Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Organic Farmer · July 2014

We consume about 500kwh/month on average. Some months more, some months less.

We generally lose power every month, from once/month to as much as four times per month. It may be for an hour, or a day, or a week. There is no way to predict how long a power-outage will be. We live in a state that is over 92% forested. Every time the wind blows, trees blow-down and the power goes out. Power here is strung in series from town-to-town, so if a blow-down happens in my township, it will likely take down the power in 20 other towns. Most of the time, we do have municipal power available.

We want: solar-panels, a MPPT charge-controller/ inverter, and battery-bank; so that we can still function when the grid goes down.

We do not want grid-tie or net-metering.

We want to use our own solar-power as much as possible. We want to use municipal power to keep our battery-bank fully charged [to avoid cycling] whenever the grid is up. So that we will only be cycling our battery-bank on those days/nights when the grid is down.

It is my understanding that some MPPT units allow for grid power to go in the side to trickle charge the battery-bank.

I did 20-years serving on US Navy submarines, we are perfectly capable of rigging for 'reduced-electricity' whenever we are on solar-power only mode, if the battery-bank should drop to 80% charge.

I have 20 solar panels [Evergreen ES-E 220W, Imp 7.54A, Vmp 29.2V, Isc 8.22A, Voc 35.9V]

They are mounted on an array of 2" concrete-filled pipe set into 5 yards of concrete. There are many guy-wires anchoring the array both front and back. 5 yards of concrete anchor the front guy-wires, and 5 yards of concrete anchor the back guy-wires.

This array is 70' long, 8' tall, and runs directly East/West. There are no obstructions to prevent sunlight from reaching the panels from morning until evening. The panel suspension is hinged to allow me to change their angle-of-attack every week, to keep them aligned for optimum efficiency with each week's path the sun follows.

We are located in Maine.

I remember a time when I was great with math. Now I find that I need assistance.

My 4400 watts of panels, should produce around 22kwh/day, with 77% eff = 16.9kwh/day, or 500kwh/month

Looking at the panel voltage, it kind of makes sense to go with a 24v battery-bank. But I understand that with 48v then the charge-controllers are better for big loads. [our biggest loads are our well pump and septic system pump]

What charge-controller/ inverter, do I need?

What battery-bank voltage makes the most sense?

How much battery capacity do I need?

btw, a couple days ago, an eagle was doing figure-eights over my garden. He kept calling to his mate, over in some trees. I heard her call back to him a few times. He was about 40 foot up, and it sounded so close to me that my instinct was to duck my head the first time I heard him. He stayed there doing figure-eights for nearly an hour.

I hope everyone is enjoying the summer.

Cariboocoot · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Answers from a guy living in the woods of British Columbia:

What you are looking for is a battery back-up power system. Normally they are not the answer, but in this case due to the frequency and longevity of the power outages it seems like the right solution.

With a battery based system you do not expect 'X' Watt hours for 'Y' Watts of panel. Forget that.

You need to know foremost how much power you have got to have daily to stay functioning, and how many bad solar days you can expect (i.e. how often you will need to start the generator if the sun doesn't shine). When you've got that determined you can decide on the best system Voltage for your needs. Panel Voltage is irrelevant to system Voltage: a good MPPT charge controller can take up to 150 Volts input and down-convert it to the system requirements.

No, MPPT charge controllers have nothing to do with utility or generator power. But a good inverter with built-in charger can use either as needed (when available) to maintain battery charging.

It sounds as though you have a large array already that is not being used? Why?

Twenty 220 Watt panels = 4400 Watts. In a 'typical' off-grid system you could expect (4400 * 4 hours equivalent good sun * 0.52 end-to-end efficiency) about 9 kW hours AC per day. That can be better with load management, worse with poor insolation. Roughly 270 kW hours in a month, or a bit more than half your present usage.

Normally that much panel would be on a 48 Volt system (with an 80 Amp controller) and would produce around 70 Amps peak current. Enough for 700 Amps hours (+/-) or 8 kW hours @ 25% DOD (close enough to the panel output estimate to be viable).

Photowhit · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Not sure what or when your loads are, but you might well have higher production than the 9 KW hours which would be the daily use figured by off grid standards. My 20 Evergreen 200 watt panels easily produce more Kwh's than that during the summer months running an A/C around the clock as well as my fridge, and water heater during sunny days when nothing else is running. Most of this is run after the batteries are in float(fully charged) So their is no loss in storing the energy.

I use a 24 volt fork lift battery for storage, but would have gone with a 48 volt battery(I already had the 24v battery)

I would guess your likely to have the hardest time during the short days of winter, I also suspect you already have and use a generator at times?

I'm not sure what your electrical needs/loads are, but that would suggest which inverter and reserve capacity.

What would be your highest wattage running at once? I suspect you need 240 volt? How many days do you want to be able to run solely off of reserve capacity, when will you be willing to turn on the generator?

Likely a Midnite Classic charge controller will handle the charging, your right at the capacity of it but in a reserve situation I don't think it would make sense to add another.

Organic Farmer · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Cariboocoot wrote: »

... It sounds as though you have a large array already that is not being used? Why?

Bought on sale. Mounted in anticipation of use, but then 'Sandy' blew through and pulled the mounting up out of the ground. I got it cleaning up before winter. The next year, after the ground thawed, I started again. Now the array mounting is much bigger and better. Now I am ready to proceed to the rest of our system.

Photowhit wrote: »

Not sure what or when your loads are, but you might well have higher production than the 9 KW hours which would be the daily use figured by off grid standards. My 20 Evergreen 200 watt panels easily produce more Kwh's than that during the summer months running an A/C around the clock as well as my fridge, and water heater during sunny days when nothing else is running. Most of this is run after the batteries are in float(fully charged) So their is no loss in storing the energy.

I use a 24 volt fork lift battery for storage, but would have gone with a 48 volt battery(I already had the 24v battery)

I would guess your likely to have the hardest time during the short days of winter, I also suspect you already have and use a generator at times?

We do not use a generator. Currently when the power is out, we just do without. [hand-pump on the well]

The only bare necessity we have that must have power is the well and septic system pumps. The well needs 240v. It starts at 15 amps, but runs at 7 amps. The septic system pumps are 120v 5 amp pumps.

We currently have a composting toilet. But code requires a septic system be installed, and guests like having a flush toilet. So we keep it operational.

... I'm not sure what your electrical needs/loads are, but that would suggest which inverter and reserve capacity.

What would be your highest wattage running at once? I suspect you need 240 volt? How many days do you want to be able to run solely off of reserve capacity, when will you be willing to turn on the generator?

I have monitored most of our house circuits with a kill-a-watt meter. Our biggest consistent consumption item is a green-house I operate for germination / seedlings. It consumes around 100kwh/month, mostly 12-on and 12-off lighting. In winter that may go up to 150kwh/month as I use heated grow-mats.

I have been stumped at measuring our well and septic pumps, as they are hard wired. Neither of them operate on any consistent basis. So it is difficult to guess how long they run per day.

I think that the fluctuations I see in our monthly power consumption comes mostly from running the well to water our gardens.

Our monthly consumption of power averages at 500kwh/month. Some months have been 350, other months might be as high as 650.

No A/C. We heat with wood. We run two taco-7 circ pumps to operate a thermal-bank that stores heat from our woodstove, and transfers that heat to our radiant floors. Those pumps run 24/7 through the winter, they are a small load [horizontal loops, no lifting].

animatt · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

No A/C. We heat with wood. We run two taco-7 circ pumps to operate a thermal-bank that stores heat from our woodstove, and transfers that heat to our radiant floors. Those pumps run 24/7 through the winter, they are a small load [horizontal loops, no lifting].

I know not directly related to your question but may want to consider changing those circulators out. If you like taco line the bumblebee model maybe something to look at. MUCH more efficient Than those 00 line. There are grundfos models as well. They are not particularly cheap. But probably worth it if power costing $1-$2 per kwh.

For things that will run for months at a time it could chop a good bit of electrity . Especially when your system is collecting it lowest amounts of electricty.(winter)

Taco 007 use about 80 watts of electricty if i remember correctly. That is 160w x24hour or 3.84kwh daily. 115kwh per month. Switching pumps you could drop that by 50%. Which is a very valuable change.

Animatt

Organic Farmer · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

animatt - Thank you.

niel · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

You have the makings of a large off grid setup that is going to go to waste in just a backups arrangement and it is not going to be enough for use as straight off grid for all of your loads. you could compromise with a battery backed gt inverter that will sell any excess over that of your loads and the recharging of your batteries. this would be best at 48v due to the size of the array. you would still need to monitor power usage while drawing from the batteries as i doubt you'll have a battery bank big enough to go a week and not go beyond 50% dod. the plus is the size of your array in an outage as the array will contribute at some point in the days to follow to allow further use of power.

Organic Farmer · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

niel wrote: »

You have the makings of a large off grid setup that is going to go to waste in just a backups arrangement and it is not going to be enough for use as straight off grid for all of your loads. you could compromise with a battery backed gt inverter that will sell any excess over that of your loads and the recharging of your batteries. this would be best at 48v due to the size of the array. you would still need to monitor power usage while drawing from the batteries as i doubt you'll have a battery bank big enough to go a week and not go beyond 50% dod. the plus is the size of your array in an outage as the array will contribute at some point in the days to follow to allow further use of power.

I have spoken with our electric company and I have read their net-metering contract. I have met with grid-tie solar installers in the area. Between state laws and Municipal Utility policies, to go grid-tie in this area is prohibitively expensive. It would cost more than what we paid for our 150 acres and our house.

A. Assuming that when grid-power is available, that I use more power than what my solar-array generates [still averaging around 500kwh/month].

B. Assuming that during power outages, I conscientiously reduce our power consumption to around 300kwh/month.

1- Is there a method to step the charge-controller, so that grid-power only charges the battery-bank when consumption exceeds the production of the solar array?

2- Assuming a 300kwh load during power-outages and a 48v system how much battery capacity do I need?

Photowhit · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Organic Farmer wrote: »

I have spoken with our electric company and I have read their net-metering contract. I have met with grid-tie solar installers in the area. Between state laws and Municipal Utility policies, to go grid-tie in this area is prohibitively expensive. It would cost more than what we paid for our 150 acres and our house.

That doesn't make any sense to me, must be some pretty 'hinky' laws in them woods.

Organic Farmer wrote: »

A. Assuming that when grid-power is available, that I use more power than what my solar-array generates [still averaging around 500kwh/month].

Looks like your talking about a grid tied system here, you won't be able to use the solar power for anything but charging your batteries unless you setup a complete separate system, or toggle off the grid and run only from your array/solar system.

Organic Farmer wrote: »

B. Assuming that during power outages, I conscientiously reduce our power consumption to around 300kwh/month.
1- Is there a method to step the charge-controller, so that grid-power only charges the battery-bank when consumption exceeds the production of the solar array?

The charge controller only takes the energy from the array and worries about the delivery at the correct rate to the batteries. Your inverter will handle grid power and charge from the grid.

Organic Farmer wrote: »

2- Assuming a 300kwh load during power-outages and a 48v system how much battery capacity do I need?

More info is needed, but if I assume a 10kwh load and wanting to run for 2 days, drawing down to 50% capacity, the math looks something like this 10kwh = 48v x 208 Ah, 2 days 208 x 2 = 416Ah, Inverter inefficiencies x .11= 458Ah, x2 so battery isn't drawn down below 50% around 916 Ah battery at 48volts. Please note I discounted any solar charging since we have to assume this is during a stormy winter period when your likely to have little or no solar charging.

Cariboocoot · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

The short-cut solution to having grid interactive without selling to the grid is to use a hybrid inverter like the Outback Radian and turn 'SELL' off.

It looks to me like you'll be designing backwards: basing the battery bank on how much PV you've got and setting the power limits to that capacity. If the battery Voltage goes too low the inverter can connect the grid as 'generator' and recharge from there. You may want to leave some heavy-demand, occasional loads on grid all the time.

This will not be a very economic system. Something must be terribly wrong with the authorities in your area if the GT option is that outrageously expensive. I wish I could say I'm surprised at that, but I'm not.

Organic Farmer · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Photowhit wrote: »

That doesn't make any sense to me, must be some pretty 'hinky' laws in them woods.

The last big economy that Maine had was ice-block carving and shipping. That ended with modern refrigeration. It has been a depressed economy ever since. The recent housing bubble and bust pretty much ignored Maine.

Maine's primary industry is tourism.

People in other states come here and hire guides to take them hunting/fishing. Or else they buy vacation 'camps', commonly $1M to $5M estates, in the high profile tourist regions. The other 95% of the state is depressed, most young adult leave the state in search of careers. Retirees migrate here as the Cost-Of-Living is very low if you live rural.

The state regulates that only a state-licensed solar-installer can touch one of these systems. Regular electricians can not do it, and the list of licensed installers is small. One that I spoke with said that he has never installed a system for less than $150k.

The Municipal Utilities write their own contracts. To be grid-tied you must sign their contract. Which requires that you pay their engineers to review and approve your system, plus inspect it along the way, and after it is in place their engineers have full rights to mess with your system.

The licensed solar-installers are equipment dealers themselves, and they will only handle equipment that they sold you.

It all makes sense when you assume that every home owner going off-grid is a tourist, who does not mind paying $5M for bragging rights.

Some of our state's laws were written to be 'pro-business' by one party, It depends on what your business is. Other laws were written to be otherwise.

Cariboocoot · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Wow. Maine is too close to Canada, that's the problem.

zoneblue · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Having access to grid, assuming no sell back, means that your investment in pv is largely redundant. You could have just grid charged a big battery, or better still just use an autostart genset, as much cheaper and easier backup options.

However, given you have the pv installed, and rather well by the sound of it... what to do with it???

1. First thing is to look further into the sellback as this does seem to be your best option. Around here, most installers charge about 1 or 2 dollars per watt only. If you do go this route youll need a proper hybrid inverter, that can either sell, buy, charge, or island.

2. Failing that is it feasible to go completely off grid? As it stands you are operating and paying for two complete power systems. Unfortunately the grid is usually the cheaper option. However as supply security is clearly important to you then the addtional cost is a lower priority. Hence upspec the solar to run your entire operation, and save the daily line charge, and unhook. Much will depend on how you grid power pricing works. A high daily line charge would be worth saving, but if its low, then maybe not. This will involve some demand managment by the sounds of it, your power use is by no means low, or suitable for off grid. You would need to find a nother heat source for the greenhouse, of which there are many.

3. Use both systems on a dual redundant basis. Expect to not be able to run some things when grid is down. Pay for battery replacement, and the grid charges. This is the most expensive option, even if it does give you those benefits for supply security. For this will also need either a radian or XW, something that can handle the required islanding. Unless you happy with manual transfer.

While option one is the most promising, based on cost and outcome, and i think option 3 is kinda crazy, youd need deep pockets for that one, if it was me id probably go option 2. Thats just me, i value independence higher, than a straight cost comparision. And, it wont be that long before off grid solar is cost comparable to grid, and from that point onward you win. Mean time you get some experience running the system, the batterys get some exercise, which they need, and perhaps most interestingly, discovering ways to manage your loads to be more conservation focused, which is long term more sustainable.

Alaska Man · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

I left Maine 30 years ago, I see nothing has changed..........

I would sell the panels and buy a generator with an Auto Start switch or go completely off-grd. My 2 cents.

I'm not sure what grid power is in Maine anymore, but when when I left in 1989 it was pretty dang cheap. You'll be thousands of dollars ahead buying the genny wth AGS.

I realize that's not what you want to hear.........

mtdoc · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Well, my situation is not too different from yours. I live in the woods of western Washington state. We have frequent grid outages. My sig has my system details. However grid tie here is a good deal with net metering and an annual 18 cent incentive payment per kwH produced.

When the grid is out our system keeps lights, appliances, etc going - using about 8 kwH a day. Our heat pump is not backed up - so with no grid we heat with wood. Clothes are line dried if necessary. We have propane for cooking. Our standard electric hot water heater is not backed up but I have an add on Nyle Geyser heat pump water heater that runs on 120V and can keep us in hot water via our PV in the summer months. Plans are to set up a wood stove coil to heat water with wood in the winter if needed.

My only 240V load that is backed up is my septic pump - powered by my single Outback GVFX inverter (120V) via an autotransformer.

Something does not sound right about your costs to grid tie - but I don't know anything about Maine's or your Utilities rules.

You could use an Outback GVFX inverter with selling turned off and use HBX mode to control timing of grid charging of batteries.

You might want to contact Ryan from midnite solar (ryan@midnitesolar.com - I think) who is HalfCrazy on this and the Midnite solar forum. He lives in Maine and would likely be a wealth of info.

Photowhit · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Since the panels are up and ready to go, I like 'Coot's idea of doing a hybrid inverter like the Outback Radian, if your system will have to be inspected be sure that this will be acceptable to the 'powers that be'! These inverters are designed to feed back into the grid. These aren't cheap systems and a large battery bank and an inverter like this, fuse and wiring will not be cheap ($10-15k), but I'd guess you might be able to provide better than 50% of your utilities this way and give you some reserve for those outages.

Organic Farmer · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

zoneblue wrote: »

... better still just use an autostart genset, as much cheaper and easier backup options.

Many of our neighbors have generators.

However we are organic, and somewhat expected to be setting an example among our customers and fellows.

... First thing is to look further into the sellback as this does seem to be your best option. Around here, most installers charge about 1 or 2 dollars per watt only. If you do go this route youll need a proper hybrid inverter, that can either sell, buy, charge, or island.

So remove all that I have done, and then front $100k+ into a new setup.

Thank you, no, thanks.

... 2. Failing that is it feasible to go completely off grid?

In our township there are already three homes that are completely off-grid.

One with a windmill on a 150' tower [with lights], and two that include both wind and solar [both of these homes hate their wind setups].

The windmill guy has a 120v home. The other two both have 12vdc homes.

... As it stands you are operating and paying for two complete power systems. Unfortunately the grid is usually the cheaper option. However as supply security is clearly important to you then the addtional cost is a lower priority. Hence upspec the solar to run your entire operation, and save the daily line charge, and unhook. Much will depend on how you grid power pricing works. A high daily line charge would be worth saving, but if its low, then maybe not. This will involve some demand managment by the sounds of it, your power use is by no means low, or suitable for off grid. You would need to find a nother heat source for the greenhouse, of which there are many.

3. Use both systems on a dual redundant basis. Expect to not be able to run some things when grid is down. Pay for battery replacement, and the grid charges. This is the most expensive option, even if it does give you those benefits for supply security. For this will also need either a radian or XW, something that can handle the required islanding. Unless you happy with manual transfer.

While option one is the most promising, based on cost and outcome, and i think option 3 is kinda crazy, youd need deep pockets for that one, if it was me id probably go option 2. Thats just me, i value independence higher, than a straight cost comparision. And, it wont be that long before off grid solar is cost comparable to grid, and from that point onward you win. Mean time you get some experience running the system, the batterys get some exercise, which they need, and perhaps most interestingly, discovering ways to manage your loads to be more conservation focused, which is long term more sustainable.

Thank you.

Organic Farmer · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Thank you, everyone.

niel · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

if all you say about the hefty costs and road blocks to be grid tied are true, i can see why so many have opted for off grid. use the off grid setup and when the batteries run low switch back to the grid. the inverter can be an outback hybrid and if you feel bold you can engage the sell feature every now and then to just offset some usage that way, but most of the savings would be realized in the off grid use or they might become suspicious and pop a surprise inspection for fraud if they see the meter running backward or the meter showing a lower kwh usage number.

i agree you should talk to ryan on the matter, but i believe he is totally off grid up there so i'm not sure how much he could help you to get a gt connection

vtmaps · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

niel wrote: »

if you feel bold you can engage the sell feature every now and then to just offset some usage that way, but most of the savings would be realized in the off grid use or they might become suspicious and pop a surprise inspection for fraud if they see the meter running backward or the meter showing a lower kwh usage number.

Or just as likely (depends upon your meter), your meter will run forward when you sell... you get to pay for the power you donate to your power company.

--vtMaps

Alaska Man · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

When I first got set up (in another location before here) I ran an extention chord through the woods to my brothers place next door and used the grid for my generator. Needless to say I did a lot of "Float" charging. It's amazing how much closer one will watch the charge cycle when a generator is running compared to the grid. :-)

Organic Farmer · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Photowhit wrote: »

... Likely a Midnite Classic charge controller will handle the charging, your right at the capacity of it but in a reserve situation I don't think it would make sense to add another.

I read the manual for the 'Midnite Classic charge-controller 150 MPPT'.

Looking at the sizing chart, it looks to me like I would need two of them.

Say 10 Panels; 5 strings of 2 panels in parallel each, all 5 strings in series, to feed each charge-controller.

A total of 20 panels feeding 2 charge-controllers, both feeding a battery bank.

'Follow-me' mode looks interesting, and the computer interface looks like it would really allow a person to geek-out trying to tweek it.

However I do not see any option here for a generator or grid input to be allowed to charge the batteries. Or any kind of surfing between solar-power and other-sourced power.

Cariboocoot · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Generator or grid does not charge through a charge controller: they are strictly for PV or turbines. Inverter-chargers have built-in AC power chargers to make use of gen or utility power.

The Classic 150 can handle 80 Amps output. On a 48 Volt system that's (80 * 48 / 0.77) 4987 Watts. On a 24 Volt system that's (80 * 24 / 0.77) 2493 Watts. You would be best served by a 48 Volt system at those power levels.

ZoNiE · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

vtmaps wrote: »

Or just as likely (depends upon your meter), your meter will run forward when you sell... you get to pay for the power you donate to your power company.

--vtMaps

Well, that would suck...

I lived in Maine for two years. Hard place to earn a living. They call it taxationland for a reason. High property taxes (4X for half the house I have in AZ), high income tax, high sales tax, high vehicle tax, toll road, etc. etc. I totally believe that GT would be prohibitive there. Place is as backwards as you can get.

Organic Farmer · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

ZoNiE wrote: »

Well, that would suck...

I lived in Maine for two years. Hard place to earn a living. They call it taxationland for a reason. High property taxes (4X for half the house I have in AZ), high income tax, high sales tax, high vehicle tax, toll road, etc. etc. I totally believe that GT would be prohibitive there. Place is as backwards as you can get.

Maine's economy is depressed and has been for many decades. There are very few jobs, and jobs here pay low.

I have never heard the phrase: "taxationland" used here before.

High property taxes: Our new home [2007] is 2400 sq ft and we pay ~ $600/year for it. We have 150 acres of forest, with 1/4 mile of river frontage, which is taxed at $1.05/acre. So for our land we pay ~ $157.50/year.

High income tax: I do not pay income taxes. I do not earn enough income to pay income taxes. Though I am well above the poverty line. Here we have a 'Standard Deduction' and a 'Personal Exemption', you AGI must be high enough to exceed both of those before any of your income begins to become taxed. My income is less, so I pay no income taxes. Our township is small, I know about half of my neighbors. From those I know, maybe 30% earn high enough income to begin to paying income taxes. The majority of people here do not pay income taxes, only the wealthy do that.

High sales tax: Our sales taxes when compared to the nation-wide statistics are close to average nation-wide.

High vehicle tax: I pay $15 for my motorcycle, $30/year for my truck. My wife has a new Prius, she pays around $150/year [though keep in mind excise taxes go down every year, it is based on the age of the vehicle]

Toll road: We live in the Southern half of Maine. However we are still over 2 hour drive from the nearest toll road.
I may drive on a toll road once/year, for that a $1.50 toll does not frighten me.

GT is prohibitive here. Power bills are in two halves; power generation and transmission. You can spin-backwards to reduce the generation part of the bill; beyond that and they add up a credit. The credit is only good for 1-year. After a year the credit vanishes. You still pay the taxes and transmission parts of the bill. Of course you pay for the Utilities to inspect your system design, and to come out and inspect your system.

Maine is one of the places where you can trap, hunt and fish for a living. You can feed yourself entirely from foraging.

If you earn minimum-wage, you can buy a home and support a wife. Start making children and you will need assistance. However 2 adults making minimum-wage is plenty enough to raise a family here.

I have spoken some more with off-grid neighbors. 2 of them are on 12vdc systems that they setup decades ago, and 2 of them are using 120vac systems. I think we have it worked out now. I will be back when I have more questions. It is nice living in a township with so many folks who have been off-grid for a long time.

Thank you.

Photowhit · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

A wonderful insight into your community!

ZoNiE · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Interesting contrast. I really liked Maine, but I lived in Portland from 1997-2000. Sounds like you live nowhere near Portland... The more rural part of the state is definitely lower cost of living, but anywhere near Portland was typical of any New England city, with few high paying employers. $200K bought much less house out there than many other places, but then real estate nationwide is nuts now... Many of my coworkers commuted in from the outskirts. They had really nice properties, but 1-2 hr drive each way to work in the winter for 12 Hr shifts was not for me. I lived 3 miles from work. Paid more for less, but didn't commute.

They used to make a sticker that fit over the "vacationland" slogan on the old squashed lobstah license plates...

Organic Farmer · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

ZoNiE wrote: »

Interesting contrast. I really liked Maine, but I lived in Portland from 1997-2000. Sounds like you live nowhere near Portland... The more rural part of the state is definitely lower cost of living, but anywhere near Portland was typical of any New England city, with few high paying employers. $200K bought much less house out there than many other places, but then real estate nationwide is nuts now... Many of my coworkers commuted in from the outskirts. They had really nice properties, but 1-2 hr drive each way to work in the winter for 12 Hr shifts was not for me. I lived 3 miles from work. Paid more for less, but didn't commute.

They used to make a sticker that fit over the "vacationland" slogan on the old squashed lobstah license plates...

I am still in the Southern half of Maine, but around 3 hour drive from Portland. Well over 50% of the state population lives in a small radius around Portland. The rest of the state is fairly rural. Where I live we have around 10 people per square-mile.

Low cost-of-living, low taxes, land is cheap, houses are fairly low priced. I am from California, but with my small pension there is no way I could afford to live there, except in a cardboard box. Here I have a huge home on 150 acres in dense forest.

If a person 'needs' to be earning $80k or more, then you have to go somewhere else. But if your happy to be outdoors and do not have any 'need' for lots of money, you can live here on very small income. I have had friends who think they 'need' $100k/year, even if they lived in a region where $15k covered everything, they would still insist that they needed $100k. For those people, they can choose any of the other 49 states.

ZoNiE · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Sounds like a nice spread. I wanted something like that but anything within the distance I was willing to drive was too much $$$.

Organic Farmer · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

I originally bought 20 panels [a full pallet]. Now that I will be using strings of 3, I will have two spare panels. I spent half a day searching for 1 panel to match these panels, in the hope of making another string.

I called the solar installers in my state. None of them have any spare panels. They say that they only buy in 3's, because they never want to be caught with spare left-over panels.

While talking to one of them, I asked, so okay if I am going to have 2 extra panels, is there any aux thing I can do with them? He suggested that a string of 2 with a cheap charge-controller to make 48vdc, could be wired to the battery-bank. As a separate input.

Now, I am thinking, wouldn't that need to be ganged with the primary charge-controller, so the primary charge-controller could 'control' what is happening?

jcheil · July 2014

Re: Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

Organic Farmer wrote: »

I originally bought 20 panels [a full pallet]. Now that I will be using strings of 3, I will have two spare panels. I spent half a day searching for 1 panel to match these panels, in the hope of making another string.

I called the solar installers in my state. None of them have any spare panels. They say that they only buy in 3's, because they never want to be caught with spare left-over panels.

While talking to one of them, I asked, so okay if I am going to have 2 extra panels, is there any aux thing I can do with them? He suggested that a string of 2 with a cheap charge-controller to make 48vdc, could be wired to the battery-bank. As a separate input.

Now, I am thinking, wouldn't that need to be ganged with the primary charge-controller, so the primary charge-controller could 'control' what is happening?

With the price of panels being so cheap, and the chances of finding matching panels in the future slim, I bought a spare when I got my first batch and will get a spare on the next batch (getting next week). Just for insurance. They sit in the garage doing nothing. But it makes me FEEL better knowing they are there

Questions from a guy living in the woods of Maine.

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