DIY Solar

[Southerner]

I am interested in installing a solar array. I have been following Kolob Canyons Ranch in Utah on YouTube and have reached out to Practical Preppers in South Carolina. I want to build a ground mount system and have reached out to numerous companies in the PCBE but have not heard back from them...I assume they are Amish. Does anyone on here have solar? I need an 80kW system.

[Neto]

We had a solar array in the village in Brazil. First panel installed in 1987. Later added another panel on the house, and in 92 set up a second solar array on a building we put up as a school building for our own children. (Before that, their school desks were in the 'public room' in our house, and if our children got up to use the bathroom, some of the people would often take their chair. Just trying to do school work with other conversations going on in the same room was bad enough.)

The main thing I'd say is to match the capacity of the other components to the array. We were in a setting where there was no power available at all, so we didn't have any of the equipment that charges back into the grid, so ours was very simple in comparison to what you are probably asking about. But I used a photovoltaic charge controller device (by MorningStar Corp) that would disconnect the load if the battery got too low. It had an indicator panel that showed the battery charge status, so you could monitor the input vs load. Of course other than the two-way radio we used to communicate with the mission center we used the battery primarily for basic lighting after dark. Also powered the laptop with it, and had a 12VDC printer as well. This system was capable of 24VDC, but I never set it up that way. It was a very small amperage system, at 20 amps, with 16 amps load.

https://www.morningstarcorp.com/products/

[JohnH]

I am interested in installing a solar array. I have been following Kolob Canyons Ranch in Utah on YouTube and have reached out to Practical Preppers in South Carolina. I want to build a ground mount system and have reached out to numerous companies in the PCBE but have not heard back from them...I assume they are Amish. Does anyone on here have solar? I need an 80kW system.

80kW? What on earth are you doing with all that power?

[Southerner]

We had a solar array in the village in Brazil. First panel installed in 1987. Later added another panel on the house, and in 92 set up a second solar array on a building we put up as a school building for our own children. (Before that, their school desks were in the 'public room' in our house, and if our children got up to use the bathroom, some of the people would often take their chair. Just trying to do school work with other conversations going on in the same room was bad enough.)

The main thing I'd say is to match the capacity of the other components to the array. We were in a setting where there was no power available at all, so we didn't have any of the equipment that charges back into the grid, so ours was very simple in comparison to what you are probably asking about. But I used a photovoltaic charge controller device (by MorningStar Corp) that would disconnect the load if the battery got too low. It had an indicator panel that showed the battery charge status, so you could monitor the input vs load. Of course other than the two-way radio we used to communicate with the mission center we used the battery primarily for basic lighting after dark. Also powered the laptop with it, and had a 12VDC printer as well. This system was capable of 24VDC, but I never set it up that way. It was a very small amperage system, at 20 amps, with 16 amps load.

https://www.morningstarcorp.com/products/

Interesting. Were your batteries lithium ion? And I am curious what the efficiency rating was of your panels in the early 90's.

[JohnH]

Interesting. Were your batteries lithium ion? And I am curious what the efficiency rating was of your panels in the early 90's.

Lithium ion... in 1987?

[Neto]

We had a solar array in the village in Brazil. First panel installed in 1987. Later added another panel on the house, and in 92 set up a second solar array on a building we put up as a school building for our own children. (Before that, their school desks were in the 'public room' in our house, and if our children got up to use the bathroom, some of the people would often take their chair. Just trying to do school work with other conversations going on in the same room was bad enough.)

The main thing I'd say is to match the capacity of the other components to the array. We were in a setting where there was no power available at all, so we didn't have any of the equipment that charges back into the grid, so ours was very simple in comparison to what you are probably asking about. But I used a photovoltaic charge controller device (by MorningStar Corp) that would disconnect the load if the battery got too low. It had an indicator panel that showed the battery charge status, so you could monitor the input vs load. Of course other than the two-way radio we used to communicate with the mission center we used the battery primarily for basic lighting after dark. Also powered the laptop with it, and had a 12VDC printer as well. This system was capable of 24VDC, but I never set it up that way. It was a very small amperage system, at 20 amps, with 16 amps load.

https://www.morningstarcorp.com/products/

Interesting. Were your batteries lithium ion? And I am curious what the efficiency rating was of your panels in the early 90's.

Sorry, I don't have much info on the panels. I just remember that we got them from Atlantic Solar.

Batteries: Battery technology in Brazil at that time didn't even include deep cycle batteries. We used a standard lead acid automobile battery. I don't remember now in what order this came about, but for awhile we had two huge 6 Volt WWII era submarine batteries, then for awhile we were able to buy medical type deep cycle batteries in small quantities. Later that changed, and we would have had to buy at least 10 at a time, so we went back to standard automobile or small truck batteries. We didn't operate much equipment on that system. Our first computer in the village was a Toshiba T1000LE, an MS-DOS system with a 20 MB HDD. (Yes, 20 megabytes. AND, a back-lit screen!) That was a really fast system, booting up in less than 20 seconds. It had a keyboard with the 'feel' you would associate with a desktop keyboard. (That was before computer 'mice' came into the picture, so none of that.)

Other than the Stoner 2-way radio, we had two small florescent lights, but we never ran more than one of them at a time. The single battery couldn't keep a large load going. I should say here that the sun 'goes down' there at around 6:30 PM year around, and during rainy season there can be several days straight where you never see the sun at all. I didn't get into the technology of having the solar array track the sun. I set it up each time we arrived in the village, and didn't fiddle with it until I took it down, usually soon after we knew for certain that the Cessna was nearly there.

[Robert]

80kW? What on earth are you doing with all that power?

AC in the south.

The challenge with solar right now is the panels are still not the greatest and the battery technology is still developing too. You can install it, but the cost does not justify it yet. If someone just wants off the grid, so they are willing to pay. Yet, there is a massive outlay that barely pays for itself. Energy is about to drop in price too.

So what are you reasons for wanting to go solar?

[JohnH]

80 kW is 333 amps at 240V. That's a lot of air conditioners! Roughly that is enough for 13,000 square feet of space. I guess some people have really big homes.

[Southerner]

80kW? What on earth are you doing with all that power?

Energy is about to drop in price too.

What leads you to write this? My electric rates are climbing, not decreasing.