I should start with saying this summer has been wild weather and not best suited for this post! but for some the summer has been somewhat sunny. But none the less, lets talk about our off grid solar kit that comes in at less than £1700.
What is the difference between off grid and grid tied or hybrid solar installations?
Firstly the cost, grid type inverters have a lot of legal and certification and hops that tend to up the price a lot, making it more expensive off grid does NOT require a grid connection and will work on its own, yes the others tend to not work when the powers out. I think the easy way to explain is grid forming and grid parallel.
Why this kit?
With a power out put of 3KW this is ideal for small homes and light use. its not going to run an electric shower, cooker and kettle .. they are 8.1 + 2.2 +2.1 Kw; that’s about 12kw but for most homes with no shower or just a water pump, and if you don’t have the oven and kettle on at the same time this is ideal, most home loads are around 400-600w as side from the big use items.
So now the down side is out of the way, lets get to the good points….
Off grid solar means that you can live without the grid, no standing charge, and what you make is yours and there is no on going fee. You are looking at around a 10 year life from the kit, therefore we could say that for the decade your energy bill will be £170 a year.
While that sounds great, its not going to happen, you will need to support the system in the winter, with a generator as often off grid in the UK will only provide you power from March to October. You will fair okay in February and November too. but you will need something to cover you for at least 90 days of the year. That can be the grid or a generator.
The kit has a ATS, this ATS is a transfer switch which allows you to switch between grid and your off grid power, you could also run the generator, but this gives you flexibility in the power you use and does so safety.
Batteries are included.
The kit has a small battery- 5.2kwh (LFP) one of the big costs of solar is the battery, and here you can see we have included the battery and normally you would pay the price just of the battery if not more!
Panels are included (3) but you may want to consider more to carry out over for the winter. it will be down to the use case you have in mind, however the 1.27kw of solar panels may need to be doubled during winter. But the kit is designed to be used during the summer, and grid during the winter.
If you are looking for a more robust off grid system then this is not. head over to the off grid section of this website shop. or articles on off grid solar
What sort of run time would this have?
If you have a load around 400W, which is fairly typical during normal hours, and dropping to around 250watts over night. this would work out to be 5600w + 2500w (8.1kwh a day).
Between 18:00 and 06:00 the total power could be 433w per hour from the battery.
in summer the solar array could provide up to 10.2Kwh of solar a day. This gives you a running power of 413w per hour while charging the battery.
Can you upgrade?
if you have this kit, upgrading would be limited, its a 24v system, and while you could add batteries the consideration is charging them from the solar. you would have to add an array and charge controller to make the system have more capacity. You should consider a larger 48v off grid solar system if you do not think that you are operate within the system, which would be a average of 400W load.
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