Is it possible to power your whole house with solar energy?

ford man xf · 18-06-2015, 11:33 PM

I had a look in the "who amongst us has gone solar" thread and there was some good information there, I was wondering though, is it possible to power your whole house exclusively on solar energy? Could (if you had the room on your roof) get enough solar panels to do this, or is it simply not possible?

bobthebilda · 18-06-2015, 11:48 PM

People do power their homes from solar, and have sufficient excess power at certain times, to send power back to the grid. The issue comes at having power during times of low solar activity. Solar panels don't store power, but to store excess power for later on (for night time, or cloudy days), you need to have battery storage. There are some battery storage packs that you can use, but they are quite expensive. Tesla is apparently going into mass production in a few years, with battery packs, that can be used in conjunction with the likes of solar power systems, to get the home "off the grid".

ford man xf · 18-06-2015, 11:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobthebilda

People do power their homes from solar, and have sufficient excess power at certain times, to send power back to the grid. The issue comes at having power during times of low solar activity. Solar panels don't store power, but to store excess power for later on (for night time, or cloudy days), you need to have battery storage. There are some battery storage packs that you can use, but they are quite expensive. Tesla is apparently going into mass production in a few years, with battery packs, that can be used in conjunction with the likes of solar power systems, to get the home "off the grid".

Yeh thats what I was wondering about, storing the energy for later use, as obviously at night there is no sun so I wondered what the option would be, I thought batteries would be the answer, in my shed I have a single light that is solar powered, this charges the battery so you can use the light at night or on cloudy days, but this is only small scale, I could imagine how expensive full scale would be...

zilo · 19-06-2015, 08:16 AM

It's easy to do, but you need some minor lifestyle adjustments....like switching off lights when leaving a room, not leaving stuff on standby when not in use.

An example is I found a DVD player/recorder was using as much as my fridge in standby...

Allow 8kw of panels, 60kwh of batteries, Sunny island inverter, twin Sunny boy 5kw inverters.
That will do it, forget about grid feeding anymore...waste of time at 6c/kwh.

Even with a standby 5kw electric diesel generator for ocassional use you will be miles ahead if batteries run low.
If you really want to have grid backup run an extension cord to a neighbour...LOL

In the suburbs biggest problem is finding the correct orientation of panels.

best idea is to move to the country...

Tonz · 19-06-2015, 09:40 AM

Go and do research on magazines like Owner Builder, ReNew. esp the latter its a wealth of info for those wanting to go bush and be sustainable.

**MercurySilver** · 19-06-2015, 01:44 PM

of course you can
and who says the panels need to go on the roof??
if you have the space you can go free standing
if you have the space you can go completely off grid and go battery system
but youll need a fair bit of room

Owner Builder is a great little publication
i always have a sticky beak at it in the shop to see what articles are in it

burnz · 19-06-2015, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ford man xf

I had a look in the "who amongst us has gone solar" thread and there was some good information there, I was wondering though, is it possible to power your whole house exclusively on solar energy? Could (if you had the room on your roof) get enough solar panels to do this, or is it simply not possible?

my sister in law is completely off the grid due to location,
the whole house is led lights, led tv, special fried/freezer, gas cooker..
water is self pumped up from the river using the energy of moving water, and full solar hot water..

mechanic · 19-06-2015, 04:42 PM

" Your whole house " would include an electric iron, toaster or jug or kettle ?
My brother has been off the grid for about 8 years in the Daintree in NQ. He runs an 800W inverter and has a gas stove, a 3.5KW generator and uses the generator whenever he wants to use power tools and to charge the deep cycle batteries when the sun don't shine, which happens a lot in the tropical jungle.

Start investigating what size inverter you want to get, how much sun you get, then work backwards and see what you want to run off the solar system.

There is a display home here now that's using the latest in batteries and isn't hooked up to the grid.

Personally I think the electricity grid is the best thing since sliced bread but that's probably because we spent a lot of years without power.

TER2BO · 19-06-2015, 05:09 PM

Yes, but the current economics of it works better in sunny counrty areas.

I live in surburbia and although I have Solar panels etc it would not be worthwhile from both an economic or convenience veiw point.
I have looked into it and even in the country you would need a backup system. i.e wind turbine, generator & extra batteries etc.
However, things are changing quickly. Storage Batteries are getting better, Solar Films and even Paints are being developed right now.
So it might be even more feasible in the next few years.

ford man xf · 19-06-2015, 05:55 PM

Thanks for the replies. Yes I mean power the whole house, I mean everything so you won't have to even be connected to the grid. But some of your answers have me thinking, I live in the Melbourne suburbs and even though we do get a lot of sunny days I wonder how it would go when we get those week long cloud covers, maybe the option of still using the grid but only when absolutely necessary, I really like the idea of the batteries storing the power, but looks like the technology is always improving in this field so maybe a few years waiting for some more advanced tech. I've always thought if you ever were going to invest in the stock market then solar technology would be a wise investment.
I was even wanting to go down the path of not using any water from the grid, just have a few tanks hidden under the deck and rely solely on tank water, the savings of not having to pay for electricity and water would be amazing. I would still have to pay the water company the drainage and sewer fees, but this is not too much.

zilo · 19-06-2015, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ford man xf

Thanks for the replies. Yes I mean power the whole house, I mean everything so you won't have to even be connected to the grid. But some of your answers have me thinking, I live in the Melbourne suburbs and even though we do get a lot of sunny days I wonder how it would go when we get those week long cloud covers, maybe the option of still using the grid but only when absolutely necessary, I really like the idea of the batteries storing the power, but looks like the technology is always improving in this field so maybe a few years waiting for some more advanced tech. I've always thought if you ever were going to invest in the stock market then solar technology would be a wise investment.
I was even wanting to go down the path of not using any water from the grid, just have a few tanks hidden under the deck and rely solely on tank water, the savings of not having to pay for electricity and water would be amazing. I would still have to pay the water company the drainage and sewer fees, but this is not too much.

.

The configuration i quoted is for Southern tasmania, and i really mean southern...almost looking at the south pole

Not much sun this time of year....

I run a toaster, jaffle iron, microwave oven, missus has a hair straightener and hair drier..and a normal hot water system (not bloody solar tubes)...not needed...and an electric jug, washing machine...alas no clothes dryer...that's a compromise.

We do use a LPG stove and hot plates cause it's the sensible thing to do.
Also 40 inch LED Tv, washing machine, foxtel, internet, and desalination unit.

Forget buying silly/hippidy/dippidity fridges and ovens....leave that to the Nimbin crowd., just use normal 240v appliances and instead of paying overpriced custom 12v appliance prices buy more panels or batteries instead.

anything less than 2.5kw for the inverter is hippy shack stuff too IMHO.

Generator uses just one litre of fuel an hour if needed...so who cares about $1.50?

ford man xf · 19-06-2015, 06:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zilo

.

The configuration i quoted is for Southern tasmania, and i really mean southern...almost looking at the south pole

Not much sun this time of year....

I run a toaster, jaffle iron, microwave oven, missus has a hair straightener and hair drier..and a normal hot water system (not bloody solar tubes)...not needed...and an electric jug, washing machine...alas no clothes dryer...that's a compromise.

We do use a LPG stove and hot plates cause it's the sensible thing to do.
Also 40 inch LED Tv, washing machine, foxtel, internet, and desalination unit.

Forget buying silly/hippidy/dippidity fridges and ovens....leave that to the Nimbin crowd., just use normal 240v appliances and instead of paying overpriced custom 12v appliance prices buy more panels or batteries instead.

anything less than 2.5kw for the inverter is hippy shack stuff too IMHO.

Generator uses just one litre of fuel an hour if needed...so who cares about $1.50?

Are you completely off the grid where you are? If so you have gas but no power?, or are you using bottled LPG?

zilo · 19-06-2015, 11:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ford man xf

Are you completely off the grid where you are? If so you have gas but no power?, or are you using bottled LPG?

yep...any thing resembling a grid is at least 3 kilometres away...over water.
Bottled LPG ...yep....just swap and go bottles.

**ebxr8240** · 22-06-2015, 02:22 AM

I have 5kw diesel generator in motorhome with 220AH batteries . 120 watt solar ( small)
Gas stove, 3 way fridge freezer, sat LED TV , diesel heater, LPG water heater..
The fridge freezer run on gas ..( 3 way actually)
If I run the generator to boil the jug and microwave . It charges the batteries enough to live stand alone ..
Working this back to a house I'd say 8 to 10kw solar and 5 to 10 times more battery storage ..the main power user is cooking and hot water.. At least with air conditioning when it's hot .. The Suns pretty much out..
Using an inverter on high load doesn't make for efficiency ...
A generator for short term or solar water heating ..