solarflare
New Member
While the prices of panels have come down, the worry about battery cost has really kept me from moving ahead... up until I saw the recent video on YouTube with the clear lowering of battery prices.
I have a home that has electricity requirements that are as much as a home mortgage each month. It's insane and I can't seem to lower our power consumption requirements due to location and other limiting factors. Here's the past 12 months of usage:
We're located in a small valley in southern Ohio that's in between Columbus, OH and Charleston, WV. Got these values from https://www.wholesalesolar.com/solar-information/sun-hours-us-map:
Basically we have a lot of roof space facing west-south-west.
I'd like to build the entire system out myself since I have a background in electronics. Last time I sized this up I was looking at over 30k USD, which is way, way, way out of bounds for my budget.
I would really appreciate any thoughts / help on not only sizing up requirements, but also in selecting panels and pulling together a plan that would allow me to build the system up over time so as to basically start of small-to-medium range and then expand it up as funds become available. My ultimate goal is to entirely replace the grid except during really bad weather and even then having a fully charged battery array that would allow us to operate with minimal services for extended periods of time if needed.
I have a home that has electricity requirements that are as much as a home mortgage each month. It's insane and I can't seem to lower our power consumption requirements due to location and other limiting factors. Here's the past 12 months of usage:
We're located in a small valley in southern Ohio that's in between Columbus, OH and Charleston, WV. Got these values from https://www.wholesalesolar.com/solar-information/sun-hours-us-map:
CITY: Columbus (OH) HIGH: 5.26 LOW: 2.66 AVERAGE: 4.15 | CITY: Charleston (WV) HIGH: 4.12 LOW: 2.47 AVERAGE: 3.65 |
Basically we have a lot of roof space facing west-south-west.
I'd like to build the entire system out myself since I have a background in electronics. Last time I sized this up I was looking at over 30k USD, which is way, way, way out of bounds for my budget.
I would really appreciate any thoughts / help on not only sizing up requirements, but also in selecting panels and pulling together a plan that would allow me to build the system up over time so as to basically start of small-to-medium range and then expand it up as funds become available. My ultimate goal is to entirely replace the grid except during really bad weather and even then having a fully charged battery array that would allow us to operate with minimal services for extended periods of time if needed.