Have any of you been involved or seen a solar system for multiple Tiny Homes on Wheels? Basically power for like 6 to 12 RVs with 30amp service... If not, can i get some direction on if this is even possible? I am planning a metal shop building about a 30'x50' in size to use half of it facing the sun, 800sqft of usable solar panel area (can add more room with overhang). Id like to use the building for power source then feed power to the tiny homes in the wooded/shaded area. Central Texas area.
6 space RV park powered by solar only? Is it doable?
- Thread starter dlrotter
- Start date
Will this be an off-grid location or are you trying to reduce the power bill? Going to be pretty had to justify the investment if utility power is anywhere near.
Might want to consider a wind turbine for cloudy days.
I totally believe this is possible but you would need to know first how much power you actually need. How will the houses be heated and cooled? among other things. Are the tiny houses built already? If you design the houses to be low energy usage it can be achieved but what the cost is depends on energy usage.
Its land in the country we want to retire on. Electric co wants about $18,000 to get service to me. hard to justify paying $18,000 to get a lifetime of electric payments VS starting an off grid system. Does this even make sense to start building a solar setup?
schmism
Solar Addict
$18K is going to be a fraction of what a properly sized system for your use case would need. My guess is your looking at $50k for solar.
I design and build them NOAH Certified. Propane for heat/water. Mini split AC can draw up to 9amps. Otherwise very efficient. Is there a way to parallel a few inverters for demand to a panel, then distribute to 30 amp services?
Is that $50,000 guess paying a company to install a turn key setup of me building it up?
That's not the hard part. How are you going to power those ACs all night ? Through cloudy days?
Batteries of some sort? Voltage 12 or 24 or 48 to look at? In the country it cools off quite well. Also all homes will be under large cedar and oak trees.
Impossible to say. A system able to power six cottages continuously through cloudy weather could cost many times that. Are your customers going to accept you telling them "sorry, no power, it has been cloudy all week." I wouldn't accept that.
You need to be talking to a professional, none of us have experience with commercial applications.
schmism
Solar Addict
lets start with a single 30a 120v service. that's 3600w. Lets assume that one all in one inverter. Growatt is $1400.
3600w/48v = 75a *20hrs (5 hrs of sun) = 1500ah. 280ah LFP batts in the group buy are ~$1600 per 48v pack. lets assume a modest 4 packs $6400
Pannels need to make 86kw of power in 5 hrs =17,000w of pannels If i use my panel numbers thats $7500 in panels
one hookup is $15k give or take. (no panel mounts, or wireing included)
$15k *20 spots = $300,000 to power the RV park for one day ish. (ballpark)
disclamer: These were numbers I threw together in like 5 min. I have about a 40% confidence i did the math right.
Nope, Everybody has large tanks like 500 gallon Propane. Country living
schmism
Solar Addict
Based on what I've seen done on other threads of people who have built RV parks. There is padmout transformer about ever 4 spots to deliver high voltage across the park and step down to each individual RV pedestal.
Your not going to realistically run 360a of 120v across a property for 20 rv spots. So your talking high voltage distribution. Which likely means high voltage panels and commercial grade inverters.
unless you plan on putting a system at like every 2 pedistals but that seems like a space nightmare as my 5500w of panels takes up like 15x24' of ground space.
Your not going to realistically run 360a of 120v across a property for 20 rv spots. So your talking high voltage distribution. Which likely means high voltage panels and commercial grade inverters.
unless you plan on putting a system at like every 2 pedistals but that seems like a space nightmare as my 5500w of panels takes up like 15x24' of ground space.
This is based on pulling 30amps continuously it sounds like? I would guess more like an average of 500w of constant draw.
Max number of sites would be 12 later on. But may start at 6ish.
schmism
Solar Addict
Doesn't matter. Anyone that pulls up is going to expect to be able to pull 30a off it 24/7. To run their AC, microwave, washing machine, and electronics.
If I'm balpark at $15k then 6 is still $90k. If you wanted to be super conservative you could assume half that which is still $45k and still 3 times the price of grid install.
Its just a non starter from were I sit.
Ampster
Renewable Energy Hobbyist
Craig asked the operative question. How much power do you need? Use one of many solar programs to estimate production. The diificult part is always estimating consumption.
The break even point for utility is one space. Anything more than that and you are throwing away money.
Ok so I am going to guess you are renting Tiny homes not RV spaces.
You say average of 500 watt draw so tha's 500 watts x 24 hours or 12000 watts per day. times 6 units is 72 kw of energy needed per day.
Lets assume for sake of example that you need all that power in other words all units will be full running at full average capacity. I think this would not really be the case but lets use this for our data .
Lets also store enough energy for all 6 units and even though we wont need all that energy stored we will store it for a worst case scenario.
72kw battery To keep things simple lets make just 1 huge battery we can change things later as needed.
96 280 Ah eve cells will cost you $10,000 this would be a 6p16s configuration storing 80Kw of energy.
Battery for all 5 units 10k
Panels to create 72kw per day with 5 hours of sun 36 400 watt Trina panels from SanTan solar $8000.00
30 amps max per unit power needed at 110 volts or 3300 watts of power per unit. 20kw total 1 Sol-Ark all in one will supply 8Kw continous power so three of these would power 6 units. $7000.00 each or $21,000
Batteries $10,000
Panels $8000.00
Inverters /chargers $21,000
Total $39,000.00
Thing is I think you could get away with 2 inverters and only a 5 p battery saving you $7000.00 on inverter/charger and $1600 in batteries. Or about 9k Panels could also be dropped to $5000.00 if you buy San-Tan solar's cheaper ones.
So I think it could be done to power 6 units for $25,000
These numbers may be a bit optimistic but a far cry fro $45,000 to $90,000
It would be interesting to see in reality how much power you would use on a daily basis. Your idea of a central building would be perfect. I picture 1 big power house feeding the smaller houses.
You say average of 500 watt draw so tha's 500 watts x 24 hours or 12000 watts per day. times 6 units is 72 kw of energy needed per day.
Lets assume for sake of example that you need all that power in other words all units will be full running at full average capacity. I think this would not really be the case but lets use this for our data .
Lets also store enough energy for all 6 units and even though we wont need all that energy stored we will store it for a worst case scenario.
72kw battery To keep things simple lets make just 1 huge battery we can change things later as needed.
96 280 Ah eve cells will cost you $10,000 this would be a 6p16s configuration storing 80Kw of energy.
Battery for all 5 units 10k
Panels to create 72kw per day with 5 hours of sun 36 400 watt Trina panels from SanTan solar $8000.00
30 amps max per unit power needed at 110 volts or 3300 watts of power per unit. 20kw total 1 Sol-Ark all in one will supply 8Kw continous power so three of these would power 6 units. $7000.00 each or $21,000
Batteries $10,000
Panels $8000.00
Inverters /chargers $21,000
Total $39,000.00
Thing is I think you could get away with 2 inverters and only a 5 p battery saving you $7000.00 on inverter/charger and $1600 in batteries. Or about 9k Panels could also be dropped to $5000.00 if you buy San-Tan solar's cheaper ones.
So I think it could be done to power 6 units for $25,000
These numbers may be a bit optimistic but a far cry fro $45,000 to $90,000
It would be interesting to see in reality how much power you would use on a daily basis. Your idea of a central building would be perfect. I picture 1 big power house feeding the smaller houses.
Aaron_85
New Member
Get the grid connected, cover the roof of your metal-shop-shed with solar panels on a grid tie inverter.
Never going to be worth going completely off grid if you need to offer each user even a fraction of their 30a service at any given time.
Never going to be worth going completely off grid if you need to offer each user even a fraction of their 30a service at any given time.