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Thread: Off Grid and Hybrid Grid systems

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    Default Off Grid and Hybrid Grid systems

    With buy back rates of 6 to7 cents per Kwh
    And purchase rates of 27 to 35 cents per Kwh

    It makes very good economical sense to store your excess power
    Also, does Solar Panels really help those people who are both at work during the day (IE: little house usage in productive sunlight hours)

    I know we have the Powerwall

    But it seems some clever Aussie Households have already passed that mark by miles!

    I'm amazed the amount of people which have designed and built Solar and Battery system to be totally Off Grid, while living in Suburbia.
    This is not like i remember 25 years ago, they are not sacrificing or using LPG Fridges etc
    They live exactly as they used to with Grid Power!
    Use an Elec Clothes Dryer, Washing Machines, Dish Washer, Larger Flat Screen TVs, even have Elec HWS with a DC element.

    What's more, the systems are designed for Winter and weeks of Overcast days.... So in Summer, they just romp it in.
    The system i was looking at would be down to 88% at 7am and back too 100% by 11am!

    The owner built a small lean too off the back of the Car Port to house the Inverters, Chargers, Switchboard, Isolators and Batteries.
    Batteries are just Solar AGM Batteries
    He has been Off Grid for 2 years!

    Oh and Real Sweetener, when the Grid is down, he still has power

    For people not quite this brave, they build a Hybrid System, still have all the gear, but the Grid is still connected and when a load too high is detected or the Batteries have gone below a preset threshold the Grid is used momentarily.

    As energy prices rise, these types of set ups just become more and more viable
    Soon, id say only Industry will be paying for power
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!



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    The Mitsu Outlander PHEV has two power points 15A to use in your household. Charge with solar in the day, do shopping/business and use what is left in the evening. Super simple.
    I suprised it is not popular in Australia. It is in the rest of the world.
    I am looking to get a second hand one end of this year(massive price drop) but might have to travel to South Australia to find one.

    My modular 'Power Brick' design is slowly getting there. So much else to do, but hopefully next week I might post a thread.
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    Anything is possible if you have the $ or the know how. Unfortunately we are using +20kWh a day in this little heatwave Queensland is having running A/C all day. The air-con needs a lot more used laptop batteries than I have to run it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Learjet View Post
    Anything is possible if you have the $ or the know how. Unfortunately we are using +20kWh a day in this little heatwave Queensland is having running A/C all day. The air-con needs a lot more used laptop batteries than I have to run it.
    Yeah, that is a big draw, even for system that harvest 18Kwh a day




    You'd be the Perfect Hybrid candidate Learjet
    Last edited by ol' boy; 15-02-18 at 04:48 PM.
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    I've been bi, both on and off grid for years

    I started about 20 years ago as solar panels started get affordable at $7 per watt !
    I had a 100Ah 12V battery and a 68W solar panel and ran a home made two bar fluro with inverter.
    I still have that fluro and it runs in my shed. The inverter runs at about 20Khz, but it is free running and on start up it starts at about 300Hz.
    So it sounds like sci-fi nuclear reactor starting up.

    As time went by I bought more panels and added more 12V batteries. I built my own regulators and repaired surplus inverters.
    I added more and just kept adding more. I would just add more load to my system and when it started to run down, I'd add another battery.
    When the battery voltage had trouble floating, I'd add more solar. If the batteries didn't have trouble keeping up, I'd add more load.

    I'm now at the point where adding more of anything is hard. Almost everything is off grid.
    It's things with a high start up current or continuous high current that are still on grid.

    The stove and oven is on grid. The toaster, Washing machine, air conditioner and fridge.
    I would love to get these off grid too but it's just not practical. However, I'm considering options like running an on grid inverter while they are in use to offset their consumption.
    The washing machine, fridge and air conditioner don't use a lot of current while running, but the moment their motors start, they can draw a lot of current.
    Alone the inverters can handle it, but if there is other things running it can easily trip the inverter.
    That's not normally a problem because I can just manually reset the inverter. The problem is if that happens when I'm not there to reset it.
    Washing sitting half done or worse, come home to find a very stinky fridge.

    My hot water is solar with an off peak backup. I never turn the off peak electricity on unless I have had several cloudy days in winter and the hot water is the only tap I use in the shower.

    So these things I keep on grid for the time being. They all use about $100 worth of electricity per quarter. That doesn't bother me. But what pisses me off is that the electricity company charges me about $120 "connection fee" which basically consists of somebody reading the meter.

    The best environmental policy they could implement easy is to remove connection fees and float the price per kWhr.
    The more you use the more you pay, not the current model which is - the more you use the cheaper it gets (with respect to Euler).


    But I'm always trying to improve my off grid system. The air conditioner is the main focus. I pissed myself laughing that Air conditioners are banned in Switzerland.
    No fvck that shit, they live in big hills with lots of ice. I live where it is flat and hot.

    So the question is how to do off grid cooling. If you suggest an evaporative cooler... Bite me!
    The thought I've always had has been using an ammonia absorption system built specifically to cool a house using solar to heat the boiler.
    I've worked out the design, but I do not have the skills to build it.

    I always explore other ideas. A DC air conditioner would be great but I'm not having any luck finding something that can do the job. The voltage isn't a problem, just finding something that can run DC is hard.


    But if anybody wants to go off grid. I say just pick one room and buy a cheap solar panel, a 12V 7Ah battery, LED lights and a cheap regulator. And work it out for yourself.
    It's surprisingly easy to do, but you do discover all the real world problems by actually doing it.

    Once you have done one room, you can then expand to a hallway. It gets harder to work things out, but again, once you solve the problems, keep expanding.
    When all the lights in the house are off grid, then you can move on to power points.
    Yes I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.

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    Or just design and build a system for your needs and based on the shortest day of the year.

    Agreed AirCon units and Electric ovens/hotplates are a stumbling block.

    I haven't had an AirCon for 6 years now... don't miss it.
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    Out of curiosity, trash, is Tamworth that humid that Evaporative systems don't work?

    If you want a laugh, When Target first opened in Darwin they had Evaporative coolers for sale and wondered why they did not fly off the shelves. And those that were sold were returned very quickly. Duhh! Southerners have NO idea!!!
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    Just running a normal fridge in the tropics in summer is a challenge. One day we used 6kW without the use of air-con or cooking. Lights are mostly solar so we were wondering where the power leak was coming from. It turns out the fridge has this massive defrost heater coil that it likes to ramp up when it feels like it. I have a thermal image of it (on other computer) and the hot elements can clearly be seen heating the fridge body. Engels are so easy to run by comparison.

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    If you search for gree air conditioners you will find a unit that uses solar during the day and reverts back to mains as the light fades

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    Quote Originally Posted by iannic52 View Post
    If you search for gree air conditioners you will find a unit that uses solar during the day and reverts back to mains as the light fades
    Yeah I would love one but they are quite expensive. In the long run it's better to use the roof space for grid connect solar.

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    Quote Originally Posted by oceanboy View Post
    With buy back rates of 6 to7 cents per Kwh
    Its about double that in Victoria, 12 cents from memory (cant be bothered logging in to look)

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    Quote Originally Posted by admin View Post
    Its about double that in Victoria, 12 cents from memory (cant be bothered logging in to look)
    Same, 12.5 cpk, Energy Australia.
    You can learn alot using Google, and the search button.....

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    Quote Originally Posted by lsemmens View Post
    Out of curiosity, trash, is Tamworth that humid that Evaporative systems don't work?

    If you want a laugh, When Target first opened in Darwin they had Evaporative coolers for sale and wondered why they did not fly off the shelves. And those that were sold were returned very quickly. Duhh! Southerners have NO idea!!!
    Yeah, Evaporative coolers work well here. But I hate them. My fat white tubby arse has been genetically selected over thousands of years of random viking raping and pillaging to handle a cool nordic climate.

    I had an evaporative cooler when I first moved here. Nothing beats hot and dry like hot and wet.
    I can do better. There is shitloads of free energy coming from the sun to pump a house as cold as Siberia.
    Yes I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.

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