Understanding Your Use

Understanding your use is critical

Working through your energy use is the first step. We have put together some scenarios to help you understand what is needed and the possible energy consumed in the home. The system below was designed to allow for the use of 13kwh daily and 13.4kwh after hours, of course this is dependent on your daily use and the seasonal condition for charging the battery units.
The graph below shows a battery storage unit that is grid connected, the battery stored energy is used when the solar system isn’t generating enough energy to meet the demand reducing grid dependence and energy costs.
If you want to be Off Grid totally you will need to know exactly what appliances you intend to use and when including any water pumps or sewage system demand.

WE HAVE SYSTEM CALCULATORS ON REQUEST TO ASSIST.

Suggestions:

Anything with and motor where possible should be an inverter type or soft start, inverter type appliances use significantly less energy and avoid high inrush current which in some cases can be 7 times the operating current, in short its wasted energy and creates heat.
Solar Hot water is a good option, but if the roof has enough space and the inverter installed has the added capacity it might be a lot more cost effective to install added solar panels and have the HW service operate between 10am and 2Pm each day when the solar system is at its best, the solar energy will charge the HW system during this period, the idea Is to simply reduce your outlay, a HW unit will be around $5,000 a standard HW tank around $1,000 so possibly saving you $4,000.
LED lights are ideal including flood lights, try not to have the flood lights overly sensitive or they will continuously turn off and on taking valuable battery storage capacity.
Tint the windows to reduce thermal heat penetration.
Insulate the walls and roof space
Gas cooking is very practical but where deliver or costs is excessive a well designed battery storage system will cover the energy use. This is link to operating site with full electricity use no gas no other energy source.

Before you invest there some things we would like to share so you get as much from your solar system and battery storage unit as possible, below is some information to help understand solar and its best use.

Solar Power works naturally when the sun rises and sets, early morning will see the energy produced from the solar system increase as the sun rises allowing for more energy to be consumed directly from the solar system, early and late in the afternoon a solar system will have very low actual real power to supply on demand and as result will see what is being produced from the solar system used and any remaining demand will have to come from the grid this isn’t ideal given that most homes have a working family between the best hours of solar production meaning most of the solar energy is sent back to the grid giving you very little relief from grid use and energy charges.

Graph # 1 shows a typical home daily power use, the solar production far outweighs the demand so 80% is exported and absolute waste of your solar power.

Graph #2 shows a home with moderate energy use during the day struggles to use all the solar energy produced, in this example what we call the base load or demand didn’t exceed 2,200 watts but the solar produced 5,000 watts sending 55% of your solar energy to the grid again home battery storage system would have captured this surplus.

Graph #3 shows a home with high daily use will still see a high percentage exported, battery storage will again capture this energy for use when needed.

The inclusion of a battery storage solution whether an off grid power unit or home energy grid connect system will enable you to capture the solar energy while you are not at home or any surplus energy produced even while you are home to be stored and used on demand when you need it below is an example is a battery storage unit at work, the load to the home was supplied by the solar and surplus captured for later use.

Graph # 4 shows Load shifting is also important, if you can manage to move your heavy loads such as appliances for cleaning or washing to after 10Am and before 2Pm and include such things as your pool or water pumps this will help reduce the battery capacity needed in your home battery system, batteries are the single most costly part of a battery storage of off grid power system so smart load shifting will reduce battery quantity and battery storage prices.

Going to stand alone power isn’t complicated, if you size your solar system and batteries and install an expandable battery storage system you will feel comfortable enough to disconnect from the grid and have a truly stand alone solar system and home battery storage unit.