diy solar

diy solar

Cancel responses, thanks for all the good responses. They confirmed my thoughts, solar more expensive and not reliable. RV park of 15 pads:

R

RichardMyersAdjuster

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Is anyone willing to share equipment examples? Material list and plans we are comparing cost and requirements. off grid. energy wants 40k just for poles..Total could be near 100k for all cabling. Need to see if this is feasible or make boondock sights for 15 rv pads. Thanks for all the confirmation. need to plan grid.
 
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If you need to be able to provide a full 50A (12000W) to each pad, OMG... "energy" @ $40k is probably a bargain.

Even at 30A/120V (3600W) to each pad, well, you might have a shot at coming in at under $40k, but probably not.
 
I think it will depend on location. If you’re in the south where air conditioning is required, I’d go with the grid. Assuming 15 RV air conditioners pulling 1,000 watts each for 12 hours per day you’d need to be able to supply and store a combined 180 kWh of electricity per day. Just the batteries would likely exceed $40,000 if you have no grid to tie in with.

You need to know the total cost to get grid power. A combination of grid and solar is a more reasonable and efficient prospect. Just my $0.02..
 
One possibility would be to wire in 15amp plugs.
No heating - No Air Conditioning…etc. that might be doable… but then that depends on your climate- if it’s so hot you need air conditioning- that doesn’t help much.

You could start there and expand later. Or start with most 15a plugs, but a few 30a plugs.

Will your place be RV-er’s that stay for a while - or only one or two nights?
 
Pinto Yates said:
I think it will depend on location. If you’re in the south where air conditioning is required, I’d go with the grid. Assuming 15 RV air conditioners pulling 1,000 watts each for 12 hours per day you’d need to be able to supply and store a combined 180 kWh of electricity per day. Just the batteries would likely exceed $40,000 if you have no grid to tie in with.

You need to know the total cost to get grid power. A combination of grid and solar is a more reasonable and efficient prospect. Just my $0.02..
Click to expand...

Not many RV A/C use only 1000W. Mine are 1300-1500W. Big rigs on 50A power may be running 2-3 of them.

180kwh/day will need AT LEAST 36kW of panels with great sun. At $/Watt including racking (aggressive pricing), that's $36K. At $150/kWh on DIY LFP, that's $27K. If you go with EG4 5kW batteries, that's 36 of them at $61K.

So that's $63K right there... before inverters/charge controllers. This is one of those cases where I would consider something like an EG418KPV for each pad due to the installation savings and that you get a big MPPT with it. That's $5200/pad or another $78K

Given that I doubt the OP wants to build 12 DIY batteries, I expect the choice will be server rack, so...

For 12kWh/day but also able to provide 12kW per pad, looking at:

36kW PV: $36K
180kW battery: $61K
15 18KPV: $78K

Total: $175K

The demand needs to be VERY well defined and 12kWh/pad is almost certainly a light estimate. My off-grid site uses 6-8kWh/day with two 5th wheels attached - no A/C and nobody there using power. Lighting, equipment, etc., pulls about 250-300W continuously on average. That's the idle draw of two 5kW inverters, cameras, routers, Starlink and about 80W worth of lighting.
 
RichardMyersAdjuster said:
Is anyone willing to share equipment examples? Material list and plans we are comparing cost and requirements. off grid. energy wants 40k just for poles.. Need to see if this is feasible or make boondock sights
Click to expand...

You're not going to supply RV sites with solar.

Unless you have strict limits on Kwh usage.
 
And with all due respect, 40k ain't nothing when it comes to the costs of developing land.

If that's going to throw your cost projections off then you need to hire better planners.
 
I spent 8 yrs as head of maintenance for a 484 site campground before I retired in 12/ 2021. 2 things I know for sure, power is not cheap to set up, nor is there ever enough of it. An electrical renovation of 37 campsites that only had 30A service cost more than $250,000 for the supplies and electrician and permits, etc.. My crews and equipment did all the trenching, assisted running the lines, and back-fill / final landscape. the owners did not even calculate in our labor, fuel costs, topsoil, gravel, grass seed and the like because it was all already on site as part of our "normal routines".
Camping folk are a terrific bunch of people, but they are not power conscious. These new rigs are power everything and if your system does not meet the demand, they will seek a campground that does. I don't think I would even consider trying to go solar personally.
Pedestals offering 15,30 and 50A at each site are now the norm. If you are contracting the whole project, I'd wager even the numbers timselectric gave are even on the low side.
 
Gonna be expensive, that's a given. Also, some of the people in "big rigs" (like my wife and I) have big banks of LiPo on board. When we pull in and hook up, we're pulling right up to the limit of what a 50A can provide to recharge our batteries. That's not common today, but it will be in the future.

We were camping last week and saw a big diesel pusher with an EV behind it. That was a first, but, whoever that was is just ahead of the curve. As that becomes more common, you're going to see demand for 2 50A's per site (or more).

It's a cool project, but I'd really be shocked if you could provide enough power to really support 15 pads with just solar/battery for under 7 figures (if you're planning for worst case). Also, a lot of newer RVs can pull a tremendous amount of power in the winter (when solar is low). Our unit has 2 heat pumps (1300W each), a fireplace (1300W), 2 indoor space heaters (1000W each), a heat strip in our 3rd AC (1500W) and a CheapHeat (5000W). Now, of course, we're not the norm, but I suspect in 5-10 years, we also won't be complete outliers. I've seen over 10,000W of draw when we get somewhere in the winter.
 
RichardMyersAdjuster said:
Is anyone willing to share equipment examples? Material list and plans we are comparing cost and requirements. off grid. energy wants 40k just for poles..Total could be near 100k for all cabling. Need to see if this is feasible or make boondock sights for 15 rv pads. Thanks for all the confirmation. need to plan grid.
Click to expand...
Thanks all for feedback and confirmation. Solar is a nice filler but no comparison to grid power for business. Maybe someday when they release technology from area 51 we will have some good options ...
 
See if grid-tie photovoltaic net metering is allowed.
Determine electric rates.
A large PV array may save money for your power bill.
Even if net metering isn't allowed, zero-export may be a big win.
And you can have battery backup for your office A/C and refrigerators. And water pumping.
 
Hedges said:
See if grid-tie photovoltaic net metering is allowed.
Determine electric rates.
A large PV array may save money for your power bill.
Even if net metering isn't allowed, zero-export may be a big win.
And you can have battery backup for your office A/C and refrigerators. And water pumping.
Click to expand...

Especially in the summer, if you're allowed to grid tie without onerous rate increases, that could be a great option to offset those 3 15K ACs on the roof of the big rigs!
 
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