "chain-able" up to 4--according to their literature.
The approximate charge time is stated as 29-57 hours for the "Goal Zero Yeti 1400"--according to their literature.
" if the grid was down for months": Months, (haa, haa, funny), it will be years (if ever restored); USA has no stockpile of power transformers.

"I found out that the inverters and controllers would be destroyed in those events rendering the system useless." That is correct these devices will need to be held in abeyance, uninstalled and stored within a Faraday cage. (That includes this Yeti inverter and controller.) After the event they can be installed. Make sure you have all the parts you will need--there will be no Home Depot, Lowe's, or hardware stores.


What am I missing? Water, then food, etc. Read Forstchen's book "One Second After"

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Thank you for the info and I’ll,have to nail down exact numbers on those items power consumption. using a generic calculator on a solar page it looks like around 6 kWh per day. I was planning on 6 panels and I think I read the recharge time with 6 panels and good sun it will charge fairly quickly Like under 10 hours but I better double check that.

I plan to have everything set up by the electrician and try it all out for a few days and if it’s all good then unhook it all and put in storage bags to keep safe until needed then simply put everything back in place and hope it all works lol hopefully will never need it ?

If these battery banks are lead-acid, you will need to keep them fully charged. A typical lead-acid battery self-discharges at a rate of around 5% per month and any discharge below 100% begins a sulphation process that damages the battery, the lower the state of charge, the higher the rate of sulphation. After a year without charging the battery would be significantly 'aged'.

For long term storage I would recommend either using Lithium-ion battery technology or separate and store the electrolyte ... or keep it fully charged.

ub2slow2 said:

I was going to go with a full blown solar system mainly for off the grid living in the event of an emp or major gamma burst, however I found out that the inverters and controllers would be destroyed in those events rendering the system useless.

Click to expand...

@ub2slow2 Sol-Ark addresses this issue from panels to inverter. Also check out https://www.youtube.com/user/engineer775 he has done a number of installs related to EMP hardening. ex:

Cool video but he didn’t really explain the emp protection much other than there was a switch on the back of the panel.