Conclusions

I’m happy to report that two solar panels from a recent generation are enough to completely negate the house’s power draw from the grid, for a one person household (while the sun is shining, with some manual repositioning of the panels as the day goes on, and with careful planning of the heavy loads).

Overall, this equipment let me reduce my grid reliance by 62% for this short experiment. And, as I said, there were stretches of multiple hours when the house was drawing nothing at all from the grid.

A few more panels, positioned differently towards the sun, would solve that. And a few more again to account for seasonal changes in the sun’s trajectory in the sky.

My two panels can’t provide enough energy for the entire week, that’s a little too much to ask. Still, they aren’t too far off from that, and just one more panel would likely tie me over. However, I also don’t have enough battery capacity for that, I’d need double what I have.

Placing the panels at ground level has the immense advantage of reduced complexity for installation and maintenance but the main drawback is obviously a much reduced time span when power can be harvested. There are many shadows from nearby walls and my own house. I’m losing several hours per day compared with a roof setup.

The multi function micro inverter that I have and the battery are not necessary for daylight time, as long as the house needs less than 800 W legally (or 650 W realistically). More than 800 W would require a professional to install this. Still requires DC power from the panels converted to AC, so an inverter has to be there, it just doesn’t need to be full featured with a companion mobile app and whatnot.

Using the battery to power most appliances in the house lets me push past the 800 W limit to several times that figure. The battery can discharge confidently at 1800 W to power whatever is plugged directly into it, or up to 2400 W for short bursts, and the inverter can also send up to 600 W from the panels to the grid at the same time.

Of course if the grid goes down, so does my inverter, that is by design. But that is why most of the house can be powered directly by the battery itself, provided the extension cords are sturdy enough… And that’s probably not a great idea long term without asking an electrician to set this up.

Still, I’m convinced that this is one thing we can do to help the grid, especially when heat waves are putting more pressure on the grid as a whole. I’ll try to think of a more permanent setup.