Why Youtube is dangerous...

Photowhit

So I've been playing around with setting up a true solar cabin. Similar to the well insulated one I built in 2004-5. There are a couple inexpensive Sunfrost fridges available locally, I have spares from my 24 volt system to outfit an entire system, even given a 370 ah battery bank that's functional, but thought it might be my Pensioners Home So thought about incorporating a lithium battery bank.

So that brings me to a guy who I think is making pretty good money advising people on Youtube. Will Prowse I tried to explain to him in the past why using MPPT charge controllers to examine 17.5VMP and 20 VMP solar panels singularly in a 12 volt system wasn't a real test....

I've tried to help him understand other things in the past. 

But a couple days ago I tried talking how off grid systems work. Here's my comment and his reply;



Use youtube with care!

FWIW - He lives in Las Vegas, I think he's actually making a living with his advice....

Wheelman55

You know, I think that I do use or store all of the energy generated each day. 

The lithium batteries are fully charged within an hour and a half each morning and then the energy generated drops down to close to zero unless I’m running big loads. 

So it seems to me that I use or store all of the energy that actually gets produced:)

Horsefly

Photowhit said:

...

FWIW - He lives in Las Vegas, I think he's actually making a living with his advice....

Oh yeah, he's making a living off of it. He makes enough money on YouTube that he bought his house with cash and also bought two Teslas with cash.  I'm not just speculating, as he has posted about his YouTube income before.

Saggys

I visit that forum also as it has a lot of activity. There seems to be many forum members using non code compliant installs and non UL listed equipment. Just because it works does not make it safe. Most of the equipment used by the members is sourced over seas and is not even recognized by the AHJ and would probably not pass any inspection. I wonder how people get homeowners insurance with that equipment?

mike95490

Wheelman55 said:

You know, I think that I do use or store all of the energy generated each day. 

The lithium batteries are fully charged within an hour and a half each morning and then the energy generated drops down to close to zero unless I’m running big loads. 

So it seems to me that I use or store all of the energy that actually gets produced:)

If your solar is able to power loads AND recharge the batteries in 90 min in the morning, you are leaving a LOT of harvestable power sitting in the panels from 11am - 4pm.  Some you use to offset your usage, maybe you are selling to the grid and don't know it ???

NANOcontrol

I use almost all of it. I have a sophisticated diversion control that sends any excess to two water heaters. These ONLY heat with excess power.  They operate on a priority basis with the house having the highest. The garage has its own 40 gallon tank just for laundry.  I can usually get 1-2KWH into that heater. With temperature stratification it is easy to heat the top 15 gallons with the lower being preheat.  I can even dump really small amounts of power, under 5W.  It all adds up. I can do two loads of laundry a day and have the cloths come out steaming.  All cycles use hot water. Below is a diversion graph of only a half hour with clouds moving in and out

LI is certainly a lot better than lead. The different charge states guarantee that the battery will never be able to use all the power generated. Any successful PV system has to have excess potential to recover.  Everyone is wasting more power than they can imagine.

NANOcontrol

I should have added that I divert directly from array voltage and no battery, charge controller or inverter is necessary. Dips in voltage green are when something turns on in the house and peaks are when panels produce more voltage than the resistance of the heater can take.

Wheelman55

mike95490 said:

Wheelman55 said:

You know, I think that I do use or store all of the energy generated each day. 

The lithium batteries are fully charged within an hour and a half each morning and then the energy generated drops down to close to zero unless I’m running big loads. 

So it seems to me that I use or store all of the energy that actually gets produced:)

If your solar is able to power loads AND recharge the batteries in 90 min in the morning, you are leaving a LOT of harvestable power sitting in the panels from 11am - 4pm.  Some you use to offset your usage, maybe you are selling to the grid and don't know it ???

Mike. We are offgrid. So no selling of excess. 

And yes, there is a lot of energy that could be produced. We’re in the final stages of construction and will be adding two additional mini splits, hopefully this fall. They’ll use up some of the potential. 

The one mini split that we have is in the 120 sq ft solar equipment shed. We keep that room at 70 F. I figure that the efficiency gained by keeping the electronics and batteries cooler than ambient just about let’s us run that split with power not lost to heat. 

There is generally so much sun here that we’ll need to get creative down the road. 

Had we realized how much potential energy there is we might have gone with an electric range, instead of propane. 

Then there are some 3-5 day stretches with cloud cover/low production

Dave Angelini

One either designs the solar power system for winter offgrid, or they run a genset alot.
 I suppose there are those who would light candles😉