Solar / Wind home power

B

big-air

New Member
Location
western great lakes
Has any one done this?
I have 6 large solar panels 450 watts each, 1000 watt wind turbine, and 26 6V deep cycle batteries.
Other than winter this powers 85% of my home. The solar is great but the wind was disappointing.
If the sun is out the solar will top the batteries off in 4 to 5 hours and that runs things with power to spare
over 24 hours. If we have no sun or wind we can go about 4 days Plus / Minus dropping the batteries to 50%
At which time we need to charge or risk hurting the batteries performance. With the inverter we have we can
run from the grid or batteries, so if needed we can charge / maintain with grid power.
Just curious to see if others are out there.
 

We have lived in our house for over 20 years. We looked into solar panels twice during that time. They were simply not cost effective for us. It would have taken us too long to get the initial investment back. And the last time we talked to a solar representative, we found out we would not be totally off the grid anyway. We would still be paying the electric utility a monthly rate, it would just be reduced.

I would like to know what your initial outlay for all that was.

On the other hand, we have an outbuilding on our acreage that is solar powered. It is really just a pole barn with a gravel floor that we store things in. My husband put up a solar panel that powers the lights inside and a charger. He can use it to power a trickle charger, etc. That set up is working just fine.
 
Uptosnuff said:
We have lived in our house for over 20 years. We looked into solar panels twice during that time. They were simply not cost effective for us. It would have taken us too long to get the initial investment back. And the last time we talked to a solar representative, we found out we would not be totally off the grid anyway. We would still be paying the electric utility a monthly rate, it would just be reduced.

I would like to know what your initial outlay for all that was.

On the other hand, we have an outbuilding on our acreage that is solar powered. It is really just a pole barn with a gravel floor that we store things in. My husband put up a solar panel that powers the lights inside and a charger. He can use it to power a trickle charger, etc. That set up is working just fine.
Click to expand...
Hi first I want to say we did it for two reasons 1) In the event we lose grid power temporary loss or longer we can / will still have power.
Where we live it is a thing great to have. 2) Reduce or eliminate electric bill.
OK so we decided to keep our electric stove and water heater on the grid. Also a 240V outlet in the garage for a wielder. Because more batteries would be needed to operate those items. All ells in the house is on solar / wind with the inverter as the hart of the system. depending on how I set it determines where it takes power from - Batteries or Grid. Wind I would not recommend unless you can erect a 60 foot plus tower, or you are on a mountain top, or water front property. My solar does all the real work and wind is a little extra help. I would not do wind if I were to do it over.
We have just under 30,K in it 8 months out of the year our electric cost 30 - 40 dollars a month other months of the year we run 90 to 130.00 a month. So we save some money. But our real purpose for putting solar / wind in was to have power if the power grid were to fail. With no need for fuel to run a generator.
As far as installing it I did all the work, and bought the componetnts on line after a bit of study. I have some photos I may post in the future.
 

We have a Son-in-Law who is an executive for a solar power company....mostly commercial buildings. A few years ago, he gave us an estimate of the costs to go "off the grid". The area we live in has lots of cloudy days...especially in the Winter. We would have to install quite a few extra batteries to keep the current flowing during extended periods of minimal sunshine. We have a total electric house, and belong to a rural electric co-op with rates of slightly over 7cents/KWH. so our monthly electric bill...over a yearly average....is about $200 a month. Given the SIL's "minimal profit" cost for such a system, it would take over 10 years to "break even"....at which time many of the batteries might need to be replaced....at a fairly high cost.

Instead, I opted for a basic 6500 watt generator, which is enough to keep the lights, refrigerator, TV, etc., going. The generator would not be strong enough to run the water heater, stove, furnace, etc., but in the 20 years we've lived here, we have only had 2 or 3 outages that lasted more than a few minutes....the worst one being 18 hours. I run the generator for a few minutes every month to make sure its ready to go, IF we need it. In addition, we live in a dense forest, so I have an endless supply of firewood to feed an outdoor wood furnace we installed shortly after moving here. It supplies 90% of our Winter heat....and the labor of chain sawing and splitting the wood gives me plenty of physical labor to help keep this old body fairly fit. Over the years, the savings in Winter heating costs have paid for the furnace, my chainsaws, and log splitter, and much of the price I paid for my Kubota tractor.

Bottom line....given the climate/area we live in, solar would Not be very practical, for us.
 
Don M. said:
We have a Son-in-Law who is an executive for a solar power company....mostly commercial buildings. A few years ago, he gave us an estimate of the costs to go "off the grid". The area we live in has lots of cloudy days...especially in the Winter. We would have to install quite a few extra batteries to keep the current flowing during extended periods of minimal sunshine. We have a total electric house, and belong to a rural electric co-op with rates of slightly over 7cents/KWH. so our monthly electric bill...over a yearly average....is about $200 a month. Given the SIL's "minimal profit" cost for such a system, it would take over 10 years to "break even"....at which time many of the batteries might need to be replaced....at a fairly high cost.

Instead, I opted for a basic 6500 watt generator, which is enough to keep the lights, refrigerator, TV, etc., going. The generator would not be strong enough to run the water heater, stove, furnace, etc., but in the 20 years we've lived here, we have only had 2 or 3 outages that lasted more than a few minutes....the worst one being 18 hours. I run the generator for a few minutes every month to make sure its ready to go, IF we need it. In addition, we live in a dense forest, so I have an endless supply of firewood to feed an outdoor wood furnace we installed shortly after moving here. It supplies 90% of our Winter heat....and the labor of chain sawing and splitting the wood gives me plenty of physical labor to help keep this old body fairly fit. Over the years, the savings in Winter heating costs have paid for the furnace, my chainsaws, and log splitter, and much of the price I paid for my Kubota tractor.

Bottom line....given the climate/area we live in, solar would Not be very practical, for us.
Click to expand...
I'm just curious as to what others might be doing. We must certainly evaluate things before jumping in. My solar I am delighted with but the wind has been a disappointment. When the wind gets it turning it will do 9 to 15 amps the problem is it needs to do 20 to 30 amps. My tower is a bit over 50 feet high, at 70 feet it might produce more often with longer periods of production. But that is pretty high and it makes me uneasy. So it will stay as it is ---- looks good and it does add even though it is not a ton.
Last year our power was out close to a week so it was nice to have. A heavy storm put trees down and power lines with them.
I can relate to wood heat we do that to saves a bunch on the fuel bill. Got lots of big hard woods here.
 
Got a Files button - Wanted to add some photos but could not do it before when I created the post. So I'll get them up now.
The deer I thinks you can sot the, but another photo is of wild turkey in the back yard. Do you see them?

No photos - did not work as expected
 
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Fudged that.. no photos So I'll try again
1) controls solar / wind and battery bank 26 / 6volt batteries 2) wind & solar, 3) solar panels 6ea. x 450 watts total 2700 watts,
4) wind tower 50 feet and the wind turbine 1000 watts, and 5) wild turkey back yard.
 

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Lethe200 said:
We have solar panels, but not worth our installing a whole house battery system. 14 panels generate about 2/3 to 3/4 of our electricity. Saves us a bunch as rates are very high here and going even higher in future years.
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We are very happy with the solar the wind we could have left alone. We have refrigerator, Freezer, all lights, 2 TVs, 2 Computers, and well pump on the solar/wind. The things not on it are stove, and hot water tank. Our heat is oil fired boiler hot water baseboard so it does not count. In the winter we run on the utility if it should go down the inverter will switch to the batteries automatically. Spring, summer, and fall we use the solar and wind. Our inverter gives us the option of batteries or utility. If we are on batteries and have to many bad days the inverter will pull from the utility to keep the batteries at a safe state of charge.
I assume your solar panels are 1to 3 hundred watts each?
 
Well it happened 6:30 this morning our power from the utility went out and is out as I type this.
We are now running on our battery power.
Big snow all of last night is supposed to continue through the day and tomorrow and accumulation of over
12 inches. We have a downed tree in the yard and one threatening it also will end up in the yard. I look for many more
to hit the ground in our area. The power will be out for a while.
 
Utility power is still out from yesterday morning. Not sure when it will be back on we got about 2 feet of snow yesterday
and another 2 feet today it is stopping now. Anything bad I may have said about the wind turbine I take bake.
It has maintained our batteries from the time the power went out yesterday. We have been running the TV, computer, lights,
and refrigerator. The reading on our battery bank is 26.2 volts on a 24 volt system. For those who do not know about voltage
and battery banks a 24 volt system is 100% at 27.4 volts. Oh and we are heating and cooking with the wood stove so things
are cozy.
 

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