Offgridiot
New Member
My current system with 2244 watts of solar power does us just fine (we don’t have to run the generator) through about 7 months of the year. The new panels will add about 5 times that amount of potential but I realize most of that potential will be wasted in the summer months. It’s the winter months where I’m hoping it shines (okay that’s 2 unintended puns now that I guess I should acknowledge ) in comparison. Approximately 6 times the solar gain on all our overcast days should save us the cost of much of the diesel we burn in the generator. I’ve also got plans in place to reduce a significant part of our electrical load (heating water with the wood stove instead of the electric tank). The new batteries should provide more usable capacity than my old FLA ones did when they were new.With this much additional power you will certainly need to rethink your battery bank, and system voltage for that matter. I have a friend who bought 3 Midnite Solar controllers for his system because he was unclear how the whole solar array wiring configuration worked. Basically he spent $1400 usd more than h needed.
There are definitely things I would do differently if I was building a whole new system from scratch, and going to 48 volts would be the first decision but adding another $3K to the price of the upgrade was/is beyond my budget. My system actually started configured at 12 volts, and 7 or 8 years ago, I upgraded to 24 volts, after which we’ve been really happy. No more nuisance trips of the main breaker.