Partial setup up for Grid tied, no feed to utility.

[JToby]

Hello,

Looking at a setup for my house. I would like to setup in a different way so that I can power my main items for emergency and when we get an electric vehicle, a EV charger. This is only in planning mode currently, I would think that we will be getting a EV in the next few years, but want to start the thinking of how to do this. I currently have a generator panel which hooks up and runs the emergency items such as furnace, lights, fridges and water pump. The Gen panel is a manual switch over, so when power goes out, I have to physically start the Gen and flip the transfer switch over to Gen power.

I have attached an image which shows the main panel, Gen panel in the house, and where where the connection runs from my garage for the Gen power when required.

So, as I was saying, what I would like to do is setup a Solar array, with panels, inverter, batteries, power the generator panel only, and add the EV charger. Actually, power the garage also, but minimal items there. a few lights and outlets.

There will be no net metering, want to make sure that there is no back feeding to the grid at all.

In the drawing, does this seem correct? The inverter would supply as much of the power as required, AC would kick in to supplement as needed. There would be no feed of power back to the grid. If required, I can still use the Gen if required in certain situations?

Live in Nova Scotia, Canada. Last year we had 14 days of outage from Hurricane Fiona. So looking for some emergency backup power options plus add the EV charger option.

Any help or guidance is greatly appericated.

Thanks

 

[Watts Happening]

I completely understand your goal, it’s the same basic idea as what I currently have installed in my home.

Your diagram has me confused. Nothing is notating a transfer switch, so I’m just going to assume it’s located at the garage panel.

Personally I would connect the AC power that is feeding the garage panel to the input of the inverter, then its output to the garage panel.

This would essentially mean your garage and it’s circuits would always run off of the inverter, but if you’re buying a common hybrid inverter like a sol-ark or eg4 18kpv it could just pass grid power through as needed.

You could also put in a transfer switch to bypass the inverter, but without a more accurate diagram I’m somewhat guessing as to the correct approach.

 

[JToby]

Hi and thanks!

Yes, this is rudimentary drawing, just trying to get the information together to see if this would work, or if I was way off on how this would work for my needs. I have electrical experience, but I know nothing about solar (Panels \ Inverters \ batteries) other than the very basics. Saying this, yes, there will need to be a few change to the plan, with additional transfer switches, etc. But it sounds as if I can get this to work for my situation.

Thanks for your input.