diy solar

diy solar

Smart home for off grid

Scorch

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Apr 9, 2021
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In order to help manage electrical use in my off grid, I was thinking about what I can do with home automation....

For example, when battery goes below 60%, the mini splits will go to "eco mode" and adjust temp accordingly, and when battery gets to 25%, AC shuts off (or some other cutoffs).

I'm also thinking that in areas of higher energy use (Kitchen and Laundry), to put in a color changing LED somewhere..... Green means battery is at 100% and the color changes to Red as you approach 25%.... so the wife won't run the dishwasher when she starts seeing orange color.

Also planning on putting in smart light switches, so I could even turn down light output when battery gets low, but that probably won't save too much.

Of course, I'm also looking at running hot water on electric with any excess solar, and I'd also like to have an EV charger that will only run when there is excess solar.

What else are people doing that I'm forgetting? Also, if anyone is doing something similar, how are you controlling it all? I'm assuming something like using IFTTT or alexa routines, but how do you monitor battery levels and feed that to the smart hub?

note: this is a new build, and the electrical is still a few months away, so I have time to plan.
 
I’d imagine it’s a lot cheaper and simpler to size your system according to your normal loads, and utilise a quiet auto start generator as required.
 
You probably want to look at Home Assistant (on a raspberry pi or similar), if you want some something that can monitor batteries and energy use that local based. It's a home automation hub that isn't cloud based and can be set up to grab information from a range of inverters, smart meters and battery systems. That data can then be combined with smart plugs, or wifi heatpump units to control power usage in response to the current usage and battery levels.
 
I’d imagine it’s a lot cheaper and simpler to size your system according to your normal loads, and utilize a quiet auto start generator as required.
Yes.... You're saying I'm missing the forest for the trees! I do have a generator planned, and I do think I have my system is oversized, but I won't know for sure until I get in there. So (as an engineer), I think that it makes sense to use home automation to minimize the amount of waste.

But in a nutshell, if I have several cloudy days, and I deplete my batteries, I don't want my AC running on max, and running multiple dryer cycles while charging my Tesla on generator power which would quickly deplete my propane.
 
You probably want to look at Home Assistant (on a raspberry pi or similar), if you want some something that can monitor batteries and energy use that local based. It's a home automation hub that isn't cloud based and can be set up to grab information from a range of inverters, smart meters and battery systems. That data can then be combined with smart plugs, or wifi heatpump units to control power usage in response to the current usage and battery levels.
I'll look into it!
 
what I did that helps me is I have 2 breakers for each room in the cabin , a lighting Circuit and a outlet circuit
I have a 40 breaker panel in my cabin .
In stead of wondering who left what on I can just kill the power to the room.
I just added recessed lighting in the whole cabin and ran every thing on dimers nothing fancy .
Midnight solar makes a 50 dollar battery monitor that works ok .
I dosent really give you a true % of battery but it has a nice light scale and after looking at it for a few days you will pick up on how it is reading your power and you will know how the system is doing .
I have a out back system with a mate control unit that can be mounted remotely this has green orange red leds on top
i mite mount it in the kitchen and every thing can be adjusted from there , most power systems have one that can be added .
I would rather keep everything simple , the truth is I could lock the door on my place today and come back in September and every thing would be fine .A856AA0A-D2E2-4626-8DD8-8A31558B4466.jpeg
 
I'm definitely putting dimmers on everything, and in rooms like bathroom/laundry etc, I plan on putting in proximity switches that will automatically turn on when you enter the room, and turn off after 15 minutes (or whatever time).

Just like solar... a smart home is "cool".
 
Yes.... You're saying I'm missing the forest for the trees! I do have a generator planned, and I do think I have my system is oversized, but I won't know for sure until I get in there. So (as an engineer), I think that it makes sense to use home automation to minimize the amount of waste.

I’ve helped a lot of people move off-grid, and into a more self sufficient lifestyle.

In general the simpler you can build the more successful you will be long term.

If you are not in a remote area it isn’t so important.

And yes, i understand that the “cool” factor of your new build is important.
 
Haven't gotten around to it myself, so will be interested in what you do.
 
Home Assistant, dimmers, or other means of turning off unneeded lights, energy-efficient lighting (I'm going with LED lights in my house); all of these things are good. Another thing to go with is multiple forms of power, like a combination of Solar and Wind power; my third stage of power updates will include this, as it happens. This way, there will always be a source of power to run the minimum needs of the home, as well as provide a source of charging current for the batteries you're using.
 
For now, I have one relay of Sunny Island for "load shed" of my entire house at 70% DoD, leaving just PV inverters powered.
I want to do similar up around 20% or 10% for loads like A/C and laundry.
It uses frequency shift for inverter control. I wanted to have load control also, was going to control pool pump speed by VFD. But VFD (no power factor correction on diode/capacitor front end) upsets the PV inverters.

Controlling discretionary loads is a way to get higher utilization, reducing cost. Yes, it adds complexity, maybe not as much as a reciprocating engine.
 
Node red on a raspberry pi can do all of this and more, I use this for my home management, it reads my inverter stats, my BMS stats, my EV charger stats and can control output to my smart lights, EV charger etc and switches.I also output this data to grafana on the same raspberry pi which gives me a nice dashboard view on a cheap Android tablet.
 
Node red on a raspberry pi can do all of this and more, I use this for my home management, it reads my inverter stats, my BMS stats, my EV charger stats and can control output to my smart lights, EV charger etc and switches.I also output this data to grafana on the same raspberry pi which gives me a nice dashboard view on a cheap Android tablet.
Node Red looks awesome, but for a non-programmer type, it seems a bit intimidating!
 
Node Red looks awesome, but for a non-programmer type, it seems a bit intimidating!
It is a bit of learning curve but very good for what you need, there are already quite a lot of pre made flows out there that you can tweak for what you want to do.
 
2 weeks into Pi4b 8g with Home Assistant and can now see (not control yet) Growatt via another pie running Solar Assistant, Emporia Vue energy monitor, (main and 6 breakers) Ambient Weather station, Windy.com, and a bunch of individual sensors, looking at adding controllable switches and outlet's, just not sure which brand to go with, Z-wave looks good, but expensive, Joe
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Honestly, for switches, you're probably not going to beat using the Sonoff Basic or Sonoff Mini, or possibly the Shelly One. I'm not sure what model of outlets to suggest, since I haven't looked into those yet.
 
I was worried about burning to much power
I did put dimmers on all the lites and switched outlets so I can stop all the power drain .
In the end I just don’t worry about it at all I don’t really use much power at all .
I can run any thing I want really
 
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