Proposed System - 1000W - Advice Needed!

Re: Proposed System - 1000W - Advice Needed!

Guys weve debated the ac v dc thing ad nausium here. OP if youre interested in further discussion on that topic i suggest you look in the archives. There are pros and cons to each and theres no right answer, very much depends on your setup. In general, if your place is "cabin" sized, using DC is going to be more possible for many of the reasons youve listed. If you do DC, forget 14 gauge, look around for some cheap surplus cable, obviously doenst need flash 1000V rated insulation, but you looking for pounds of copper. For my DC runs i use a a mixture of 6awg, and 6mm2, and im on 24v. All of that cable cost less then $1.50 per meter new... just a matter of looking around.

For the fridge, yes, complicated. The one big upside to using a DC fridge is that you can turn the inverter off for much of the day. Most inverters use an fair chunk of power just doing nothing. The 300W inverter recomended here is not so bad, but, then it wont run a fridge so thats kinda academic. This inverter tare load is mostly an issue for mid range systems. On bigger systems, the tare disappears into a haze of other background loads, less of an issue. Again "cabin", DC has benefits, full size house, not really. In the latter case you get your 6kW XW or whatever and forget about the 30W odd its sucking 24/7. BTW dont be seduced by low "standby" draw figures. The standby feature is next to useless, as it only takes one thing that you need to leave on 24/7, wifi router, trickle charger, whatever and your inverter will never get to use its fancy standy feature. The exception there is some inverters will actually power some tiny loads in standby, eg clocks on dvd players or so.

LEDs. Yes a sudden rush to market in AC leds recently has brought the price down. My main comment about LED is color. Predominantly there are two colors warm and cool, of which neither is very nice. Combinations of both i find creates a nice balance. For just a few bucks you can make your own which is fun.

For your loads. In general the presence of an electric fridge, is one of the notable features that trips a system from small to medium. The 0.5-1kWh draw does kinda trip you into systems that tend to have 1.5+kWp PV. Not so say it cant be done on less, with clever optimisations. But a fridge is a relentless load. If you dont wont to end up spending a lot of time fussing with generators in bad weather, having more PV is desireable, lets face it its cheap now right. This is one area where AGM shines, high PV to battery ratios. I know a guy with a 10kW array and a battery bank no bigger than mine. Even the worst weather he's fine. Conversely i once did a design for a motorhome with a danfoss compressor fridge on just 320Wp. The fridge was turned off at night with a relay.

So your load budget 530Wh/d. First i always include a contingency, say 20%, for things you forgot! Did you actually measure the laptop, the adapter might be rated at 60W, but it probably wont draw that. Maybe its a huge one? Lights, unless you like living in the dark, LEDs dont make that much light, at least not 5W ones. My 20W ones, yes, but then we have at least two of those, sometimes three or four. So maybe you need a bit more lighting allowance there. Is that really it, no cell phone chargers, cordless tool chargers, soldering irons or other tools? Gees what kind of techy are you Then if theres a Mrs OP, then man youre into a whole nother league mate.