Going off grid may seam a big deal, but its easier to do than you think?
If you have a farm, horses or live stock and no power where you are, then getting power can be either a noisy affair or very expensive. perhaps you have a generator that runs out of fuel or requires too much work, we have all been there… Solar could be the answer.
RenewSolar has a large number of off grid small holdings across the uk and were good at it, the common reason is that grid power installations cost upwards of £16,000 for most, so having your own, regular, working power is now easy. buy a kit, have a consultation, you install, we install its up to you…
Going off Grid
Going off grid or making your own grid is laudable since the price of power or installation is high, while the cost of off grid is low and not really on going. off grid hardware cost vary but there are some things that you need to consider before you start down that path.
is solar enough?
solar works from the sun, we live in England and the sun can be shy a lot of the time. Light works too, but its just not as good. The array needed is big if you intend to be “just solar” and its also not a redundant format. We recommend a genset back up rather than making a massive solar array. Solar is feast and famine.
Storing power.
while the sun makes solar work during the day, the evening, winter and nights will require storage. aka the battery. LFP are common in home installations but depending on your environment, they make NOT work for you. ( sorry we go beyond myths and marketing) LFP does not work well in the cold so out buildings may need to be heated, or a heating solution for the battery packs. lead acid is cheaper it works as well.
Solar and power required?
Working out what power you need is key to building the system to budget. lets run through some scenarios.
Lighting – stable lights led + Yard lights
Heating – stable infrareds, water heating, tack room heating.
Comfort – Radio, Fridge, TV, internet, AC /Cooling, Kettle.
Security – CCTV
When we need heat and light, is always the time when the suns not out and while the stock may not want the internet, the cctv will. You will need to find the power and then multiply this by the time its used. You also need to know the peak power required, when everything is on.
the peak will dictate the inverter power, the total power used will dictate the battery size and this will give you the array ( panels) you will need.
Solar year and the array.
we use a common average to work out the solar power though the year, or experience, there are 275 sunny days a year, there are 90 days of winter.
Summer 8 hours, Winter 2 hours, Autumn and spring 4 hours.
The array needs to charge the battery within the time and therefore the array must be sized to do that AND power any loads in the day. then add 35% for fixed array, and lower this by 30% for solar trackers.
Our Advise is to split the array for summer and winter as you can get up to 50% more power.
Go to the off grid solar starter shop page
if our daily power requirement is 14kwh. we would need a battery around 14kwh. Wrong. depending on the battery type, we could need 28kwh. We sell 15kWh batteries so say two of these.
we will set the used power to 15kWh. therefore we need to make power for winter , in two hours that’s 7Kw for the array.
This is fairly futile so lets look at 4 hours, the gen can add power and the array can be smaller. 3.75Kw array. This is much smaller and the array size would be 3.4m by 4.2m
Within the setting out of the power, I already know that the peak will be around 8kw, so lets have two 5kw inverters.
How much maybe?
about £6,000 This does not include mounting and other hardware to make it all work or installation.
This gives you, 10Kw inverter, 30Kwh storage and 5kw of solar. but that is that scenario, lets now go to the home off grid Starter kits….
Home Off grid starter kits.
The home is your castle and how you use your home and what’s there will dictate what you will need to have. electrical heating is going to be a no no.
Rory Witham the fountain of useless knowledge.
Did you know that in Italy, The homes grid power is mostly limited to 3kw?
Imagine running your home on this power? you could not have everything on at the same time…
The UK home connections are usual 100amp that’s 24,000 watts and that’s 8 times more power.
For most homes you are likely to see shower peaks of 8 kw, your normal loads should be under 1kw, and general peaks will be around 7kw. You will need a minimum of a 5kw inverter as the kettle and fridge would peak to 3750w.
Homes should draw around 7kWh a day. family homes double this where the washing machine in always in use. it is also a good idea to over size storage for bad sun, and events that may use power.
So lets say a 15kWh battery, and a 5kw inverter.
Solar arrays should be about 7.5kw for winter however we will use the 4 hour calculation and use 4kw.
How much? £3,238 again excluding all the small parts needed to make it work, and mounting system.
RETURNS
if you are off grid then the cost of installation is north of £15,000 you then have standing charge (187.87 Pa) unit charge (£1697.25 pa) so you have already made a saving, but lets look at the on going costs and savings as the system will last over ten years. yearly the total would be £1885.12. So that’s £18,851.20
Looking at the figures, the ROI is Zero days, or we could say a little over two years.
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