Solar System Install and Performance

[lilduke]

Lithium hands down, especially some of the new battery chemistries coming out. Cycle life is much higher too.

That being said lead acid has it's place, especially for backup if the batteries only get cycled a handful of times per year. Most deep cycles also die an early death due to poor treatment. 90% of people don't even know to check the electrolyte level and top up with distilled water as needed, and that's pretty simple. Never mind Bulk, Absorption, or float voltages, or temperature/voltage coefficients. 10 year life on an off grid set of lead acid batteries is possible.
C
Lithium is simple, the BMS takes care of all that, and the cells themselves don't require maintanance.

Electric man lifts use the lead acid batteries. Seem to last pretty good. Those tesla walls are slick though.
Lithium phone batteries suck, but ive got 4 year old Milwaukee 18v batteries going strong. Maybe it will last 20 years guess well see.

Id like to have at least one place completely off grid. Crazy world out there.

 

[ABMax24]

Electric man lifts use the lead acid batteries. Seem to last pretty good. Those tesla walls are slick though.
Lithium phone batteries suck, but ive got 4 year old Milwaukee 18v batteries going strong. Maybe it will last 20 years guess well see.

Id like to have at least one place completely off grid. Crazy world out there.

Forsure, manlift manufacturers spend the time to build chargers to maximize battery life, changing those big batteries on warranty would be expensive otherwise.

FWIW with all the lithium options out there I bought plain old lead acid deep cycle batteries for my fifth wheel this spring. Modern chargers take care of the batteries once programmed with the right charging voltages, and checking the acid levels is simple a couple times per year. But these batteries only get cycled 20 times/year, and I can replace these batteries 2.5 times for the cost of Lithium

For an offgrid house I lived full time in I'd have a hard time not choosing lithium.

 

[JayT]

Lead carbon is the best of both worlds. Best for off-grid situations if you're not looking to spend a fortune on lithium-ion.

 

[ctd]

FWIW with all the lithium options out there I bought plain old lead acid deep cycle batteries for my fifth wheel this spring. Modern chargers take care of the batteries once programmed with the right charging voltages, and checking the acid levels is simple a couple times per year. But these batteries only get cycled 20 times/year, and I can replace these batteries 2.5 times for the cost of Lithium

My lithium's new this season in the new fifth wheel have cycled 18 times, I probably won't live long enough to ever replace them. Life cycles are @ minimum double of your LA's & usually more than that.

Not having to worry about gassing, topping fluids, significant weight reduction, 80-100% discharge capacity(discharging AGM or LA below 50% is detrimental to life expectancy), fast 2 stage charging @ high current etc. Even if the cost were higher I would buy them.

AGM & LA need 4 stage charging to maximize life cycle, very few people do that. I did that with my last fifth & the 225ah Lifeline AGM's lasted 8 years. No maintenance like your LA's, but a critical slow recharge process. Those batteries were $500.00ea for 50% usable capacity. Lithium in the same application would still be going strong, 8 years ago lithium was significantly higher cost. The cost factor has changed dramatically.

Many advantages to lithium, on the surface initial cost seems higher. If can move past that & analyze it's the other way around. Talking about that is the same as having a proper 4 stage charge profile for conventual AGM & LA batterie's........unlikely.

 

[crazy_wheeler]

LYCAN 4.8KWh 3500W Power Box

The Renogy LYCAN 5000 Power Station is an all-in-one energy storage system specially designed to supply power during emergencies, power outages, or to provide power for off-grid homes.

ca.renogy.com

Thinking about upgrading our off grid solar setup to one of these along with adding 2 more panels. Between the 2 rv’s fridge space is small when you try to pack enough food for a week at the rec property so the plan is to get a residential fridge. Current setup just keeps up with 2 trailers plugged in. Would do better if the mother in law was a little more energy conscious, she leaves lights on as if she’s hooked up to high line power & always has something plugged in charging

 

[JayT]

LYCAN 4.8KWh 3500W Power Box

The Renogy LYCAN 5000 Power Station is an all-in-one energy storage system specially designed to supply power during emergencies, power outages, or to provide power for off-grid homes.

ca.renogy.com

Thinking about upgrading our off grid solar setup to one of these along with adding 2 more panels. Between the 2 rv’s fridge space is small when you try to pack enough food for a week at the rec property so the plan is to get a residential fridge. Current setup just keeps up with 2 trailers plugged in. Would do better if the mother in law was a little more energy conscious, she leaves lights on as if she’s hooked up to high line power & always has something plugged in charging

The fridge in our RV is incredibly inefficient when it comes to running on 110 volt. A residential fridge is way more efficient

 

[ABMax24]

My lithium's new this season in the new fifth wheel have cycled 18 times, I probably won't live long enough to ever replace them. Life cycles are @ minimum double of your LA's & usually more than that.

Not having to worry about gassing, topping fluids, significant weight reduction, 80-100% discharge capacity(discharging AGM or LA below 50% is detrimental to life expectancy), fast 2 stage charging @ high current etc. Even if the cost were higher I would buy them.

AGM & LA need 4 stage charging to maximize life cycle, very few people do that. I did that with my last fifth & the 225ah Lifeline AGM's lasted 8 years. No maintenance like your LA's, but a critical slow recharge process. Those batteries were $500.00ea for 50% usable capacity. Lithium in the same application would still be going strong, 8 years ago lithium was significantly higher cost. The cost factor has changed dramatically.

Many advantages to lithium, on the surface initial cost seems higher. If can move past that & analyze it's the other way around. Talking about that is the same as having a proper 4 stage charge profile for conventual AGM & LA batterie's........unlikely.

Lithium has it's advantages, but if an RV only cycles the batteries say 50 times a year, you can't simply divide by 5000 cycle life and assume the battery will live 100 years. All batteries have a finite life whether cycled or not, lithium's are still better here, but if I can get 8 years from lead acids, can I really get 20 years from lithium to justify the additional cost?

I paid $580 for my 6V 390Ah FLA batteries, and they have the same capacity at 70% DoD (and are rated at 1200 cycles at 70%) as the $1400 Lithium I was comparing it to at 100% DoD.

I'm not arguing that lithium batteries are the future, they are, but in my case I bought FLA's because I'm hoping that in 8 years lithium technology will improve and decrease significantly in cost, and quite frankly they penciled out the same or better in cost effectiveness at time of purchase.

 

[ABMax24]

LYCAN 4.8KWh 3500W Power Box

The Renogy LYCAN 5000 Power Station is an all-in-one energy storage system specially designed to supply power during emergencies, power outages, or to provide power for off-grid homes.

ca.renogy.com

Thinking about upgrading our off grid solar setup to one of these along with adding 2 more panels. Between the 2 rv’s fridge space is small when you try to pack enough food for a week at the rec property so the plan is to get a residential fridge. Current setup just keeps up with 2 trailers plugged in. Would do better if the mother in law was a little more energy conscious, she leaves lights on as if she’s hooked up to high line power & always has something plugged in charging

That's overpriced IMO.

I like assembling parts instead of overpriced pre-packaged systems.

I'd go with 2 of these:

products

Canadian Company LiFePO4 Lithium Batteries and Chargers - products

www.ablithium.ca

This inverter/charger, which would allow you to recharge the batteries from a generator:
Amazon product ASIN B01AD2MJSK2 of these charge controllers:
Amazon product ASIN B073ZJ43L1
And all that would still leave $1000 to wire it all together before matching the cost of that unit.

Granted this requires the time and knowledge to set it up, but it's also easier to upgrade individual components in the future.

 

[ctd]

LYCAN 4.8KWh 3500W Power Box

The Renogy LYCAN 5000 Power Station is an all-in-one energy storage system specially designed to supply power during emergencies, power outages, or to provide power for off-grid homes.

ca.renogy.com

Thinking about upgrading our off grid solar setup to one of these along with adding 2 more panels. Between the 2 rv’s fridge space is small when you try to pack enough food for a week at the rec property so the plan is to get a residential fridge. Current setup just keeps up with 2 trailers plugged in. Would do better if the mother in law was a little more energy conscious, she leaves lights on as if she’s hooked up to high line power & always has something plugged in charging

Good luck retraining the mother in law, have you switched all her lights to LED? One thing I did with my first RV off grid system was place the battery monitor where everyone could see it including me. It displayed available battery power in % so it is just like looking @ the fuel gauge...easier to understand. Every time something was turned on or off it was in everyone's face, as that started to sink in I would switch the display to current draw. It was easy to understand - was bad & + was good as it correlated to the fuel gauge which is the available battery in %. Inverter was remote controlled so it was easy to demonstrate using the fuel gauge & the load. I described it trying to live on a single 15amp cct. This made everyone a little wiser about how wasteful we are, did it help? Kinda sorta Ha!

This is really easy to do with a bluetooth shunt.

I'm going thru a fridge screw up right now(propane/elect), bad choice I made. I would suggest you look closely @ power consumption, takes big power how ever you go. The 12vdc fridge is looking good as it will use less energy than a residential, I have not explored that a lot yet. Running an inverter full time just to power a fridge in your situation, like mine might not be a good choice. The 12vdc fridge, I'm seeing comments around 6ah average usage. 6ah x 24hours = 144ah of power/day. Lets say you have 18cuft residential 400w fridge, 400w/12vdc = 33.5ah x 24hours = 804ah of power/day.

This is why I've not abandon my 18cuft propane fridge that is barking a frightening amount of gas. One option I have is to park a propane pig out their next season. Is this an option for you?

Another factor is will your fridge run full time while you are away, mine does. If I go deep into my batteries & leave for a few days the solar has time to bring them back.

Figuring out your power needs is really important & easy to do, post up if you want some help with that. Then sizing your battery supply for how many days you might survive without any solar. My fridge is propane, the RV draw fridge on while we are away is 3-4ah. I have 400ah of lithium that can be fully depleted, technically 400ah/4ah is 100days. What I did factor into this, I've been caught having to leave the furnace on low so the RV does not freeze. As well I have left the property & forgotten to turn the inverter off or other things. An inverter idling can 2-3ah, that's alot of power sitting there doing nothing. another 24-36ah of power per day.

 

[crazy_wheeler]

Have been looking into the propane fridge options as well. Something simple & low maintenance is easier for me since I would be the one who has to look after it all, the father in law isn’t much help when it comes to fixing our maintenance. Hell gas is cheaper than me find free time.

 

[ctd]

Have been looking into the propane fridge options as well. Something simple & low maintenance is easier for me since I would be the one who has to look after it all, the father in law isn’t much help when it comes to fixing our maintenance. Hell gas is cheaper than me find free time.

The smaller propane fridges are simple & fuel efficient. When we order our fifth las fall we had a choice of prop/elect or residential. It is a large 18cuft, I never blinked as our older smaller prop fridge would easily go a month on a 30lb bottle.

Thinking our old 2010 Jayco with the Norcold fridge would be old technology a new 2022 18cuft Norcold would be at least equal in energy usage. This fridge consumes 30lb of propane in seven days, after fixing leaking doors & non draining drip tray....it still barks down the same amount. Also the older Norcold used .6ah vs the new technology @ 2.0-3.0ah.......this new POS fridge is junk. It is over complicated, thinks its smart just like engineers who designed it.

Important choosing the fridge is look a BTU's, my POS is 3000btu. That calculates to 30lb's of propane every 7-8 days, insane....if you are concerned about that.

Staying propane fridge simplifies your solar power requirements, you still need to figure out your load requirement's. Size the battery supply to the number of days without charging. With my 400ah usable I don't fret the small stuff, 50-100ah is normal overnight usage. This will re charge from my single 300w panel, won't keep up day to day if the weather is off or smoke.

 

[team dirt]

Anyone looking for an inverter/charger. I have a xantrax sw3012 I’m not using anymore. I’ve upgraded to an outback radian 4048 now. 1500$ with the system control panel.

 

[ABMax24]

Another year gone and everything is still operating as it should. Unfortunately we had 4 Pigeons move in under a couple of panels that will have to be dealt with in spring if they return.

We had the best year ever, making 250kwh more than the next best year (2021), but the system is undersized now for the hot summer we had with lots of AC use, and my wife was home full time with the baby increasing usage on top of the extra dishwasher and laundry usage.

 

[lilduke]

Another year gone and everything is still operating as it should. Unfortunately we had 4 Pigeons move in under a couple of panels that will have to be dealt with in spring if they return.

We had the best year ever, making 250kwh more than the next best year (2021), but the system is undersized now for the hot summer we had with lots of AC use, and my wife was home full time with the baby increasing usage on top of the extra dishwasher and laundry usage.

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Would it be hard to add a few more panels?

 

[ABMax24]

Would it be hard to add a few more panels?

Physically no, half a days work for someone that knows what they are doing.

It's the bureaucratic stuff that is a pain, I would need a new agreement with ATCO, the city would want a new structural engineering assessment and electrical permit.

Suffice to say the system is going to stay as is for a while.

 

[ABMax24]

Another year passed, the system still operating as intended, no maintenance or operational issues thus far.

We're still using more than we generate, but still not by enough that I'm willing to add more panels.

 

[sledn]

Your house doesn’t use much power. Our families households use 3-4 times your power consumption.

 

[Caper11]

Your house doesn’t use much power. Our families households use 3-4 times your power consumption.

Right, I thought I was conservative on power usage. I am lucky to get under 600 kWh with a family of 4.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ABMax24]

Yeah it's not bad at all, especially considering we have AC now too. We just buy efficient stuff, never leave anything on that doesn't need to be, and besides 3 kitchen appliances don't have anything that uses electric heat.

 

[ABMax24]

I've finally taken the time to decipher my electric bills and calculate my true savings with this solar system. I can upload the excel file if someone would like to see it, but the table is below. I have to split it into multiple posts because I can't exceed 10,000 characters on this forum.

Long story short I spent $922.66 on electricity in 2023. Had I not had solar and used ATCO energy at 12.29 cents/kwh (the cheapest currently offered plan I'm aware of) I would have paid $1,684.63. I saved $761.97 in 2023 by having solar panels. I paid $6500 for the system, so at this rate simple pay back is 8.5 years. So by this math I'm over half way to recouping the cost of this system.

I still don't regret installing the system, and I'd do it again if/when we purchase another home, hopefully it would be on an acreage that I could install myself bringing down the overall cost.

	Dec 9 to Jan 10	Jan 11 to Feb 7	Feb 8 to Mar 10	Mar 11 to Apr 13	Apr 14 to May 11	May 12 to Jun 12	Jun 13 to Jul 13	Jul 14 to Aug 11	Aug 12 to Sep 13	Sep 14 to Oct 12	Oct 13 to Nov 10	Nov 11 to Dec 10
Energy Used (kwh)	312.82​	235.19​	240.3​	247.74​	242.23​	333.19​	289.7​	337​	325.13​	207.04​	219.18​	277.87​	3267.39​
Self Consumed (kwh)	3.82​	11.19​	21.3​	78.74​	98.23​	100.19​	97.7​	89​	87.13​	58.04​	38.18​	31.87​	715.39​
Spot Power	January	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December	Total
Energy Bought (kwh)	309​	224​	219​	169​	144​	233​	192​	248​	238​	149​	181​	246​
Energy Sold (kwh)	5​	24​	55​	280​	275​	334​	337​	234​	289​	167​	82​	43​
$/kwh	$ 0.0649	$ 0.0649	$ 0.0649	Varies	$ 0.30	$ 0.30	$ 0.30	Varies	Varies	Varies	$ 0.0649	$ 0.0649
Energy Charge	$ 20.05	$ 14.54	$ 14.21	$ 41.43	$ 43.20	$ 69.90	$ 57.60	$ 76.36	$ 75.44	$ 37.51	$ 11.75	$ 15.97
Microgen Credit	-$ 0.32	-$ 1.56	-$ 3.57	-$ 72.46	-$ 82.50	-$ 100.20	-$ 101.10	-$ 72.45	-$ 91.15	-$ 39.26	-$ 5.32	-$ 2.79
GOA Rebate	-$ 75.00	-$ 75.00	-$ 25.00	-$ 25.00
Transmission & Distribution
Transmission Charge	$ 15.16	$ 10.77	$ 10.54	$ 8.13	$ 6.92	$ 11.21	$ 9.24	$ 11.93	$ 11.45	$ 7.16	$ 8.71	$ 11.83
Transmission Rider	$ 6.35	$ 9.62	$ 9.71	$ 9.33	$ 7.44	$ 9.30	$ 8.74	$ 7.95	$ 8.52	$ 6.86	$ 7.33	$ 8.62
Distribution Charge	$ 77.04	$ 58.70	$ 59.76	$ 63.16	$ 52.39	$ 62.33	$ 63.50	$ 62.04	$ 67.12	$ 54.24	$ 56.78	$ 66.28
Balancing Pool Charge	$ 0.72	$ 0.52	$ 0.51	$ 0.39	$ 0.34	$ 0.54	$ 0.45	$ 0.58	$ 0.55	$ 0.35	$ 0.42	$ 0.57
Municipal Fee to Grande Prairie
Local Access Fee	$ 9.65	$ 7.66	$ 7.75	$ 7.90	$ 6.57	$ 8.11	$ 8.05	$ 8.15	$ 8.68	$ 6.80	$ 7.23	$ 8.61
Property Tax	$ 1.54	$ 1.22	$ 1.24	$ 1.32	$ 1.19	$ 1.46	$ 1.45	$ 1.48	$ 1.56	$ 1.23	$ 1.30	$ 1.56
Retailer Fees											$ 7.23	$ 7.23
Admin Charge	$ 6.50	$ 6.50	$ 6.85	$ 7.23	$ 7.23	$ 7.23	$ 7.23	$ 7.23	$ 7.23	$ 7.23	-$ 0.41	-$ 0.40
Interest on Prudential	-$ 0.45	-$ 0.38	-$ 0.40	-$ 0.47	-$ 0.38	-$ 0.41	-$ 0.45	-$ 0.40	-$ 0.47	-$ 0.38
GST	$ 6.83	$ 5.40	$ 5.35	$ 3.32	$ 2.14	$ 3.49	$ 2.76	$ 5.16	$ 4.47	$ 4.11	$ 4.75	$ 5.87
Total	$ 68.07	$ 37.99	$ 86.95	$ 44.28	$ 44.54	$ 72.96	$ 57.47	$ 108.03	$ 93.40	$ 85.85	$ 99.77	$ 123.35	$ 922.66