Biggest and most exotic solar system you've seen for a home or cabin?
System
Posts: 2,511 admin
My one battery, one panel, one charge controller set up seen here:
http://offgridaz.blogspot.com/
is probably the smallest around.
Let's dream a little and hear your stories about the biggest and baddest solar system you've seen or heard of. We all know if money were no object we could power quite a spread with solar. So tell us about systems you've seen or know of that really take the cake. There's got to be some great stories out there...so let's hear from you.
http://offgridaz.blogspot.com/
is probably the smallest around.
Let's dream a little and hear your stories about the biggest and baddest solar system you've seen or heard of. We all know if money were no object we could power quite a spread with solar. So tell us about systems you've seen or know of that really take the cake. There's got to be some great stories out there...so let's hear from you.
Comments
for a city: 4.6 MW
http://www.greenwatts.com/pages/SolarOutput.asp
(edit - whoops, missed that "home or cabin"
|| Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
|| VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A
solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister ,
Can fantasies work here too? Because mine is the one that lets me run an entire all-electric house and shop year round as though it were on the grid, with up to a week of backup power.
How about wishes? I wish some of the big box stores would utilize some of those acres and acres of land they take up by building a ginormous solar array, which would provide enough solar to both run their store and provide power to the surrounding area. I'm not just talking roof space either, I'm talking cover the entire parking lot with solar panels, which would also provide covered parking. The covered parking would give the added advantage or keeping cars from heating up in the summer, which would reduce fuel costs by making it easier to cool the interior down. Imagine how much juice a 30 acre solar panel farm could generate. That large would generate a net gain for the box store, and would green up their image quite a bit.
The largest I've ever seen was at "The Wild Center" Museum in Tupper Lake NY. It has a 40Kw grid tied system which makes up for about 10 percent of the museums total energy output. The rest of the power comes from Niagra Falls
There are about 200 solar panels on the side of the roof, on the other side is a living soil roof which is really awesome.
The biggest system my company has installed was for a private home in Augusta County, VA. It consists of 102 Evergreen 190w panels, 6 XW MPPT controller, 3 XW 6000 watt inverters, and 28 Deka 8D AGM batteries. I'll try to attach some pictures.
Thats a really nice install! the WX's with all the BOS boxes makes a sweet & clean look.
Being in Canada "biggest" does not really take you far. Currently that record is held by the Horse Palace Installation that is a whopping 100kw *cough*
But... for a cool and rather large installations for cottage / home, one of the visually impressive installs that I have seen was in Killarney Provincial Park here in Ontario. It's approximately a 3kw system on a private island within the park (was owned before the park was established) and runs the 8 or so small cabins and main house. I didn't get all the details, as the only person there was not the one whom ordered / installed the system. Maybe next time.
Might as well include a link to a Horse Palace Solar Installation article.
-Bill
Totally Off-Grid, mine runs a 4,500 sq ft centrally air conditioned Rastra ranch house trimmed out like any
house in town to include exterior lighting and wells.
Mangas, now that's what I'm talkin about...
Sounds like an awesome setup...the kind I'd like to install in my dream home/ranchhouse/cabin or whatever you want to call it.
Wirenut, thanks for the pictures! That is a very nice set up...I think going forward we'll see more of these high end jobs.