diy solar

diy solar

Container setup - What issues and extra cost will I have to think about?

PreppenWolf said:
For wiring let's talk some numbers.

Let's say you want to run a 100A main panel 200ft between house and container. That would require 3/0 AWG copper or 300KCMIL aluminum for 3% loss.

If you're only 100ft away. That drops to 1AWG Copper or 2/0 Aluminum for 3% or less voltage.

If you're OK running 120V at the inverter but getting 110V in the house you can run numbers for that too. Use this site:

Voltage Drop Calculator | Southwire

www.southwire.com www.southwire.com

You need to know the distance of the run and what max load you'll use. As an example we have a 200A main panel, but I've never used more than 9kW at any one moment in time. Meaning I have a 200A panel but never use more than 75A. I have a big panel to accommodate more circuits, not more load.
Click to expand...

This is where it gets over my head. The Mrs and I hope to be able to run our house as we also have. With some changes - once we have solar. The change will be to run higher load items ONLY during the sunny days and not at night like before - when Hydro is cheaper. If possible, we would like to be able to provide all the power we need with solar and once we feel comfortable - go off grid and/or sell back. Even if we have to grow into a large system over time with a second array at some point.

Here is our Hydro Bill breakdown for a couple of years. (The Mrs was kind enough to do this.)

1670466667093.png
 
BTW - I'm now going to look more into the batteries Will talked about in his comparing battery video. They have a heating system. The other day I watch a couple more of his videos and the Battery comparison was one of them.
 
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Ok so if you want to supply 100% offgrid, you need to panel and battery to meet Dec/Jan usage. Per your post the highest usage of those months in the 3 years posted is 621kwh. About 21kwh per day.

My recommendation for paneling would be 30kW total and batteries around 80kwh or more if you don't want to use a generator or grid at all.

If you want to run house 3/4 of the year go 20kW of panels and 60kW of batteries. Then supplement darkest months with grid or a generator.
 
My current setup is 15kW of panels and 105kwh of batteries. I'm not running full house though in winter months, only critical loads (some lights, well pump, furnace, fridge and freezers). From March to Oct I can run the whole house because the days are longer and my panels get more sun due to the angle change.

I'm likely going to add 5kW more panels before next winter. I went high capacity on batteries because I built my own with BYD cells. I saved a lot of money, but it was a LOT of learning and work. I spent roughly $16k on batt cells, BMSs, wire. Thats not much if you look at how much off the shelf batteries would cost for 105kwh of storage.
 
PreppenWolf said:
Ok so if you want to supply 100% offgrid, you need to panel and battery to meet Dec/Jan usage. Per your post the highest usage of those months in the 3 years posted is 621kwh. About 21kwh per day.

My recommendation for paneling would be 30kW total and batteries around 80kwh or more if you don't want to use a generator or grid at all.

If you want to run house 3/4 of the year go 20kW of panels and 60kW of batteries. Then supplement darkest months with grid or a generator. Getting as close as I can to this setup sounds more realistic. I'll have to build up to it over time - due to cost and availability.
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My reply is in bold. Thanks for your time and help. BTW - One big change we are making = switching out the all-electric hot water tank for a heat pump model. I went looking today at our local Home Depot - here in Canada and they don't offer them here like they do in the USA @ Home Depot or Lowes. But I will be getting one. (Mrs. does not want LP in the house.)
 
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Yeah it's not cheap. Nov-dec-jan are just terrible here in northern latitudes and you really have to over panel and battery to account for the cloudy days.

Given you're in a snow area, look at bifacial panels. I couldn't find any good deals on them when I was building this year, but have seen better pallet prices and availability recently. We're going to move from NH to KY after our youngest finishes school. I'm going to build with bifacial at the next location. For better winter performance where every watt is critical.
 
sunsurfer said:
Why go AIO ?
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We want as many options as possible. We want to slowly build up our solar system - due to cost. Here in Ontario, they pay you kW for kW. Plus at some point we will sell this place and we like to offer the buyer more options - than what we might want - to have a better chance of selling the place and getting a good price.
 
Given this is the shortest time of year it would really help if you stake out the sun track now where the panels are going to check for angle and trees/shadows. Pound a stake in the ground. 3-4ft tall is best.

Then at every hour from 7am to 4pm place a stake at the tip of the shadow it casts. This will give you the east-west line to set your panels at for maximum exposure. You can buy rebar stakes at most home improvement stores.

Remember Dec 20th is the shortest day.
 
PreppenWolf said:
Yeah it's not cheap. Nov-dec-jan are just terrible here in northern latitudes and you really have to over panel and battery to account for the cloudy days.

Given you're in a snow area, look at bifacial panels. I couldn't find any good deals on them when I was building this year, but have seen better pallet prices and availability recently. We're going to move from NH to KY after our youngest finishes school. I'm going to build with bifacial at the next location. For better winter performance where every watt is critical.
Click to expand...

It so happens I've been reading up and watching videos on those who have installed Bifacial Panels and I even started a thread here in Solar Panels - asking about the realistic output of them. Only one reply so far. Here is the link. https://diysolarforum.com/threads/who-here-are-using-two-sided-panels.51705/
 
timselectric said:
This may give you some insight.

Click to expand...
Thanks. Those were some of the videos I recently watched. It was their video that gave me a much simpler way of pivoting the array VS my way of using Pillow Block Bearings. I had already planned for a much higher array off the ground, as we can get a ton of snow. He confirmed my thinking and learned the hard way that his array was too close to the ground. BTW - I also subscribed to them.
 
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Funny story. Or maybe not so funny. When we purchased our place, Ontario had a solar program that offered 42cent per kW, We thought we would turn one acre into Solar. But, we soon found out that we were the last house on one of the longest Hydro legs and the cost to us to upgrade their lines was not worth it. We now want to have solar for just us and our property and where we want to place the container with the Solar array is blocked by all the large trees around the house. LOL

1. Is where I had them place the container when they delivered it.
2. Is where I had hoped to put it with the solar panels
3. Looks like the best place to put it for sun - but far away from back of house where fuse panel is located.

At 8:30 this morning everything behind #1 (where the container is currently) is all in shade, from all the trees on the south side of the driveway.
(I'll continue to watch the sun's movement throughout the day and see what's what. But you can see the shadow the large tree on the north side of the driveway cast in red at 8:30. I took lots of pictures and 2 videos this morning.)

Container Location.jpg


8:30 and pretty much everything in the back yard is in shade, during the winter months when the sun is low.

20221209_083908.jpg
 
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Update on Sun movement during winter. It's almost 1pm and for the last hour or more, area #2 (shown in post #32) is in full shade from the large tree with the red lines behind it. Those red lines are me showing where and how far I saw a shadow from that tree at 8:30 in the morning. (You can see the large shadow in the second picture in post #32 above.)
 
In all reality you don’t need to worry about shade until 10am if you have your panels faced south. I read 10am to 3pm is you best 5 hours of production.
 
Tony S said:
Do you happen to know the size of their container? Is it a 20' or 40'? At times I think it is a 20' and other times I think it is longer. Now I could have overlooked it. But last night I went back and watched the videos again and I was not able to find it.
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Yup
20'
 
I would definitely put it at position 3 and the panels on that side of the tree line based on the shading.
 
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