Watts Happening
I call it like I see it.
- Joined
- May 3, 2022
- Messages
- 802
We’ve completed our first month “off grid” while still grid connected. 6.6kw of “not super efficiently” pointed panels, a Sol-Ark 15k and 15kWh of SOK batteries. We’ve overproduced almost every day and the excess has gone into charging my Tesla via the smart loads output. We made a bit over 800kWh with the above setup, plus about 200kWh from the contractor trailer so I’d basically call it 1mWh.
We don’t have an interconnect agreement with the power company, thus I can’t backfeed. For that reason I am using the default Sol-Ark settings that draw a constant 20w to ensure no backfeed. We’ve made it an entire month with sub-1kWh daily usage, aside from two days!
Why the two days you may ask? Because I didn’t realize when I had initially set up the inverter I set one season to end and another to start which changed our usage/charge settings. We were camping and I didn’t realize it had changed, thus the inverter put a couple kilowatts into the batteries each day to bring the state of charge up to 40%. Once I realized it, it was obvious and won’t happen again. Funny how you get to the point you feel bad that you used grid power haha!
As a whole, we could have easily been completely without the grid all month. The Tesla remained plenty charged and we didn’t have any sacrifices for the house. I did however find myself making choices like doing laundry or running the dishwasher during the day, as to avoid discharging the battery bank at night.
Extremely happy with the setup, really looking forward to our upcoming doubling of PV. Hopefully I can convince the inspector we should be allowed to have more batteries before UL9540 is enacted.
Next year we’ll probably have to set up an interconnect agreement with the power company, we’ll overproduce and may as well get some of that back during the winter.
We don’t have an interconnect agreement with the power company, thus I can’t backfeed. For that reason I am using the default Sol-Ark settings that draw a constant 20w to ensure no backfeed. We’ve made it an entire month with sub-1kWh daily usage, aside from two days!
Why the two days you may ask? Because I didn’t realize when I had initially set up the inverter I set one season to end and another to start which changed our usage/charge settings. We were camping and I didn’t realize it had changed, thus the inverter put a couple kilowatts into the batteries each day to bring the state of charge up to 40%. Once I realized it, it was obvious and won’t happen again. Funny how you get to the point you feel bad that you used grid power haha!
As a whole, we could have easily been completely without the grid all month. The Tesla remained plenty charged and we didn’t have any sacrifices for the house. I did however find myself making choices like doing laundry or running the dishwasher during the day, as to avoid discharging the battery bank at night.
Extremely happy with the setup, really looking forward to our upcoming doubling of PV. Hopefully I can convince the inspector we should be allowed to have more batteries before UL9540 is enacted.
Next year we’ll probably have to set up an interconnect agreement with the power company, we’ll overproduce and may as well get some of that back during the winter.
