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diy solar

Backup system for practical daily use

BroomJM

New Member
Joined
Apr 7, 2021
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I am building a small backup power system that will keep the fridge and a few lights going for outages of no more than a few hours at a time. The initial thought is a 24v, 100AH, LiFePO4 battery, with a 2724 MPP inverter/charger and about 400w worth of solar panels. I already have the batteries and will be buying the inverter in the next month or two.

My question concerns what I could use this system for when it's not needed for backup power? I just don't like the idea of having almost $2,000 worth of equipment sitting there, waiting for the power to go out. It would be very cool to see it actually get used on a daily basis, if at all possible. I'm thinking something like powering the router for our Internet service or maybe even having the microwave plugged into it all of the time. I'm open to any other ideas, though.
 
What are the total power consumption of the loads?
400W of panels will produce about 2KWh (less in real world) per day based on 5 hours of usable sun light.
If the battery is full then you can just run the loads which will basically running from the charger since the battery is already full.
 
That system should easily run internet modem/router/wifi full time. Double the battery and solar panels and you could likely leave the refrigerator running off the system 24/7.

I started with 24volt 200ah and 400 watts of solar for my backup and the panels couldn't keep up with the refrigerator plugged in 24/7. My original intention was for just enough panels to offset inverter inefficiency but I added on and now just keep the fridge plugged in all the time.

My signature is a link to my system as it now sits, 400ah battery and 600 watts of panels.
 
I like this idea. Set up small inverters, and start splitting loads off to reduce your average bill, and gradually build on that. A person could have several small units to power a house, but would have to do some manual switching.
 
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