I've been solar lurking for a while. I'm finally getting around to starting to assemble roughly 12kWh of 18650s that I salvaged from Ring doorbell batteries. I've watched lots of videos and read in the forums about "how to size a system," but I only seem to have run across the following setups:
1. A portable power bank designed for camping or short-term backup (hand truck, ammo box, etc.) that is meant to operate with a few lower-watt panels
2. Small systems that are installed in sheds that run small loads, such as lights (similar to above, but permanently mounted)
3. Full home systems with massive batteries and tons of panels with a high price point.
What I am curious about, however, is something similar to #2 above that can be installed in the primary dwelling and will start reducing your grid consumption immediately (instead of just having a generator lockout setup and transferring power to your main panel during an outage).
The possibilities that I've considered include:
1. An all-in-one unit that is grid tied and simply scaling up the solar over time. However, this still has a high cost of entry as far as I can tell ($4k+)
2. A smaller version of #1 and then moving some low-draw branch circuits over (for example, porch lights). With this version, if I got linkable units, then I could scale up over time, but it seems like moving the branch circuits over would be a big hassle.
Is there another option that allows you to spend < $1000 for a charge controller and inverter that is also scalable over time
1. A portable power bank designed for camping or short-term backup (hand truck, ammo box, etc.) that is meant to operate with a few lower-watt panels
2. Small systems that are installed in sheds that run small loads, such as lights (similar to above, but permanently mounted)
3. Full home systems with massive batteries and tons of panels with a high price point.
What I am curious about, however, is something similar to #2 above that can be installed in the primary dwelling and will start reducing your grid consumption immediately (instead of just having a generator lockout setup and transferring power to your main panel during an outage).
The possibilities that I've considered include:
1. An all-in-one unit that is grid tied and simply scaling up the solar over time. However, this still has a high cost of entry as far as I can tell ($4k+)
2. A smaller version of #1 and then moving some low-draw branch circuits over (for example, porch lights). With this version, if I got linkable units, then I could scale up over time, but it seems like moving the branch circuits over would be a big hassle.
Is there another option that allows you to spend < $1000 for a charge controller and inverter that is also scalable over time
