diy solar

diy solar

Best DIY way to supplement my electricity please!

LosFelizGirl said:
HI Heges, you are not talking to me like a child :cool: . I have absolutely NO idea what "11000W / 200W per m^2 = 55 m^2" means, and what your last paragraph means either. Literal newbie.
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Lost Girl...lol, you are so right! You are literally speaking Chinese to me.
 
Samsonite801 said:
Did you already say how large is your house in square feet (how much area to manage temperature)? And what does your roof look like? As in areas where solar panels can face East, South, or West, etc...

Are you more a DIY type, or are you looking more towards having an installer put in a system for you?
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Looking for a DIY solution. Flat foam roof so I can face panels south. I'm looking for additional source of electricity. I am not interested in energy storage / delivery back to the grid, I am just after supplementing my current supply with a bit from the sun. MAke sense?
 
LosFelizGirl said:
Looking for a DIY solution. Flat foam roof so I can face panels south. I'm looking for additional source of electricity. I am not interested in energy storage / delivery back to the grid, I am just after supplementing my current supply with a bit from the sun. MAke sense?
Click to expand...
My average Kwh usage a day this year is 62
 
LosFelizGirl said:
Looking for a DIY solution. Flat foam roof so I can face panels south. I'm looking for additional source of electricity. I am not interested in energy storage / delivery back to the grid, I am just after supplementing my current supply with a bit from the sun. MAke sense?
Click to expand...
You need to understand some fundamentals about electricity before most replies would make any sense. Solar panels create DC voltages. Your house uses AC voltages. Conversion is not a straight forward thing.

The utility sells you power in killowatt-hour. 1kwh = 1000wh (watt-hr). Watts are what your loads, such as your refrigerator, draw when running. Often times you will see this as amps. You can get watts by the equation Watts= Volts X Amps
So for example you have an led lightbulb that is rated at 9 watts (60 watt equivalent). You leave it on for 5 hours. 9w*5h=45wh or .0045kwh Or you have a microwave that is rated at 1000 watts that you cook something for 5 minutes. 1000w*(60minutes/5minutes)= 83.33wh


There is very little you can do as a Diy if you lack electrical fundamentals. Not to mention that once you get beyond small voltages and current flows the danger of serious injury, death and property destruction have to be thought about and mitigated.

I will mention again that you should search through your home and turn off all things that you can get away with not being on. Anything on costs you money to operate even something as simple as a phone charger.
 
LosFelizGirl said:
My average Kwh usage a day this year is 62
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Your daily usage is about twice that of the average person. You need to find what that is and stop doing that.
Now to answer your question about what you can do with little knowledge, no permit, and no desire to feed back to the grid or store the energy. Geez, the answer is nothing! You use too much power to do that.

Let's do some math -- slowly.

If you use 62 kWh per day, then 62 kWh / 24h in a day means you average 2.6 kW of usage per hour throughout the day. That means you need a 3 kW inverter of some kind running constantly day and night. The problem is that you only have peak sunlight for maybe 6 hours a day where you live, and your power usage is not evenly spread out during the entire 24 hours in a day. So that means that you need to generate all the power you can during those 6 hours a day so that you can use it the rest of the day and night. If you have to make all the power you are going to use in only 6 hours a day, that means that you must use an inverter that is four times bigger than what your average is. This is because 6 hours is only 1/4th of 24 hours. So that means that your inverter needs to be able to generate 2.6 kW x 4 = 10.4 kW of power during the 6 hours of sunlight. The total amount of power you need to produce is therefore 10.4 kW x 6h = 62 kWh like you said before. Since you need to use that power later, it must be stored somewhere. It can either be stored in the grid or in some batteries in your garage next to your bicycle. But since you don't want to store it somewhere, solving your problem is impossible. One more thing that makes it impossible is that to produce 10.4 kW per hour of power will require 26 x 400W panels. That will require someone over 18 years old who can put it together for you, and they won't do it without a permission because they might get in trouble.

Does that make sense?

Now seriously, here is what you can do to reduce your power a little bit during the day time. You can buy what they call a grid-tie micro inverter and you can plug it into the wall and connect a solar panel to it. It will make a little bit of electricity and that will go into your power outlet where you plugged it in. Be careful not to get shocked when you plug it in. Then whatever is connected to your power outlet, which is everything else in your house, will get a little bit more electricity from your solar panel. That means that your house will use that much less power and you will save a few cents and maybe even a dollar. It all depends on how big your solar panel is and where you put it. If you put it by your window then it will make more power than if you put it on your bed under your stuffed animals. It will work even better if you put it outside and make it point to the sun. But even if you buy a 400W solar panel, it won't do much good since you need 26 of them.

I hope that helps.

Here are some examples of grid tie micro inverters. You need to make sure that you get one that supports the voltage of your inverter. If you don't know what voltage is then you will have to read about it.

www.ebay.com

120W-700W Solar Micro Inverter MPPT Grid Tie Inverter Pure Sine Wave Inverter | eBay

1pc of Inverter. The images are for reference only.
www.ebay.com


 
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Mattb4 said:
You need to understand some fundamentals about electricity before most replies would make any sense. Solar panels create DC voltages. Your house uses AC voltages. Conversion is not a straight forward thing.

The utility sells you power in killowatt-hour. 1kwh = 1000wh (watt-hr). Watts are what your loads, such as your refrigerator, draw when running. Often times you will see this as amps. You can get watts by the equation Watts= Volts X Amps
So for example you have an led lightbulb that is rated at 9 watts (60 watt equivalent). You leave it on for 5 hours. 9w*5h=45wh or .0045kwh Or you have a microwave that is rated at 1000 watts that you cook something for 5 minutes. 1000w*(60minutes/5minutes)= 83.33wh


There is very little you can do as a Diy if you lack electrical fundamentals. Not to mention that once you get beyond small voltages and current flows the danger of serious injury, death and property destruction have to be thought about and mitigated.

I will mention again that you should search through your home and turn off all things that you can get away with not being on. Anything on costs you money to operate even something as simple as a phone charger.
Click to expand...
Hi Matt. Thank for all oft he details. I know the very very basics. I know that solar produces DC and needs to be converted to AC power, hence the inverter. I'm having my electrician friend install whatever DIY rig we go with. I'm not looking to power my whole house! Just looking for the best way to take advantage of living in the desert. I feel like I have seen videos of people taking one of those grid tied, small all in systems and they run it to a plug in the house to get energy from it. I have an electrician that can set this up for me, so I won't burn the house down or kill a lineman! I need to know what I am doing first before I buy everything. So here to figure that out!
 
Several problems with those cheap household receptical plug in grid tie units. First off they are poor quality and if you make a mistake in the sequence of hooking them up they are immediately fried. Even being careful they will fail in a short time. They simply are not worth the bother. I know this personally since I tried one for a few months (several years ago). They are also absolutely not allowed for use by your utility and your electrician friend will tell you so, because if he did not he could lose his license and be fined.

So in order to do a parallel power situation with the grid you need properly rated and certified equipment. That right there is going to make your idea of reducing your grid needs by a simple solar setup not simple.
 
LosFelizGirl said:
I am a total newbie so please if you reply to me, talk to me like I am a child!

I live in the desert, my electricity bill was $641 this month. I have no interest in leasing a big solar system, or buying a system from the loan sharks!
However, I am interested in taking advantage of the sun and the extra space I have to put some solar panels, if I can get the energy back into my home without having pull permits. Is this possible? Anything is possible, right?

I did a little Googling and You-tubing, but it kind of confused me more! Any ideas for me? Thanks!
Click to expand...
How old is your ac system?
 
It's inevitable but figuring annually, instead of the two worst months, it's not that bad. Maybe check if there's time of day rates you could take advantage of. Now your electricity is pretty expensive.
 
It all comes down to how much space you have for solar panels, how much money you have to buy the equipment, and the fact that you will need to get a permit to make any electrical modifications to your house. That includes installing panels on your roof, installing an inverter at your service entrance, and potentially adding a battery. Without a battery, the best you can do is produce all the power you use while the sun is shining. That probably means at best a 25% savings in your power bill. If you go that far you might as well feed any excess back to the grid to discount what you use later. If you don't have enough panels though then there won't be any excess. So you need to think about how much you can spend, how many panels you can install, and then decide if you need to feed back to the grid and/or a battery. You can't legally do anything without a permit. But the one thing you can do for sure is do it yourself. You don't need to pay anyone to design the system. You don't need to lease. You don't need to get a loan if you can afford the equipment. Your electrician friend can do the work to get the permit and install the equipment.
 
Have to consider your ROI. Lets say you cut your bill in half. Cool. But.... you spent $10k to do it. Well, how long will it take to break even on that? And I'm guessing you aren't paying $600 a month in the winter.
 
adamantium said:
Now seriously, here is what you can do to reduce your power a little bit during the day time. You can buy what they call a grid-tie micro inverter and you can plug it into the wall and connect a solar panel to it. It will make a little bit of electricity and that will go into your power outlet where you plugged it in. Be careful not to get shocked when you plug it in. Then whatever is connected to your power outlet, which is everything else in your house, will get a little bit more electricity from your solar panel. That means that your house will use that much less power and you will save a few cents and maybe even a dollar. It all depends on how big your solar panel is and where you put it. If you put it by your window then it will make more power than if you put it on your bed under your stuffed animals. It will work even better if you put it outside and make it point to the sun. But even if you buy a 400W solar panel, it won't do much good since you need 26 of them.
Click to expand...

Like catching rain in a tea cup. Will hardly make a difference.
She'll need about 25 to 50 of those tea cups being used all at once. With that many tea cups (microinverters) plugged into outlets, it carries a serious risk of burning the house down.

One microinverter might put 1 or 2 amps into the house wiring, which won't be a problem. But with just 10 of them, it is possible for the wire to carry twice as much current as it was designed for, without circuit breaker protecting against overload.

With net metering, DIY grid-tie PV that costs $1/watt can have a payback (break even) in maybe 3 years, depending on utility rates.
With zero export, a small system could pay back that fast but as it approaches 50%, 75% or more of household consumption, payback time will probably double as more of the available power can't be harvested because house isn't using it immediately.


Conservation first, as people have said. Couple centuries ago it was, "A penny saved is a penny earned."
 
thefati said:
Do you use these? Just wondering the reality of switching to this.
Click to expand...

I haven't tried it, but I saw this video set with good 'ol Engineer775 (Practical Preppers), and he gives a very promising review of this type of system. I guess there is this hybrid setup where it can use grid and solar together to save money, or a bit different setup they sell where you can supplement storage capacity with some batteries in this dedicated HVAC system.

Solar Air Conditioning Part 1:

Solar Air Conditioning Part 2:

And the coolest thing about mini-split heat pumps is they can also do heating for the Winter...
 
Hedges said:
Like catching rain in a tea cup. Will hardly make a difference.
She'll need about 25 to 50 of those tea cups being used all at once. With that many tea cups (microinverters) plugged into outlets, it carries a serious risk of burning the house down.

One microinverter might put 1 or 2 amps into the house wiring, which won't be a problem. But with just 10 of them, it is possible for the wire to carry twice as much current as it was designed for, without circuit breaker protecting against overload.

With net metering, DIY grid-tie PV that costs $1/watt can have a payback (break even) in maybe 3 years, depending on utility rates.
With zero export, a small system could pay back that fast but as it approaches 50%, 75% or more of household consumption, payback time will probably double as more of the available power can't be harvested because house isn't using it immediately.


Conservation first, as people have said. Couple centuries ago it was, "A penny saved is a penny earned."
Click to expand...
Yes there are lots of problems with it. She needs 26 panels to cover her total usage. But with the requirements that she not need a permit, or a battery or grid feedback and do it herself, what other options are there? I certainly wouldn't use micro inverters, but again I don't have her requirements. She needs to change her requirements so that a solution is possible, or live with a $600 summer bill. So far we have no idea why she needs twice the average user's power, or what resources are available to change that. I live in the desert too and my power bill in the summer is around $300 with two air conditioners. Maybe she has four air conditioners or just needs to set her AC thermostat to 78 and keep her windows and doors closed. Who knows, we have no real information, and her constraints on a solution are unrealistic.
 
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Interesting thread.
My 2 cents.
If you are on a time of use plan with the utility then…
Timer for your water heater
Programmable thermostats for the AC
Life style changes for peak hours, like no clothes dryer or cooking turkeys.

I started small and got my pool pump of the grid that actually saved me a lot and it was an affordable project, 5000.00.

The PV direct options are also a good way to shave down your bill.
Water heater, pool pump, mini split all can all run directly from panels with no batteries or inverter.

Keep us posted on your progress.
 
LosFelizGirl said:
I am a total newbie so please if you reply to me, talk to me like I am a child!

I live in the desert, my electricity bill was $641 this month. I have no interest in leasing a big solar system, or buying a system from the loan sharks!
However, I am interested in taking advantage of the sun and the extra space I have to put some solar panels, if I can get the energy back into my home without having pull permits. Is this possible? Anything is possible, right?

I did a little Googling and You-tubing, but it kind of confused me more! Any ideas for me? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Hi LosFelizGirl,
Yes, anything is possible.

You need:
quite a lot of panels
inverter(s)
a switch to go from utility power to your own power
wiring

Most likely you, or your electrician friend, already know all this.

How many panels, if any, you can get away with setting up at your place depends on how nosy the utility, city, county is, and whether your neighbors rat you out. This depends on the level of privacy at your place.

What inverter you need depends on the power consumption of whatever you want to power yourself.

The "switch" you use depends on how automated you want things to be and how much manual effort you are willing to put in.

The complexity of the wiring depends on your level of risk tolerance, and how automated you want the system to be.

Some of the answers to these variables will determine what you can/cannot do, and what you need/want to do.

Your privacy situation and how much you can/want to spend will determine what you can/cannot do.

You may have watched DIYSolar founder Will Prowse's videos. He does things to various levels of complexity and really knows what he's doing. At the most basic level he has laid out panels on the ground in his walled yard in order to power devices in his workshop. So, yeah, anything is possible.

Aloha.
 
Bobert said:
How old is your ac system?
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The reason I asked about your ac is that regardless of what you do the only way to really save money is to conserve electricity. It is not unheard of to cut your energy consumption in half by simply replacing in efficient appliances and identifying wasted energy. I remember hearing about a family that had high electric bills and it was discovered that the hot water line was connected to the ice maker. Identifying your wasted power consumption is a lot of work but it is not unusual to discover ways to save energy without sacrificing convenience and it costs very little. An old ac unit can use twice as much energy as a new one in certain circumstances. Concentrate on consumption and smart power use it will help a solar setup too.
 
Wet1 said:
If i were looking for a cheap under the radar grid tie system, I'd probably consider one or more of the SUN zero export 240V 2000W grid tie inverters with the built in limiter. You can find them all over ebay. From what I understand, if they are kept to about 75% (or less) of their max output, I hear they are pretty reliable too. They arent very expensive and you can add as many as you want. Obviously you'd need about 1500W-1800W of properly wired/matched panels per inverter.
Beyond that, you're looking at a more significant system/investment. If the budget allows, SolArk makes some nice grid tie inverters that have zero export. As Hedges stated, you'd ideally want a 10kW or larger system to really put a major dent in your monthly bill... But now you're talking about a more significant investment and it might be more obvious to "the man".
Click to expand...
I still think this makes the most sense given her parameters. Well, this and looking to conserve energy by reducing consumption, better insulation, reducing passive solar heating, and likely getting a more efficient AC system(s).
 
LosFelizGirl said:
I am a total newbie so please if you reply to me, talk to me like I am a child!

I live in the desert, my electricity bill was $641 this month. I have no interest in leasing a big solar system, or buying a system from the loan sharks!
However, I am interested in taking advantage of the sun and the extra space I have to put some solar panels, if I can get the energy back into my home without having pull permits. Is this possible? Anything is possible, right?

I did a little Googling and You-tubing, but it kind of confused me more! Any ideas for me? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Hello, I live in TX, and the weather here still drier but getting humid by the day with all the asphalt and concrete and trees they are bringing in. Anyways that a story for another day. With 600 USD a month you can do a lot just need to put it in the right place!
 

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LosFelizGirl said:
I used 2006 kWh in the month of July. I'm just looking lower my bill a little. I saw this vid:
I was wondering if I might need more panels? I don't want send back to the grid, I don't want to have get permits.
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You are getting charged $.32 a KWH?

Wow.
 
My two cents...based on in depth analysis of solar options and as a deft DIY'r.

If you don't know anything about electricity or installing solar systems, get quotes from a solar installation contractor in your area, get a fully optimized grid-tie system with net metering, finance it over long term, and reap the benefits of all that sun. This is not a DIY project. They'll do the permits and design drawings and all that for you. It's all great to learn why, but in the end you'll be much better off with a professional contractor.

We're curious to know what uses so much power. I'm over in OC, and this summer our temps have been pretty similar, although it cools off at night so the AC can be shut off and the windows and doors opened - about 75* by 9-10pm. It's been low to mid-90's for a month.

The central air system went out a number of years ago and so we installed a couple of split systems that sip power, plus a pool pump, pond pump, and a few computers - June was $275 and July was $375. Gas water heater and stove. 1650 sq ft with 15' ceilings, very little insulation and old aluminum framed windows.

I'm pretty sure our rates are similar, it's tiered, top tier is about 47 cents a kwh. Winter time rates are about $150.

$600 for power would have me looking too. But we're moving soon so we'll just pay SCE for now.

EDIT: Maybe start here: https://www.solar-estimate.org/residential-solar
 
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