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Permies Poll: Do you utilize solar panels for electricity generation on your property?

Timothy Norton

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posted 7 months ago

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I am wondering how many Permies have solar panels for the sake of electricity production. I'm talking about charging batteries to run things off of. I'm not talking about using a solar power floodlight on the side of your house.

Feel free to explain below!

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Timothy Norton

master gardener

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Location: Upstate NY, Zone 5, 43 inch Avg. Rainfall

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posted 7 months ago

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I do not have solar panels on my property. I do not have the acreage or sun exposure to really use them effectively. I do utilize solar power flood motion activated flood lights for some areas but that is the extent of my solar related exposure.

Joe Hallmark

pollinator

Posts: 332

Location: Central Texas

posted 7 months ago

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What a well timed question. I was literally researching solar 5minutes ago! I currently do not have solar but I plan to in the somewhat near future. I have perfect exposure for it. I am very curious to hear real world experiences from members on this subject.

A guy down the road just had some installed so seeing it everyday made me get the gears turning again.

David Baillie

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Location: Central Ontario

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Timothy Norton wrote:[applepoll]

I am wondering how many Permies have solar panels for the sake of electricity production. I'm talking about charging batteries to run things off of. I'm not talking about using a solar power floodlight on the side of your house.

Feel free to explain below!

Yes, I have panels on my outbuilding and they provide a portion of my house's electricity use.

Jane Mulberry

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Location: East of England/ Northeast Bulgaria

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posted 7 months ago

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Only 30 to 60 watt panels charging small battery banks which are then used for charging lights and phones. Not a whole house system.

I'm only 64! That's not to old to learn to be a permie, right?

randal cranor

pollinator

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Location: 2300' elev., southern oregon

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posted 7 months ago

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Howdy,
I also have micro hydro elec. power, BUT having solar panels(mounted on roof) allows me to be able to leave home for overnight away trips and keeps things running (refrig and freezer) especially on spring, summer, fall, sunny days.

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J Garlits

gardener

Posts: 504

Location: Wabash, Indiana, Zone 6a

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posted 7 months ago

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No, but I plan to. I want enough solar panels to cover the roof on my back porch, but I don't want it connected to the grid. That means I have to learn about batteries. But for my needs, I think I should be able to pick up what I need at a farm supply store. I wouldn't consider it residential solar like a company is going to come in and put everything up and connect me to the grid and file for the government rebates, etc. I think I'll be putting it together myself and use it basically like a generator if the power goes out for some reason.

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Mart Hale

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posted 7 months ago

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I charge 30 KWH of batteries with solar.

Now I am using it to run stove pot hot plates, and heat my hot water for my shower after my batteries are full.

It is a whole new world for me to use solar for heating once the batteries are full...

I am now testing running a 1 horsepower motor directly off solar.

Life on a farm is a school of patience; you can't hurry the crops or make an ox in two days.
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Phil Stevens

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Location: Ashhurst New Zealand (Cfb - oceanic temperate)

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We have a grid tie system, so we're not charging batteries for the mains but there are smaller panels around the place that do this (and lots of batteries being charged from AC adapters like phones and laptops).

Michael Qulek

Posts: 444

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large off-grid system that supplies all the power we can use, at both 120 & 240VAC.

J Hillman

pollinator

Posts: 129

Location: Northern Wisconsin Zone 3B

posted 7 months ago

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We are building a new house. We don't intend to connect it to the grid. At the moment we have about 1000 watts of solar temporarily tacked to roof to provide power to the tools needed to build the house. Long term we plan to put up about 5000 watts of solar.

I also have several tractors and a sawmill out in the woods and none of them have alternators so I the starting batteries on all of them connected to 300 watt panel so I don't have to carry the batteries into and out of the woods every day.

Douglas Alpenstock

master pollinator

Posts: 4679

Location: Canadian Prairies - Zone 3b

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I am wondering how many Permies have solar panels for the sake of electricity production. I'm talking about charging batteries to run things off of.

Well, it's complicated. Nothing on a "grid replacement" scale around here. I don't know how to respond to this poll.

I have a lot of low wattage panels that keep vehicle/tractor batteries topped up. And since I have a lot of 12VDC gear I can of course charge various batteries for headlamps, flashlights, tablets, laptop PCs. If I am economical in my consumption, a few watts of solar production go a long way.

I also have a maybe 300W of old solar panels in the back of my garage. Doesn't sound like much now, but they were plenty expensive years ago. These are mono 15W panels. The cool thing is that you can direct-charge 18650 size lithium-ion cells from one of these panels. These are the cells from discarded laptop batteries etc.; most of those cells are good; only a couple are dead. So, as long as you closely monitor the charging voltage and disconnect at 4.20 V, you have endless juice to run LEDs for lighting. I have matched Korean cells that are still kicking after 15 years.

I guess I view these tools as "resilience" -- many options to solve many problems. But the house mostly runs on power from the grid.
[Edited to clarify: Love it or hate it, we are mostly grid powered at this point. ]

John Clearwater

Posts: 17

Location: Western Colorado

posted 7 months ago

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I have an off grid solar system on my house that I run a 2500 wat inverter and 12 volt circuits for some lighting, refrigerator and water pump. the whole system is 600 watts of panels and powers my whole strawbale house.

thomas rubino

rocket scientist

Posts: 6037

Location: latitude 47 N.W. montana zone 6A

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We have been 100% solar/hydro off-grid since 1983

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David Huang

gardener

Posts: 1306

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I've got two separate off grid solar systems on my little homestead. A smaller one that has been powering my metalsmithing studio for close to 15 years I'd guess. Then the large array powering the house and rest of the outbuilding for about 10 years now.

You are welcome to check out my blog at http://www.theartisthomestead.com or my artwork at http://www.davidhuang.org

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Shawn Ces

Posts: 26

posted 7 months ago

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I have 20 solar panels ( 5 kw ) and I have 20 more ordered. I also have a micro hydro system that produces around 1.5kw continuous depending on the flow. These charge 6 LifePo4 batteries which power my house.

Timothy Norton

master gardener

Posts: 3501

Location: Upstate NY, Zone 5, 43 inch Avg. Rainfall

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I'm going to be honest, I was expecting some skew in the results because of people who frequent this site would be more likely than any old joe but a lot of people utilize solar panels! I'm going to have to do some more research. I was expecting something like a quarter of the total use them while the remaining do not.

These polls can be eye opening.

Neil Bendy

Posts: 11

posted 6 months ago

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24 used 250 watt panels (Chosen because solar panels are heavy and the prospect of climbing a ladder to my roof in any sort of wind was difficult enough even with smallish 250 watt panels).
Six home built 48 volt battery packs made with a mix of 200 and 280A LiFePo4 cells, some new, some used, and some advertised as new but weren't (Aliexpress) Each pack has a separate BMS, and we run 2 separate 3Kw all in one solar charger/inverters. I split the system into 2 so that should one inverter give problems we just reduce our usage and run on 1 system until the problem can be fixed.
Being in New Mexico we have plenty of sun so the house has 3 separate mini splits that give us all our A/C and heating all year round.
We run; well pump for irrigation, full size microwave, dishwasher, washer/dryer, in fact just about every appliance in any on grid home. We did ditch the electric stove for a gas model, that was the only change we made.
Three years off grid and never ran out of power once.

Anne Miller

steward

Posts: 15436

Location: USDA Zone 8a

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posted 6 months ago

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We use the small solar panels for all kinds of things such as electric fences, seer feeders, and water pumps.

Out in my barn is a whole house set up so maybe ... one of these days

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Mark Miner

pollinator

Posts: 84

Location: Central AZ

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posted 5 months ago

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Great to see other folks' stories, even in brief!

We're off-grid in central AZ, which has its cooling challenges, especially as the current house is a manufactured home. I started with 25ea 315W (used Sunpower) panels on 24kWh of batteries. Those panels are 5deg tilt, so super-summer-optimized. I just put in a bank of 8ea 315W REC panels on a new charge controller, and added 15kWh of Pytes batteries, because during the winter rains, I would have to run the generator towards the end of day 2 of clouds+rain. The new panels are at about 35deg, substantially better than the 5deg Sunpowers. The guts of the system are Outback equipment, except the new guy which is a MidNite charge controller, 2x 8kW inverters, 2x FlexMax controllers, now the new Midnite-250, I'm pretty happy with it after living on it for 3 years, but still within the first life of the batteries.

My wife keeps reminding me how much she appreciates being off-grid. I'm not joking. It's only when you're responsible for a resource that you learn what it takes to have it and maintain it. Our well (shared) is also an off-grid solar setup, 4kW Outback, modest batteries & panels.

Happy homesteading!
Mark

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Olga Booker

pollinator

Posts: 632

Location: South West France

254

posted 5 months ago

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We were totally off grid for 12 years when we lived in the Pyrenees (Southern France). We have moved to a new location a couple of years ago and funny enough, we've had someone coming today to advise us on where is the best place to have our panels and what are the permits required. We intend to go totally off grid again. I just love the independence.

Love is the only resource that grows the more you use it.
David Brower

Michael Maas

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posted 4 months ago

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I live in S. W. Oregon and I have a 6.24kw solar array connected to an inverter. The system is grid-tied, meaning I supply power into the electrical grid when I generate more than I am using. The electrical power my system supplies is metered at my house, and is credited to my Pacific Power account (sort of like a savings account). During the winter, or other times the sun is not bright, when my home uses more than my system generates, my "savings account" is debited, and I do not pay Pacific Power for my "saved" power. The drawback to this system is that when we experience a power outage (happens surprisingly often, in my opinion) our system goes down as well. I do not yet have a battery back-up for those times.

I live in a fire-prone wooded area. I also have a separate smaller portable solar array that supplies power to a 1/2 HP pump that pumps water up a hill to storage tanks for yard and garden irrigation (and for an above-ground swimming pool which also serves as emergency water storage for wildfire suppression.

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posted 4 months ago

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