Getting Ready to Go Off-Grid

BB.

Re: Getting Ready to Go Off-Grid

You can try this link--It will list the "recent" threads started by Chris:

http://forum.solar-electric.com/search.php?do=finduser&userid=9634&starteronly=1&contenttype=vBForum_Thread

-Bill

sunbunny

Re: Getting Ready to Go Off-Grid

If you have a Right of Way or town road situation, putting in electric poles can cause people to build along the road.
Just something to think about.

ChrisOlson

Re: Getting Ready to Go Off-Grid

westbranch wrote: »

For more info I suggest you read, and try to digest some of the lengthy discussions about generators ad other issues Chris has spoken on..

Yes - hopefully I've been to provide at least some useful information on that topic that may be useful for other folks. The fact is, that in a northern Minnesota off-grid home, the generator is going to be an integral part of the system. What you choose, and how you design your system, will determine whether or not it will be affordable and you'll have an enjoyable off-grid life. You can live more frugal and try to conserve on every watt. And conserving is always good. But we get three day blizzards and days on end when we never see the sun in winter.

And if you want to know how me and my wife really feel about it - we don't even trust utility power when it's 20 or 30 below anymore. We know our system will work no matter what. People that depend on utility power in the dead of winter, and blindly go about their affairs thinking all is good are the ones that have it bad. It's like I saw on TV when that hurricane hit the east coast - some woman on there complaining that they had no power and they have old people in their house that are going to die - and the real kicker that illustrates just how bad society has become - she says on national TV, "When is the government coming to help us?"

When you start having that sort of dependence on the infrastructure of society, it's time to re-evaluate your position - especially when you live out in the boondocks on the end of a rural feeder line that the utility company is probably not even going to be concerned about fixing any time soon if there's major outage.

There's more to it than just money.
--
Chris

mike95490

Re: Getting Ready to Go Off-Grid

sgtB wrote: »

... Freedom is worth quite a bit......

Free to stay awake nights and wonder if the batteries will make it through the day, or if the generator auto start really does work at -10F..........

mike95490

Re: Getting Ready to Go Off-Grid

Maybe a hybrid-grid tied system with a minimal battery bank (has to be enough to keep the inverter happy while the solar feeds the grid, and enough to last for a couple weeks a year outages, maybe size it for 70% drawdown (a fairly deep discharge) but if you are grid tied, you won't really cycle it that much, only for outages. Rare to have batteries last past 10 years (usually) so why get a huge bank if you won't need it.

ChrisOlson

Re: Getting Ready to Go Off-Grid

mike95490 wrote: »

Maybe a hybrid-grid tied system with a minimal battery bank

I've never seen the value of grid-tied battery backup systems for a home. I know lots of people have them. But the economics dictates that you're not going to save any money on grid-tie selling back to the utility. And with a limited battery bank all you got is basically a UPS that needs generator backup ASAP in any sort of outage situation that lasts more than what you have battery capacity for. And to further complicate it, most people don't put in a big enough system to barely run a few critical circuits.

So why not just skip the inverter and batteries part and put in a decent standby generator that provides whole house backup instead? The generator is cheaper and more effective.

The local town here is just a hick town but even the banking establishment in town here got tired of being locked out of their safe and having their computer systems all shut down about twice a week when the power goes belly up. So they put in a off-grid power system that includes a 5 minute UPS that keeps critical systems running until their new SG100 Generac comes online and provides full-campus standby power:

Attachment not found.

It's brand new - the packing list is still taped to it and I just inspected this system a few days ago.

But you see - only hospitals and banks and facilities with critical systems need UPS or battery backup until a generator comes online. The average residence does not need this. So what - BHD if you have to reset your digital clocks because it takes a minute for the standby gen to come online. The generator is cheap. The UPS is the expensive part.
--
Chris

BB.

Re: Getting Ready to Go Off-Grid

And either get a small UPS for your computer system (OK...) or get a good quality laptop and let its battery be a "near free" UPS with several hours of backup capability--Plus a laptop may use 1/10th the power of a big old desktop system+monitor (things are changing--have a Kill-a-Watt type meter handy to make your own measurements).

-Bill

northerner

Re: Getting Ready to Go Off-Grid

sgtB wrote: »

It's definitely not a pure dollars and sense issue. Otherwise we wouldn't be this far along. Lots to consider.

I'm really happy I made the decision to go off grid, and I live in an even more northerly location (northern Alberta) where temps can go below -40C, and solar insolation is low mid winter due to the short hours of day light. I have one advantage with access to really cheap natural gas, which provides my heat, hot water, and cooking. Also plan to run the generator on natural gas, and can produce electricity from the gen set for less than the power company sells it for!!! So if you are able to run a natural gas line in, I would look at that option. It is not that expensive to do here, and almost everyone (including most farm houses) have natural gas here.

Propane is a more expensive option. Other options for heating include either a wood stove or wood pellet stove. I looked into the wood pellet stoves here, and discovered that natural gas is even less costly to run, and much more convenient.