Solar on the Homestead & Reducing Your Energy Consumption
In March 2016, we installed a 7.5 KW photovoltaic system, that comprises of thirty x 250 Watt Solar panels, an Outback Power Inverter system and 12 x 4 volt 1104 Amp Hour Flooded Batteries. The idea of this system is twofold: to produce power and sell it to the grid, and to establish comprehensive off-grid capabilities.
t30 x 250 Watt Solar panels
How Our System Works
We have an agreement with New Brunswick Power. They apply a credit to our account that offsets future bills. This is called net metering. Our energy needs are served with solar power, when possible. If not, we get grid power. When the grid is down, we run off of battery power. When the batteries are full and we have excess solar production, it gets fed to the grid, offsetting our grid utilization costs. Should we choose to, we can disconnect from the grid any time.
Performance to Date
Everything has been working flawlessly. We have had no problems with this system. We are pleasantly surprised by how well the system is running (knock on wood). When the system was new, there was a small software glitch pertaining to the reporting of the battery level status, but this was fixed in a software update. I expected the system to be complicated
and finicky but it's been really steady and reliable.
Outback Power Inverter system
Here are some of the benefits we get from this system
- Small power outages do not affect us at all, we don't even notice them
- Extended power outages have not impacted us
- Flawless power feed off of the batteries: no longer blowing any light bulbs
- Monthly power bills are significantly lower
- Exposure to power rate increases is reduced
- We can disconnect from the grid entirely & generate our own power
Reducing Your Energy Consumption
My husband has spent quite a bit of time monitoring and fine tuning our energy usage. He's got it down to knowing exactly how many watts of electricity we use, what each appliance draws and so forth. I am most often the cause of his graphs and charts spiking :)
12 x 4 volt 1104 Amp Hour Flooded Batteries
When you actually see how much money you are throwing away or "donating to the power company" you become quite motivated to eliminate energy wastage. Here is a quote from my husband @xwalkran on energy consumption:
I cannot underscore how important this part is. Your energy awareness and philosophy must be correct if you are going to ever successfully make a go of the energy limitations of a reasonable sized solar array and battery bank. The panels and batteries and inverters .. those are just tools. If you ask too much of them, they will not work for you. Trust me when I say that the most important part of solar design is you, and your energy use. Start there.
Appliances
For the most part we are running regular appliances, though high efficiency. We've just ordered a new stove that is entirely propane and the only problem appliance we really have is the clothes drier. We hang clothes on the line as much as possible and always look at the energy draw of any appliance before we buy it. We are also running a wood furnace rather than the electric system. This results in a draw of less than 1kw in the winter time. The furnace runs Nov-March and in the shoulder months we run the small wood stove in the house. My husband runs low power computers and we keep fine tuning things so that if we want to disconnect from the grid it won't be a problem to do so.
Image: Pixabay
Things You Can Do
There are energy measurement tools such as the Kill A Watt, e-Gauge(Amazon Affiliate link) that we've found extremely useful. It's really easy to use. Plug whatever item you want into the device and it will tell you the kilowatt per hour that it uses.
You can also look at things like:
- Low voltage computers & electronics
- Turn off the television
- LED light bulbs
- Gas stove, wood stove, non electric appliances
- Energy efficient appliances
- Propane/gas appliances
- Washing lines
- Unplug things that aren't in use
- Mindfulness
Even if you aren't planning on installing solar, changing your habits will save you money and benefit you in the long run!
Thanks for sharing, inspiring! I'm going to share a tip that may be helpful for others in specific situations.... I recently returned from a stay at an eco village in Jamaica. They requested we turn the refrigerator off at night to keep prevent the solar batteries from running out. I came up with a solution to keep the small amount of food I had very cold throughout the night (in a hot climate)... I turned the freezer into a cooler! I filled a big pitcher with water and froze it during the day. At night, when the unit was off, I put my foods in the freezer with the giant ice block. It worked wonderfully!
I know some people who use coolers for refrigeration year round. They make it work for them! That was a great idea, thanks for sharing.
Very use full methods to decrease your energy waste. Our family has put some solar panel on our roof a couple of years ago. We use the energy for heating water. 9 out of 12 months our water is heated by solar energy only!
That's really impressive!
Have you figured out how many years it will take to pay for the system? I think it is an amazing idea. Thank you for sharing
Initially we did calculate this but I can't recall what we determined. 8 years maybe? Since installing it power rates have increased three times in our province and they are announcing another hike soon. Our provincial taxes also went up. It's crazy.
I wanted to mention that I was totally wrong about 8 years. It's quite a bit more than that. Probably double. I totally have no idea why I thought that.
This post set my heart aflame.
Thank you : )
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I wish solar was a better option here in Alaska but the days are too short in the winter. What is your total cost in your system and where do you store it?
We have an unheated building that everything is stored in. Batteries & this gear can withstand fairly cold temps. I've seen some news reports sharing some solar installations in Northern Canada (Northwest Territories and Nunavut both). It would be interesting to get updates from them on how it's been.
I grew up in Yellowknife so I understand your concerns. This CBC article is a bit older but you might be able to dig for more recent updates. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/n-w-t-solar-energy-surges-in-popularity-1.3128538
Thank you for the information. I will defiantly be looking into it more.
You got a typo in your main category ''homesteadiung'' :) Great article
thank for pointing that out. I had noticed and changed it but It seems you can't edit the first one so it's stuck like that forever.
I think it's great that you can sell power back to the grid. We have a similar system in our state, except our land is so remote there are no power-lines to connect to. They'll have to be constructed which will take time and effort. Which is why we're considering using only solar and having all our appliances run on DC current that taxes the battery and system way less than converting it to AC. Turning off light switches and unused appliances is something that has been ingrained into us as kids. You've mentioned some great ways to curb energy wastage. This was quite an inspiring read.
It sounds like you've got a great plan in place!
We've talked about disconnecting from the grid entirely but we live in a cold climate and have a lot of overcast/dark days in the winter. Wintertime would tax the batteries and we would end up having to run the generator and use fuel to recharge them quite often in the winter months. We'd like to disconnect, and love knowing that if we need to we can ... we are still trying to find that perfect balance.