Thanks, BB. I do realize that I'm kind of getting the cart before the horse, and the information I gave was incomplete. Here's my problem. We've bought land to build our earth home (underground), and we're presently living in a 100 year old frame/stick built house. We're also presently using electric AC, water heater, oven, desk top computer, sump pump, basement dehumidifier, etc. When I try to estimate our future use, the heating and cooling will be non-existant (wood heat when needed, and we're going to install an LG split combo AC/heat unit that will run off of the 960w Evergreen panels we have, if ever needed. Probably not), and the well pump will be a high efficiency Grunfoss flex, and may be hooked up to it's own panels, too. So as of now, I'm going with the amount we're living on now, with the idea that anything we have extra is good. We will have a high efficiency air exchanger, though I don't know exactly what draw it will have, since we're not there yet to know how many hours a day it will need to run, if at all. So my biggest problem is estimating our use when we get there.

Right now, I've just about decided to forego lead acid batteries for either LiFePo or Nickel Edison's. I'm 61 and my wife is 56, and I'd just as soon not have to worry about a new set every 7-10 years (or the work of moving them multiple times), and the lithium's would keep us from the maintenance (watering, venting, corrosion, equalizing, and paying for replacements), so that's almost settled.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the process of how to wire these modules into a usable 48v configuration that will fit whatever 48v battery bank and my 48v dual inverter system? From what I've read in books, the defunct Homepower magazine, forums such as this one, et. al., the voltage coming into the combiner can't be over that 48v limit, and these panels are rated at 33.3Vmpp and 40.8Voc. That seems to me that none could be run in series, and all would have to be run parallel. What am I missing here? This isn't rocket science, but it's got me confused.

Just the idea that we are going from a full blown 'wasteful' grid electric home (our heat is gas here), to a completely different end of the spectrum is really giving me head spins. For example, our recent June electric bill shows we've used 5,785kwh in 6 months (January-June). I believe our year end total for 2018 was 11,000kwh, or 12 months of use. I'm now in the process of designing our new home, which will be 2400sf of living space with 900sf of 3 bay garage. All under 3-4' of soil except for the southern face. I'm still mapping out outlets, lights, water and sewer lines, and aside from knowing we'll be using LED lights, I'm still not sure what our estimated use will be. Although we've bought our LG inverter compressor fridge, and we'll have a Peerless Premier gas stove with battery powered ignitors for efficiency. And, yes, we'll have a propane powered back up generator, an Olympia 11kw unit that was a back up unit for a remote Bell telephone installation. Sorry about all this info overload.

But I planned on doing this 15 years ago, but an injuries from my job in the Ironworkers has had me sitting and waiting for the lawyers on the work comp, social security and second injury fund to come to a settlement. I've been waiting till this was done to actually make any real moves to get started. We just bought the property last fall after the settlement was finalized. So! Even though I'm not ready to get out there and wire this system up, now is the time to ask questions and educate myself. I haven't even installed my ground array steel yet. How do people figure out what is the correct configuration of modules in an 8kw system?? It seems to me that given the module info and the system voltage they have to feed would be the first step in lining up the rest of the system, eventually, would it not? My equipment is bought and paid for, short of the variation on the controllers and the battery bank. What's it take to get the panels linked up to feed it?