More on off grid solar

I have considered the cheapest a system similar to ours might be purchased. Bear in mind that the best thing you can do first is to reduce your energy use. Most home systems would be use 5 or 6 kw inverters and around 3 kw of panels with a lot of storage maybe more than 6kw hours.

If you can reduce your use without reducing quality of life then this will have the biggest payback and allow you to survive off-grid for around $4000 invested using around 3kwhs of power per day. You need to do much of the work yourself and to know what you are doing. We will also purchase a 2 or 3 kw ($400+) generator before disconnecting finally although we have zero use of mains power at present.

The price of $4000 is made up as follows.

solar panels	1500 watt 24v	$1,500.00
MPPT chargcontroller	60amp 24v	$600.00
sinewave inverter	3kw 24v	$400.00
batteries x 6	200 ahr	$1,000.00
		$3,500.00
fuses		$40.00
panel mounting		$120.00
panel wiring		$50.00
panel junction		$50.00
battery leads		$50.00
metering	volts amps and kwh	$20.00
change over switch	20 amp	$50.00
		$3,880.00

You will find that purchases made from China save you heaps but you need to be confident at doing this. I use http://www.aliexpress.com/ and have not been stung badly as yet. You need to choose sellers with good feedback and preferably a brand name product at least for the bigger bits.

Where you live makes a huge difference. In Nelson we are very lucky. You need to be able to mount your panels facing north and the best solution might be to mount them at ground level if your property is large enough. If you bury a rear differential from a car or truck in the earth leaving one hub above ground it might allow you to turn your panels to follow the sun which can increase their efficiency around 30%.

Good luck if you follow this route and I will do my best to help if you contact me - pir8don

at gmail dot com.