Here is the link to where you can download the pdf I mentioned in the video that has my complete design/parts list of my solar system. It also has the battery info I discuss in this video. brian-c1c54.gr8.com/
I'm enjoying your RUclips channel and this video. I can't help but feel that your 4 Ton HVAC. It should be cycling on and off about 50% of the time which should get you closer to 10 to 12 hours. Am I missing something?
@@powerguymark I’m in a manufactured home with just moderate insulation. In the summer time here in texas during the day it is running probably 90% of the time. At night it probably runs 50% of the time. So yes it will avg lower than the max watts over a 24 hr period of time. I was just trying to make the point that traditional AC’s use a ton of energy compared to other appliances in the home.
great info. to get people interested in solar to think in terms of watt hours that they use is a big part of going solar. Another concept to talk about is finding ways to use less energy such as a smaller wattage microwave or variable output induction, a mini split is exactly this way of thinking......get cool air and use half or less watts to do it.
One thing to note - if your 4T AC uses about 3500 running watts, it's not for the whole continuous 10hr overnight period. It will cycle during this period at maybe a 30-50% duty cycle, which means that it will be using power for 3-5hrs * 3500W = 10.5kWh-17.5kWh, not 35kWh. Cool setup BTW!
It's insane to not run a mini split. They are way cheaper to acquire, they run quieter, and they provide heat and cooling at about 700W. No comparison with the old technology.
@@scottcampbell7944 yep I installed a 2 ton mini split for my living room, kitchen, and dining room. Installing a 9k btu mini split in my master bedroom tomorrow. I’ll make a few videos on those soon.
@@NoTreadingOnMethere are systems that use a mini split style compressor and control board but feed a central heat exchanger. I unfortunately found out about them about 18 months after I replaced my 20 year old failed AC unit. One advantage they have is that they can be stacked with a natural gas furnace so you can have a heat pump with natural gas as your emergency backup, in the case of a power outage you can load shed the heat pump and your battery bank only has to run the blower motor.
DIY solar with Will Prouse recommends using the very same battery bank that you have….just so that you know, I have zero absolutely zero knowledge of solar energy but I’m willing to learn, thank you for your video, really informative !
My solution was to install 3 solar mini splits, they draw no AC power during the day (when the sun is out) and only around 220 watts at night and when the temps finally get down around 10-11 pm they don't have to work as hard and only draw 20 or so watts each. My system is similar to yours but not quite as many panels and only 13k watts output on my inverter, but with removing cooling and heating drain my 6 eg4 lifepo batteries charge up quicker and last longer overnight. My 5 ton central AC unit has it's breaker off and just sits as a backup lol. Next I am putting my well pump on it's own inverter, battery, and panels.
Thank you for this video, it's very informative and helpful! A common misconception, you can't just carefree run the existing stuff of a typical family - as mentioned at 5:10 - with batteries and solar unless you have enough money to buy a literal mountain of batteries and a football field of solar. Much, much $. Out of reach for any but the rich. For reasonable, attainable solutions you have to change lifestyle and buy minisplits, low elec. use water heaters, etc. and plan home life around your electrical needs. It can be done though so hang in there.
Great video! Having a reliable backup power solution is crucial, especially for outdoor enthusiasts like us. I've been using the Segway Portable PowerStation Cube Series and it has been a game-changer. The massive capacity, fast recharging, and waterproof technology make it perfect for camping trips. Highly recommend it for anyone in need of a versatile and dependable power source.
Thank you so much for the valuable information..I want to be more sustainable in the coming years as far as getting mostly off grid,rainwater catchment systems and storage and solar systems.More people need to sub to your channel to get this great info..I'll spread the word..Thank you for taking the time to help those of us interested in this topic.I really appreciate it!
Thanks for the great video! We have the SolArk 15K and SimplPhi batteries. There are so many configuration variables, but you bring things into focus very quickly.
The other heavy power draw that we have is the oven, as it is used every second night and draws 2.5KW for up to 1 hour. We also use our air fryer and microwave for cooking/ heating at different times during the evenings.
We excluded our oven from my battery bank - but did include the geyser/boiler Simply because we have an air fryer, a BBQ and a bread maker. All Of which are really efficient and cut the cooking time. I’ve been looking at options at adding a gas boiler system in-line (for emergency use backup), or looking at duel elements (one running 220v and one running at 24v direct off older panels). We have a 10.4 kw battery bank, which is only used once solar power is depleted around 5pm. We had a 36 hour grid failure last week, and lasted around 9 hours of backup.
@@backroadsusa6915 you can wire and exclude/include to suit your needs - the concern is running too high an amp draw on the battery and invertor system. There is also a amp limit usually and if exceeded it resets the system. A geyser/boiler - I would consider an essential. An oven I don’t consider essential, especially if you have other cooking options that are quicker (air fryer / gas top.
Excellent video and information ---- IF you have a standard HVAC air conditioner and you are installing solar people need to see if you can install a (soft starter) on your HVAC as that can reduce the starting wattage needed by 1/2 or even 3/4 of the watts normally needed for startup.
This was a much needed video for me. Thanks for running the numbers. Our power bill was almost identical to your example. Looks like if you doubled the battery bank size those extra loads wouldn’t be an issue but perhaps fully charging your bank up the next day might. Thank you!
I love the EG4s and will have some in the mix, but I am also building my own batteries. If you need/want warranty or support maybe split it the build or go all Eg4. I am building 4 batteries. They are 13.4kw EACH by using 280ah lifepo4 configured for 48v. Batteries can be picked up at warehouse in Houston now for about $140/each, then order a $400 Seplos-Mason Diy case (rack or wheeled box) which comes with a 200amp Seplos BMS and all the bus bars, connectors, and wires. Planning on $2750 per battery (misc components, Band-Aids, paying the cuss jar!, etc.). So 4 of those is a 53.6kw battery bank for $11,000 and it can do 200-400amp charge/discharge all day which is major overkill. Even 2 of those would double your existing Eg4s for about $5,550. Oh, AND because all components are new, it still qualifies for 30% tax credit. I need 64 individual cells to make 4 batteries, but will buy 70 shooting for a discount. The extra will be on-hand spares, or can quickly build a 280ah 12v for the RV if needed.
That’s a heck of a deal. Hopefully that will last you a long time. If the build quality is just as good as buying new then you definitely are getting way more for your money.
$8,500 with the rack right now! $1,299 per battery in June 24. I just bought and installed another 6 batteries this past week along with another 6,000 watts of panels.
Please create a video showing how to ground solar array, and if needed how to run ground from solar array to inverter and how to wire at inverter. Also what should we do at solar array to protect against surge or lightning strike? What if not using a combiner box because not combining any parallel strings? Then how to protect against surge or lightning? thanks
Here’s a short video on how I grounded my solar array. Doesn’t go into a lot of detail though. I also use EMP Shied (see the link to EMP Shield in the descriptions of my videos) to protect my whole house, Sol-Ark inverter, and battery bank from lightning strikes, an EMP, solar flares, or any other type of surge. ruclips.net/user/shortsJLW1HidlzZ4?feature=share
Great explanation. I'm currently going through planning my solar install. This was extremely helpful to figure out what I'll need as far as equipment and how many batteries. I like your mounts as well. I have a nice slope area that gets 100% sun and faces south, so I'll be doing pretty much the same thing.
There are some simple facts to appreciate and the first one is to be able to live within your power supply, which may mean using the OFF switch often and for long periods. If there is a need for DIY electricity then there is no power for TVs computers and games to be left on unless they are in current use, likewise surplus lighting is not needed therefore it doesn't need power. Before electricity people lived, farmed and worked and had a life. Choosing to live off grid means choosing that as a power limit. If you haven't harvested the energy then you can't use it.
I can make it about 73 hrs on batteries. Then i need some input.. I run everything just like normal with the exception of the dryer and hot water heater. I also turn my hot water Heater off as soon as we're done with showers. I have 4 mini splits, and 2 refrigerators.
In almost every place that you stated "kilowatts" you were wrong. You should have stated "kilowatt hours" and/or shown kwh. This is for ENERY consumption (electricity usage) and for battery capacity. Watts is a unit of instantaneous POWER. This is a very common error amongst solar info sites, unfortunately.
Yeah understood. It so much easier to understand for average people just stating it as kilowatts. At least it was for me when I first got started. But you definitely are correct.
One might be able to avoid the multiple days of cloudiness with a Honda generator emergency backup that technically can be ran with biogas you generate from your own garden. Saving many kilowatts of redundancy.
Or, just start by watching your meter when you power things on. Maybe just try to cover the always on loads first like the refrigerator, computer, router, etc., then build from there. My original estimate was 200 watts per hour to run the refrigerator for one day straight. From this I figured as close to 4.8 kilowatt-hours of batteries and I knew I would need more than 800 watts of solar to replenish that. I started with a bluetti ac200 Max with an extra battery for 4096 kwh and 400 watts of solar. My original budget was $5,000 so it kept me in there. I slowly added on to that.
I put a watt meter on my fridges and they were averaging about 85 watt hrs for a 24 hr period. They are new fridges though so pretty energy efficient. I also use timers to shut off all my fridges from 9pm - 8am. Though I have them all turn on around 2am for an hour to make sure the temp stays cold. But this way I’m not draining my batteries as much overnight.
@@unpluggedtexan Great idea with the timer. Mine is 16 years old. The power usage is going up a little bit every month, so it's probably on its way out. Thanks for the video. I love this stuff.
Excellent download of a budget build with high build quality, at least an honest presentation with all components listed for the build plus a full schematic of the system. However regarding wattage savings there is one opportunity overlooked when you live in the boonies with unreliable utility electric supply and that is PROPANE. Sure I designed my house from scratch and keeping the load down to run it with a 12kVA propane gen set for days at a time was a requirement. I have two PROPANE tanks one with 1000 gal and the second with 120gal. Clothes dryer PROPANE, kitchen range oven and burners PROPANE, water heater PROPANE, warm air furnace PROPANE, and independent second heating system with extra independent ductwork wood/coal burning Qty 2 - 12kVA gen sets one for warm standby if the first fails PROPANE. And the 5 ton AC has a cooling tower with water recirculation that beats any air to air AC - so I get 5 tons for 2300Watt draw. Your problem is that your system powers a mobile home, so of course all major appliance with high wattage draw are electric - electric appliances cost less than gas appliances. My concern: rack mount solar panels - I assume the dimensional lumber which is most likely pressure treated lumber goes directly in the ground. That may rot over time. I would have drilled 20ft round holes in the ground for concrete piers and affixed the wooden racks on top of the concrete piers. Also THHN from solar panels to the SOLARK 15k I would have chose AWG 8 THHN for minimum losses on the relatively long runs. just my 5 cents.
All good points. I actually initially had our manufactured home with propane stove, water heater, and furnace. I also have a 1,000 gallon propane tank (I shared with the home next to me on my property). I believe our politicians (and the public in general) will continue to demonize any oil drilling / gas use. So shortages and higher prices of propane are in our future. I want to control all my energy production so trying to go all solar. It will take conserving, but I do think it is possible.
Great video though you got the units mixed up a few times when you talked about Watts or Kilowatts but really meant Watt-hours or Kilowatt-hours. And a few times like on your tables you had "Watts / hr" which is meaningless. You really meant just "Watts" there, the average continuous power consumption, not "Watts per hour". X Watts used for a period of one hour would be X Watt-hours and not X Watts per hour. In anycase, great video otherwise! It really does just come down to the bigger loads.
To get a daily number that factors in all 4 seasons, you might want to add up the kWh for all 12 months for a given year…then divide the total yearly kWh by 365
Great video. I'm designing a system and may use this same inverter. I also plan to be off-grid, so I have a question. How does the EG4 18K unit handle all the solar energy if your batteries are full and your loads are very low?
@@precisionhomesdesign the EG4 18k pv does the same thing as the Sol-Ark. it will just drop off the extra energy it doesn’t need if your batteries are full.
Key point Sun is out. If ypu load your house up to 15kw in the day you got nothing much left to recharge your batteries gor night. Insteresting proces in usa. My 48kwh battery rack was $6200 usd about half here in Asia
expensive for sure. but batteries are the most expensive part of the entire system. the panels, charge controller, and inverter are pennies by comparison. i'm just over £2k in for my 7.5kWh setup. but that's enough for me to run my whole apartment off batteries. and it gives me around 48hrs before i need to charge them. which i do every day anyway from a couple of panels. the batteries are good for 10 years of nearly total discharge every day, so why not get my money's worth!
If you have a air conditioning burning 3.500 watts a hours, you have some problem. Normally the air condition kith on for 15 minutes and it's shut off. And 15 minutes later come on again. But We understands your point.
Power consumption? Just look at your meter! Just need overnight storage (in your example 17KWHs). Just dont do laundry or run the AC overnight and you'll be ok.
Not sure on your exact setup/location, but do you have to worry about warming or cooling your batteries during certain seasons? If so, how are you solving for that?
Storage is expensive as hell. You are better off over sizing the solar by 50-75% so it will still charge the batteries on cloudy days and provide enough energy. Panels are cheap today. You can buy new 400-450 watt panels by the pallet for 45-55 cents a watt retail today. That is about $4500-$5500 for 10kw of production. Which is the cost for three of these batteries. Hell for the cost of two of those batteries you could have 2 1500watt wind turbines + charge controllers to pull you through the stormy weather.
I’m thinking of putting together a video of a system similar to that. I love my huge system, but some people need to start small and I completely understand that. I started with a small system about 8 years ago. It gave me proof of concept and the confidence that I could make a large system.
It’s like saying miles per hour is the same as miles. Two different uses. Not trying to nitpick, but you’ll confuse people by using the incorrect terminology. But I like your system and plan something similar.
Yes. It actually has a section on it to wire in a generator so it can automatically start up when there’s no grid power, your batteries are dead, and there’s no solar.
Yeah most people don’t realize it takes more energy to heat a home than cool it. In winter we use our fireplace (since we have an unlimited supply of oak trees on our 15 acres). We also use heating blankets on beds since those only use about 100 watt hrs. Then we can allow our home get colder at night when there’s no solar power to heat to conserve batteries.
I put down $3k, and got an unsecured loan for the rest of it. 10yr term at $356 per month. I’m saving around $250 per month in electricity and propane with my system. So as of right now it’s costing me about $100 per month to have the system (plus my down payment) to have energy security. But I have good credit which certainly helps.
We made the decision to prioritize energy security. I'm not "green". I'm more concerned about my family's ability to be independent. I have about $25k into my diy system but I drive a 20 year old rust free car and so does my wife and we have a third backup 20 year old car in case one breads down or needs maintenance. None of them are worth over $5k. We don't vacation every year. We don't have cable TV, we didn't take out student loans, we don't have credit card debts, we dont have $1,200 iPhones, we have $200 Motorola's buy once. Keep monthly payments down as low as possible. If you have no money and can't get a normal loan and do have a 401k loan and are not 10 or less years from retirement. Take out a loan from it. Low interest rates and you actually pay the interest to yourself to cover the loss of growth while the money is not in the account. But that's the last option. Definitely don't take out a home equity loan. That's the worst way to pay for it.
I was wierded out by the number of KWH you used as an egxample so i google it and im shoked how much more energy you guys use. In poland its 75-116 kwh/month but US uses 900kwh/month !!! wtf
30.72 Kilowatt hours IS NOT 30,720 "watts". It is 30,720 "watt hours". 4:23 in the video. I'm not trying to bash. I like all your videos. Just trying to make sure people aren't confused. Units on numbers are as important as the numbers themselves. Units are your check mechanism to make sure the math is correct. If you multiply and divide the units, along with the numbers, then it will tell you what you have at the end. (30,720 watt * hours ) / (3,500 watt) , the watts cancel each other, the only unit left is hours, and you get 8.8 HOURS of time (watt*hr/watt => hr)
Thanks for pointing that out. You are correct. It’s easier in my head and for people to grasp the concept I think by explaining it the way I did. At least that’s been the feedback I’ve received. Except from electrical engineers who have criticized the terminology. But most criticize from a place feeling they’re superior and having to belittle us peasants who don’t do this for a living. I’m just an average guy learning, and often making mistakes, but in the process hopefully helping people out.
@@unpluggedtexan Do you feel like a peasant if someone points out a mistake to you? If someone pointed out a mistake to me and I learned something from it I would just be grateful. If it made me feel like a peasant I would go work on my self-esteem.
@@mcg6762 depends on the way they criticize. Most criticize in a disrespectful way because they’re not face to face with you. They typically have the lower self esteem as they need to build themselves up by ridiculing and belittling someone.
@@unpluggedtexan Can you give an example of a disrespectful way of pointing out mistakes? Was the original post in this thread disrespectful and indicative of low self esteem according to you?
Sol-Ark has an amazing reputation for their quality. The warranty is fantastic and the service is great. I can talk to one of their engineers over the phone with any issues I have. In my opinion 3 smaller inverters that aren’t as good quality and complicate the install wasn’t worth it. I’m extremely happy with my purchase. I also have the grid as backup so I still would have power if the Sol-Ark failed. In an off grid situation I can definitely understand the importance of redundancy. I actually have an EG4 18k PV still new in the box I could install quickly if my Sol-Ark failed.
With grid it makes sense. I'm off-grid and worried what to do when my one inverter fails. To complicate things I'm on Maui which is far away from the mainland.
It’s going to be cheaper to convert appliances to more energy efficient ones than buy batteries to power the traditional appliances that use a lot of electricity. Look at a heat pump hot water heater, mini splits for AC and heat, heat pump washer/dryer combo. I’ll be making a video on the energy efficient appliances I use soon.
As for Florida 😢 unless you've planned to stay completely silent in reference to code enforcement city/county ... permitting at best will be a nightmare Be Blessed 😊
You didn’t mention that if your solar panels are generating enough to run your house during the day and charge the batteries to capacity then those kWh don’t count
When the sun is out my batteries are fully charged by 1pm. I have way more power than I can use during the day in sunny weather. In cloudy weather I’m still mostly getting a full charge as well by later in the day.
$0.30 per kWh is ridiculously high. I didn’t know anywhere still had a rate as low as $0.06 per kWh. Mine is $0.10 but I was just informed mine is going up beginning Oct 1st to about $0.12 per kWh.
so those batteries can handle 100 amps charging., but they are parallel so times 6 = 600 amps, but they don't charge evenly, so maybe 550 amps?? 19,200 watts / 50 volts = about 384 amps @ 50 volts. you shouldn't have a problem with overcharging IMO. 25000 w / 18,000w = 1.5 hours, but charging efficiency? maybe 2.5 hours? so during the middle of an average day you can charge your batteries with no problem. however, if you lived where i do; northern idaho, during the winter i might get one day out of six with sunshine and that sunshine might last 3 hours with luck. my 20kwh batteries can operate my kitchen only for 12 days in the summer, but maybe only 1.5 days in the winter? I haven't tested it yet. with another 2 batteries i might be able to go 2 days. i need to get up to 3 days because of power outages that sometimes last nine days. i have a generator i could use to charge the batteries while supplying power to my kitchen. i figure that i might have to run the generator for 7 hours while charging and do that every other day. expensive fuel and generators don't last long unless you can afford a really expensive one. i don't get enough wind for a wind mill. So i need to cut down on the power i use. the fridge and a few LED lights and maybe the TV. i will buy a small, cheap freezer to use during the winter and keep my food in a room that stays cold...cutting off the fridge and saving maybe 200 watts. that alone will let me run two days i hope. more solar panels will charge my batteries with light coming through clouds. maybe 300 to 400 watts total? another test. 2 more batteries on top of these changes might get me 3 days. then i will only have to run the generator every third day and i might be able to run a small space heater for a few hours?
In normal times, I would say I agree with you. Here’s a video I literally just made explaining why I think that’s a bad idea now.ruclips.net/user/shortsURKZxhI2xvg?feature=share
My nieghbor has a gas stove gas heater gas hot water none need electric . now i see africa has engineers that make home biogas for cooking they do not have to buy gas
My thing is 300 a month bill times 20 years is 72,000 that’s plenty of money to get 2 solar systems Solar is worth it cause your not paying the government
If/when the stupid EV industry finally converts to Lifo batts, then you can just use the solar charged car batt to run the house at night. Or have 2 easily swapped car batts( via a trunk accessed roll out battery cart ala ems type gurney).Alternate the batts every other day so you always have a charged batt. If Musk and others focused on this instead of space exploration,Mars missions, our energy and be cleaner air/climate change problems could be resolved . But big oil and the utility industry makes the politicians drag their feet as long as possible meanwhile WE suffer the financial and environmental consequences!
but your 4 ton AC shouldn't run all the time. Only with its calling for cool. During the day My ac runs more because its hotter out. I can go in to and app and see how long my AC has ran. night time about 2 hours , and during the day 4 to 5 hours depending on how much the kids run in and out. So all in all if your AC only runs for just a few hours you should or could last all night.
I have a manufactured home with not great insulation. And I’m in Texas where it’s extremely hot at times. My AC seems to run about 70% of the time. At night it’s less. But that big an energy draw really drains my batteries at night.
@@unpluggedtexan Another thing is load power is measured in watts, not watts per hour. W/hr is a legitimate unit, but one of rate of load change (technically acceleration of energy) and is normally used in a bigger system context; i.e. iffen your system only has 15MW of spinning reserve and load is increasing at 1MW/min, you have _at most_ 15min to spin up some peakers or Bad Things happen. And I know that you want to have better spinning reserve margins than this, but remember that all kinds of critical infrastructure is run by hyperideological mouth breathing idiots.
Course if you'd bought any EG4 batteries and six of them that would have cost you only $9,000 and they are five whatever kilowatts battery each don't know what they're exactly but I know they're five kilowatt something of rather don't know what it is exactly because I don't own any they're just very costly.
I understand what you mean. I think it’s more confusing to say “it uses 5 kwh’s.” The average person has no idea what in the heck that means. It makes more sense to say it uses 1 kw per hour in my opinion. I know the professionals say you’re an idiot if you say that. But the pro’s intentionally want to make it more difficult to understand so you have to pay them $30k for the install. Sorry you think it’s confusing. Most average people tell me this makes more sense to them than all the other videos they watch on battery consumption. So feel feee to watch their channels instead of complaining about mine.
@@unpluggedtexan Sorry, but if you want to make videos about this you need to use the correct terminology. Watts (W) is a measure of instantaneous power draw. It is actually a short-hand for Joules per second (J/s), energy per unit of time. Watt-hour is a measure of energy (1 Watt-hour = 3600 Joules). It would probably be less confusing if the industry used Joules and Joules per second instead of Watt-hours and Watts. People seem to have a hard time getting their heads around Watts. Just remember that Watts is a measure of RATE of energy use. And Watt-hours is a measure of energy. That's it really.
@@unpluggedtexan Your statement "it uses 5 kWh" does not make much sense without context. It could make sense for example if you said "this device uses 5 kWh to cut my lawn". That statement tells you how much energy the device used to complete its job. It does not say anything about how long it took. It could for example have used 500 Watts for 10 hours or 5 kW for one hour.
I don't want to come off like a jerk here, but when you make a claim like " I use THIS inverter because then I can add to my battery bank" What special feature of the solark does this? Are you suggesting that EVERY OTHER INVERTER in the world can't have batteries added later? that would be silly to suggest. You are saying this because you get a kickback when someone buys a solark using your link. Be honest bruh, is your integrity worth the kickback? Be honest, be real.
Inverters have a max amount of batteries you can put on them. The Sol-Ark 15k can handle A LOT more batteries than other inverters. That gives you the option to scale up later as your budget allows. I am being completely honest and real. Of course I get a kickback when someone uses my link, why do you think people spend a bunch of time putting videos together to show how these products work? Am I adding value to the viewers? Based on all the emails I receive where people are thanking me for the info now that they are energy independent I would say I’ve helped. Sorry for being so direct. But when people ignorantly just assume someone lacks integrity it frustrates me. I agree there’s a lot of con artists out there. I purchased the Sol-Ark 15k retail after doing a ton of research. It’s the best inverter I have found, and it took me forever to figure out how to build this system. That’s why I started this channel as I thought it could help others do the same. THE SOL-ARK 15k CAN ABSOLUTELY DO MORE THAN MOST INVERTERS IN THE MARKET.
@@unpluggedtexan okay, I can assure you that you are 100% wrong here. there is no difference with a Solark as to the number of batteries you can connect vs say an MPP Solar or a Growatt or a PowMR or a Sun Gold Power. So before you reply, you will want to gather some proof for me to debunk, because I will. I will give you the benefit of the doubt here and say that you were told something that wasn't true to shield your integrity. You are on notice however that what I am telling you is TRUE. I only comment on these videos to do my part in cutting through the bad info people can find on the internet, there is a lot of it out there. Please understand I am trying to look out for the masses here that will stumble onto your video and "learn" something. Your energy audit was fair enough btw, there was value in that.
@@sNEAKYnIGHTmUPPET can you physically hook up as many batteries as you want (as long as they’re in parallel at 48 volts yes). It’s the software in a lot of inverters that can’t handle going over a certain limit. The Sol-Ark 15k can handle from 50-9,900 amp hours. That’s up to 475 kwh’s of batteries the Sol-Ark 15k software can still successfully communicate with. I’ve been told that is far more than the software on competing inverters can handle. I guess it’s possible I’m wrong, since Sol-Ark seems to be the only company in their spec sheets that even discuss that.
@@unpluggedtexan so you were told. Ok, there IS NO LIMIT in software. The ONLY thing that COULD be limited might be a capacity gauge. Software communication aside, there is not limit. You may be correct, but that is just the capacity tracking. Most systems on the market today do not use the Inverter to track capacity like this. Some CAN, but most DON'T. You could hook up a bank as large as you could fit on your property and not have an issue. The only real reason this may be an issue for anyone is that you are limited, and ALL SYSTEMS ARE, by the amount of AMPS they can output for charging. I have a few different systems over a few different properties. The one in Arizona has a max charge rate of 360A in full sun. The one in mexico has a max charge rate of 120A. the one in Canada has a max charge rate of 240A max. So, if i had a 100,000aH battery connected to each system, and somehow managed to discharge it heavily then I would have a harder time recharging. but this is a completely unrelated challenge that more solar panels would help with. Please, Understand I am coming from a good place here, I am just challenged with people giving howto videos that either Lie, or just don't know any better but speak like they are worthy of giving advice. People view videos like yours and think you actually KNOW something, and clearly you know enough to make it work, but everything else you just know what you've been told. I have many systems personally and have many people out there that I have done systems for, and others where I have just consulted. I understand you made a video, and you want to do youtube as a job, but just because you did a thing, one time, doesn't make you an expert. I see many people do videos like yours, and wish a disclaimer was provided. Something like " I did a thing, and this is how I did it, but this is not a HOW TO VIDEO!" That would be honest.
@@sNEAKYnIGHTmUPPET I appreciate the feedback. While I have a lot of electrical experience, I’m not a licensed electrician or solar installer. I get a lot of emails from people and always tell them I can’t give advice since I’m not licensed, but here is how I did it. That’s the best I can do. My PDF I let people download clearly states that, and recommends a licensed electrician as systems as big as mine can kill you if you screw up. My goal is to get people thinking about producing their own power as a way to shield themselves against our failing electrical grid and inflation. They system I have installed has been awesome for that. If I can help others understand how to do it then great. The more of us who become independent the better. I’ll make mistakes from time to time in videos, I do not have the market cornered on knowledge. I welcome constructive feedback for sure. Thanks for the conversation.
It pains me to give you this lecture but you keep confusing Kilo Watts with Kilo watt hours. Kilo Watts is a unit of power. Kilo Watt hours is a unit of energy. Never again say KW when you mean KWH. You are welcome
Yeah I always get those confused. I try to not be scripted and just speak without a script. Hopefully the point I’m making still comes across as there’s a huge issue with this industry not helping to make these videos common sense for average people. I’m not an expert in terminology, but I feel like I’m pretty good at making it make sense for people who aren’t “experts.” I’m sure I’ll drive those people nuts with the terminology mistakes.
Okay guys for dinner has a 400 w actually it's 350watt air conditioner when it's running on high and it blows out some cold air it's a 5,000 BTU now I put an 18-in 18 volt lithium powered fan in front of it and I only charge that battery off the Sun and I have two of those batteries actually I have several of those batteries but I only use two of them one a day while the other one charges it's pretty simple and I get air conditioning all the way through my 1600 square home.... Just got to keep the door shut and the blinds down. Shit lasts all day as long as the sun's out. Then I got about 4 to 6 hours after that because it all runs off of a 2000 watt hour lithium battery backup. It's beautiful and I have 800 Watts of solar panel feeding back into it during the day that's why I get to run my air conditioning free I could run two of these air conditionings if I wanted to. He's right get a mini split they're only like 600 Watts EG4 is the brand you want
Here is the link to where you can download the pdf I mentioned in the video that has my complete design/parts list of my solar system. It also has the battery info I discuss in this video. brian-c1c54.gr8.com/
I'm enjoying your RUclips channel and this video. I can't help but feel that your 4 Ton HVAC. It should be cycling on and off about 50% of the time which should get you closer to 10 to 12 hours. Am I missing something?
@@powerguymark I’m in a manufactured home with just moderate insulation. In the summer time here in texas during the day it is running probably 90% of the time. At night it probably runs 50% of the time. So yes it will avg lower than the max watts over a 24 hr period of time. I was just trying to make the point that traditional AC’s use a ton of energy compared to other appliances in the home.
great info. to get people interested in solar to think in terms of watt hours that they use is a big part of going solar. Another concept to talk about is finding ways to use less energy such as a smaller wattage microwave or variable output induction, a mini split is exactly this way of thinking......get cool air and use half or less watts to do it.
One thing to note - if your 4T AC uses about 3500 running watts, it's not for the whole continuous 10hr overnight period. It will cycle during this period at maybe a 30-50% duty cycle, which means that it will be using power for 3-5hrs * 3500W = 10.5kWh-17.5kWh, not 35kWh. Cool setup BTW!
Yep good point.
It's insane to not run a mini split. They are way cheaper to acquire, they run quieter, and they provide heat and cooling at about 700W. No comparison with the old technology.
@@scottcampbell7944 I agree. Builders here still put in full split ducted systems here for some reason
@@scottcampbell7944 yep I installed a 2 ton mini split for my living room, kitchen, and dining room. Installing a 9k btu mini split in my master bedroom tomorrow. I’ll make a few videos on those soon.
@@NoTreadingOnMethere are systems that use a mini split style compressor and control board but feed a central heat exchanger. I unfortunately found out about them about 18 months after I replaced my 20 year old failed AC unit. One advantage they have is that they can be stacked with a natural gas furnace so you can have a heat pump with natural gas as your emergency backup, in the case of a power outage you can load shed the heat pump and your battery bank only has to run the blower motor.
DIY solar with Will Prouse recommends using the very same battery bank that you have….just so that you know, I have zero absolutely zero knowledge of solar energy but I’m willing to learn, thank you for your video, really informative !
My solution was to install 3 solar mini splits, they draw no AC power during the day (when the sun is out) and only around 220 watts at night and when the temps finally get down around 10-11 pm they don't have to work as hard and only draw 20 or so watts each. My system is similar to yours but not quite as many panels and only 13k watts output on my inverter, but with removing cooling and heating drain my 6 eg4 lifepo batteries charge up quicker and last longer overnight. My 5 ton central AC unit has it's breaker off and just sits as a backup lol. Next I am putting my well pump on it's own inverter, battery, and panels.
Very good set up. Was thinking the same thing as I am starting to build a system.
Thank you for this video, it's very informative and helpful! A common misconception, you can't just carefree run the existing stuff of a typical family - as mentioned at 5:10 - with batteries and solar unless you have enough money to buy a literal mountain of batteries and a football field of solar. Much, much $. Out of reach for any but the rich.
For reasonable, attainable solutions you have to change lifestyle and buy minisplits, low elec. use water heaters, etc. and plan home life around your electrical needs. It can be done though so hang in there.
Yep well said
good not agree more with the opening comments, like how much you can afford. that does not help anyone. great video, very helpful for me. thank you
Great video! Having a reliable backup power solution is crucial, especially for outdoor enthusiasts like us. I've been using the Segway Portable PowerStation Cube Series and it has been a game-changer. The massive capacity, fast recharging, and waterproof technology make it perfect for camping trips. Highly recommend it for anyone in need of a versatile and dependable power source.
We went on the daily average at 20KW... but most people use more energy than they truly "need". Thanks for posting your video.
Thank you so much for the valuable information..I want to be more sustainable in the coming years as far as getting mostly off grid,rainwater catchment systems and storage and solar systems.More people need to sub to your channel to get this great info..I'll spread the word..Thank you for taking the time to help those of us interested in this topic.I really appreciate it!
Thanks for your kind words! Glad I can help!
Thanks for the great video! We have the SolArk 15K and SimplPhi batteries. There are so many configuration variables, but you bring things into focus very quickly.
Thanks for the feedback!
That was super helpful. I'll be referring back to this often. Thanks brother!
Glad I could help!
The other heavy power draw that we have is the oven, as it is used every second night and draws 2.5KW for up to 1 hour. We also use our air fryer and microwave for cooking/ heating at different times during the evenings.
We excluded our oven from my battery bank - but did include the geyser/boiler
Simply because we have an air fryer, a BBQ and a bread maker. All Of which are really efficient and cut the cooking time.
I’ve been looking at options at adding a gas boiler system in-line (for emergency use backup), or looking at duel elements (one running 220v and one running at 24v direct off older panels).
We have a 10.4 kw battery bank, which is only used once solar power is depleted around 5pm. We had a 36 hour grid failure last week, and lasted around 9 hours of backup.
Can't you just switch and use your oven during the day when you've got full power coming in from the solar?
@@backroadsusa6915 you can wire and exclude/include to suit your needs - the concern is running too high an amp draw on the battery and invertor system. There is also a amp limit usually and if exceeded it resets the system.
A geyser/boiler - I would consider an essential.
An oven I don’t consider essential, especially if you have other cooking options that are quicker (air fryer / gas top.
Excellent video and information ---- IF you have a standard HVAC air conditioner and you are installing solar people need to see if you can install a (soft starter) on your HVAC as that can reduce the starting wattage needed by 1/2 or even 3/4 of the watts normally needed for startup.
This was a much needed video for me. Thanks for running the numbers. Our power bill was almost identical to your example. Looks like if you doubled the battery bank size those extra loads wouldn’t be an issue but perhaps fully charging your bank up the next day might. Thank you!
Thanks for the feedback!
I love the EG4s and will have some in the mix, but I am also building my own batteries. If you need/want warranty or support maybe split it the build or go all Eg4. I am building 4 batteries. They are 13.4kw EACH by using 280ah lifepo4 configured for 48v. Batteries can be picked up at warehouse in Houston now for about $140/each, then order a $400 Seplos-Mason Diy case (rack or wheeled box) which comes with a 200amp Seplos BMS and all the bus bars, connectors, and wires. Planning on $2750 per battery (misc components, Band-Aids, paying the cuss jar!, etc.). So 4 of those is a 53.6kw battery bank for $11,000 and it can do 200-400amp charge/discharge all day which is major overkill. Even 2 of those would double your existing Eg4s for about $5,550. Oh, AND because all components are new, it still qualifies for 30% tax credit. I need 64 individual cells to make 4 batteries, but will buy 70 shooting for a discount. The extra will be on-hand spares, or can quickly build a 280ah 12v for the RV if needed.
That’s a heck of a deal. Hopefully that will last you a long time. If the build quality is just as good as buying new then you definitely are getting way more for your money.
$8,500 with the rack right now! $1,299 per battery in June 24. I just bought and installed another 6 batteries this past week along with another 6,000 watts of panels.
Yeah prices have come down a lot. I paid way more than you all are paying today.
Really good eye-opening stuff. Thanks for this.
Please create a video showing how to ground solar array, and if needed how to run ground from solar array to inverter and how to wire at inverter.
Also what should we do at solar array to protect against surge or lightning strike?
What if not using a combiner box because not combining any parallel strings? Then how to protect against surge or lightning?
thanks
Here’s a short video on how I grounded my solar array. Doesn’t go into a lot of detail though. I also use EMP Shied (see the link to EMP Shield in the descriptions of my videos) to protect my whole house, Sol-Ark inverter, and battery bank from lightning strikes, an EMP, solar flares, or any other type of surge. ruclips.net/user/shortsJLW1HidlzZ4?feature=share
Great explanation. I'm currently going through planning my solar install. This was extremely helpful to figure out what I'll need as far as equipment and how many batteries. I like your mounts as well. I have a nice slope area that gets 100% sun and faces south, so I'll be doing pretty much the same thing.
Good luck on your project! Glad I could help!
There are some simple facts to appreciate and the first one is to be able to live within your power supply, which may mean using the OFF switch often and for long periods. If there is a need for DIY electricity then there is no power for TVs computers and games to be left on unless they are in current use, likewise surplus lighting is not needed therefore it doesn't need power. Before electricity people lived, farmed and worked and had a life.
Choosing to live off grid means choosing that as a power limit. If you haven't harvested the energy then you can't use it.
I can make it about 73 hrs on batteries. Then i need some input.. I run everything just like normal with the exception of the dryer and hot water heater. I also turn my hot water Heater off as soon as we're done with showers.
I have 4 mini splits, and 2 refrigerators.
Sounds like a good set up. 👍
In almost every place that you stated "kilowatts" you were wrong. You should have stated "kilowatt hours" and/or shown kwh. This is for ENERY consumption (electricity usage) and for battery capacity. Watts is a unit of instantaneous POWER. This is a very common error amongst solar info sites, unfortunately.
Yeah understood. It so much easier to understand for average people just stating it as kilowatts. At least it was for me when I first got started. But you definitely are correct.
One might be able to avoid the multiple days of cloudiness with a Honda generator emergency backup that technically can be ran with biogas you generate from your own garden. Saving many kilowatts of redundancy.
Or, just start by watching your meter when you power things on. Maybe just try to cover the always on loads first like the refrigerator, computer, router, etc., then build from there. My original estimate was 200 watts per hour to run the refrigerator for one day straight. From this I figured as close to 4.8 kilowatt-hours of batteries and I knew I would need more than 800 watts of solar to replenish that. I started with a bluetti ac200 Max with an extra battery for 4096 kwh and 400 watts of solar. My original budget was $5,000 so it kept me in there. I slowly added on to that.
I put a watt meter on my fridges and they were averaging about 85 watt hrs for a 24 hr period. They are new fridges though so pretty energy efficient. I also use timers to shut off all my fridges from 9pm - 8am. Though I have them all turn on around 2am for an hour to make sure the temp stays cold. But this way I’m not draining my batteries as much overnight.
@@unpluggedtexan Great idea with the timer. Mine is 16 years old. The power usage is going up a little bit every month, so it's probably on its way out. Thanks for the video. I love this stuff.
Get an Emporia much better
Another outstanding video! Thank you.
Excellent download of a budget build with high build quality, at least an honest presentation with all components listed for the build plus a full schematic of the system. However regarding wattage savings there is one opportunity overlooked when you live in the boonies with unreliable utility electric supply and that is PROPANE. Sure I designed my house from scratch and keeping the load down to run it with a 12kVA propane gen set for days at a time was a requirement. I have two PROPANE tanks one with 1000 gal and the second with 120gal. Clothes dryer PROPANE, kitchen range oven and burners PROPANE, water heater PROPANE, warm air furnace PROPANE, and independent second heating system with extra independent ductwork wood/coal burning Qty 2 - 12kVA gen sets one for warm standby if the first fails PROPANE. And the 5 ton AC has a cooling tower with water recirculation that beats any air to air AC - so I get 5 tons for 2300Watt draw.
Your problem is that your system powers a mobile home, so of course all major appliance with high wattage draw are electric - electric appliances cost less than gas appliances.
My concern: rack mount solar panels - I assume the dimensional lumber which is most likely pressure treated lumber goes directly in the ground. That may rot over time. I would have drilled 20ft round holes in the ground for concrete piers and affixed the wooden racks on top of the concrete piers.
Also THHN from solar panels to the SOLARK 15k I would have chose AWG 8 THHN for minimum losses on the relatively long runs.
just my 5 cents.
All good points. I actually initially had our manufactured home with propane stove, water heater, and furnace. I also have a 1,000 gallon propane tank (I shared with the home next to me on my property). I believe our politicians (and the public in general) will continue to demonize any oil drilling / gas use. So shortages and higher prices of propane are in our future. I want to control all my energy production so trying to go all solar. It will take conserving, but I do think it is possible.
Great video though you got the units mixed up a few times when you talked about Watts or Kilowatts but really meant Watt-hours or Kilowatt-hours. And a few times like on your tables you had "Watts / hr" which is meaningless. You really meant just "Watts" there, the average continuous power consumption, not "Watts per hour". X Watts used for a period of one hour would be X Watt-hours and not X Watts per hour.
In anycase, great video otherwise! It really does just come down to the bigger loads.
Yeah I get the terminology mixed up all the time. Hopefully the point still came across clearly.
To get a daily number that factors in all 4 seasons, you might want to add up the kWh for all 12 months for a given year…then divide the total yearly kWh by 365
Great video. I'm designing a system and may use this same inverter. I also plan to be off-grid, so I have a question. How does the EG4 18K unit handle all the solar energy if your batteries are full and your loads are very low?
@@precisionhomesdesign the EG4 18k pv does the same thing as the Sol-Ark. it will just drop off the extra energy it doesn’t need if your batteries are full.
Well done! :)
Key point
Sun is out. If ypu load your house up to 15kw in the day you got nothing much left to recharge your batteries gor night.
Insteresting proces in usa. My 48kwh battery rack was $6200 usd about half here in Asia
Fantastic explanation, Spot on!
Thanks for sharing
expensive for sure. but batteries are the most expensive part of the entire system. the panels, charge controller, and inverter are pennies by comparison. i'm just over £2k in for my 7.5kWh setup. but that's enough for me to run my whole apartment off batteries. and it gives me around 48hrs before i need to charge them. which i do every day anyway from a couple of panels. the batteries are good for 10 years of nearly total discharge every day, so why not get my money's worth!
7kWh seems to be right around the ballpark of what a single family home should need.
This was very helpful. thanks!
Glad I could help. I just subscribed to your channel. Looks interesting
Great info!
Thanks!
If you have a air conditioning burning 3.500 watts a hours, you have some problem. Normally the air condition kith on for 15 minutes and it's shut off. And 15 minutes later come on again. But We understands your point.
Great vid thanks
Very good video
Power consumption? Just look at your meter! Just need overnight storage (in your example 17KWHs). Just dont do laundry or run the AC overnight and you'll be ok.
Not sure on your exact setup/location, but do you have to worry about warming or cooling your batteries during certain seasons? If so, how are you solving for that?
I don’t have to worry about that since I have my system inside my utility room that remains between 60-80 degrees year round.
Storage is expensive as hell. You are better off over sizing the solar by 50-75% so it will still charge the batteries on cloudy days and provide enough energy. Panels are cheap today. You can buy new 400-450 watt panels by the pallet for 45-55 cents a watt retail today. That is about $4500-$5500 for 10kw of production. Which is the cost for three of these batteries. Hell for the cost of two of those batteries you could have 2 1500watt wind turbines + charge controllers to pull you through the stormy weather.
Nice.
I have started with a single splitphase 6k inverter and 10kw of eg4's your looking at 4500$ and its like having a backup generator.
I’m thinking of putting together a video of a system similar to that. I love my huge system, but some people need to start small and I completely understand that. I started with a small system about 8 years ago. It gave me proof of concept and the confidence that I could make a large system.
HOWdy P-P-tx, ...
Thanks
COOP
the WiSeNhEiMeR from Richmond, INDIANA
...
It’s like saying miles per hour is the same as miles. Two different uses. Not trying to nitpick, but you’ll confuse people by using the incorrect terminology. But I like your system and plan something similar.
Thanks ! ...
Does your inverter allow you to run a gasoline/diesel/propane
Generator into in in case of an emergency ?
Yes. It actually has a section on it to wire in a generator so it can automatically start up when there’s no grid power, your batteries are dead, and there’s no solar.
just a heads up. mini splits arent great at heating. mine uses double the power to heat than cool. and it doesnt do great.
Yeah most people don’t realize it takes more energy to heat a home than cool it. In winter we use our fireplace (since we have an unlimited supply of oak trees on our 15 acres). We also use heating blankets on beds since those only use about 100 watt hrs. Then we can allow our home get colder at night when there’s no solar power to heat to conserve batteries.
Why does every solar channel I find somehow have like 20k to plonk down on a solar system whenever?
I put down $3k, and got an unsecured loan for the rest of it. 10yr term at $356 per month. I’m saving around $250 per month in electricity and propane with my system. So as of right now it’s costing me about $100 per month to have the system (plus my down payment) to have energy security. But I have good credit which certainly helps.
@unpluggedtexan
We, as average consumers, have no concept the costs involved with bringing electric power to our neighborhood(s)
😊
We made the decision to prioritize energy security. I'm not "green". I'm more concerned about my family's ability to be independent. I have about $25k into my diy system but I drive a 20 year old rust free car and so does my wife and we have a third backup 20 year old car in case one breads down or needs maintenance. None of them are worth over $5k. We don't vacation every year. We don't have cable TV, we didn't take out student loans, we don't have credit card debts, we dont have $1,200 iPhones, we have $200 Motorola's buy once. Keep monthly payments down as low as possible.
If you have no money and can't get a normal loan and do have a 401k loan and are not 10 or less years from retirement. Take out a loan from it. Low interest rates and you actually pay the interest to yourself to cover the loss of growth while the money is not in the account. But that's the last option. Definitely don't take out a home equity loan. That's the worst way to pay for it.
How long does it take to charger the bank back to 100% with your setup?
In full sun if I’m using less than 2 kwh of electricity in my home I can charge my battery Bank from 20% to full charge in less than 3 hrs.
I was wierded out by the number of KWH you used as an egxample so i google it and im shoked how much more energy you guys use. In poland its 75-116 kwh/month but US uses 900kwh/month !!! wtf
Are you including heating?
When you divide your monthly kw*hr by 30, then multiply by 2? Why multiply by 2?
It’s definitely needed to have 2 full days of battery backup to get through a couple days of overcast weather without draining your battery bank.
@@unpluggedtexan thanks
30.72 Kilowatt hours IS NOT 30,720 "watts". It is 30,720 "watt hours". 4:23 in the video. I'm not trying to bash. I like all your videos. Just trying to make sure people aren't confused.
Units on numbers are as important as the numbers themselves. Units are your check mechanism to make sure the math is correct. If you multiply and divide the units, along with the numbers, then it will tell you what you have at the end. (30,720 watt * hours ) / (3,500 watt) , the watts cancel each other, the only unit left is hours, and you get 8.8 HOURS of time (watt*hr/watt => hr)
Thanks for pointing that out. You are correct. It’s easier in my head and for people to grasp the concept I think by explaining it the way I did. At least that’s been the feedback I’ve received. Except from electrical engineers who have criticized the terminology. But most criticize from a place feeling they’re superior and having to belittle us peasants who don’t do this for a living. I’m just an average guy learning, and often making mistakes, but in the process hopefully helping people out.
@@unpluggedtexan Do you feel like a peasant if someone points out a mistake to you? If someone pointed out a mistake to me and I learned something from it I would just be grateful. If it made me feel like a peasant I would go work on my self-esteem.
@@mcg6762 depends on the way they criticize. Most criticize in a disrespectful way because they’re not face to face with you. They typically have the lower self esteem as they need to build themselves up by ridiculing and belittling someone.
@@unpluggedtexan Can you give an example of a disrespectful way of pointing out mistakes? Was the original post in this thread disrespectful and indicative of low self esteem according to you?
@@mcg6762 no this one wasn’t. But a lot of people are just jerks on social media. I’ve dealt with it a lot.
What area in Texas are you? If your close I’d like to learn more from you!!!! I live in Boerne area
Why did you choose one large inverter instead of 3 smaller inverters for added fail safety?
Sol-Ark has an amazing reputation for their quality. The warranty is fantastic and the service is great. I can talk to one of their engineers over the phone with any issues I have. In my opinion 3 smaller inverters that aren’t as good quality and complicate the install wasn’t worth it. I’m extremely happy with my purchase. I also have the grid as backup so I still would have power if the Sol-Ark failed. In an off grid situation I can definitely understand the importance of redundancy. I actually have an EG4 18k PV still new in the box I could install quickly if my Sol-Ark failed.
With grid it makes sense. I'm off-grid and worried what to do when my one inverter fails. To complicate things I'm on Maui which is far away from the mainland.
I’d love to chat sometime. I’ve been off-grid for 18 years in the Texas Hill Country (Wimberley).
Shoot me an email at BrianZ@unpluggedtexan.com
According to that math, I need to spend $60k on batteries alone. Thanks florida!
It’s going to be cheaper to convert appliances to more energy efficient ones than buy batteries to power the traditional appliances that use a lot of electricity. Look at a heat pump hot water heater, mini splits for AC and heat, heat pump washer/dryer combo. I’ll be making a video on the energy efficient appliances I use soon.
As for Florida 😢 unless you've planned to stay completely silent in reference to code enforcement city/county ... permitting at best will be a nightmare
Be Blessed 😊
dang I can't even afford one of those batteries lol
You didn’t mention that if your solar panels are generating enough to run your house during the day and charge the batteries to capacity then those kWh don’t count
When the sun is out my batteries are fully charged by 1pm. I have way more power than I can use during the day in sunny weather. In cloudy weather I’m still mostly getting a full charge as well by later in the day.
For 0.06 I wouldn't go solar, WOAH - electricity is 0.30 per kWh where I live
$0.30 per kWh is ridiculously high. I didn’t know anywhere still had a rate as low as $0.06 per kWh. Mine is $0.10 but I was just informed mine is going up beginning Oct 1st to about $0.12 per kWh.
@@unpluggedtexan $0.3 is the eu average, in the UK it's been ~$0.50 and don't even try checking Denmark as you'll be stunned
@@velianlodestone1249 ouch
so those batteries can handle 100 amps charging., but they are parallel so times 6 = 600 amps, but they don't charge evenly, so maybe 550 amps??
19,200 watts / 50 volts = about 384 amps @ 50 volts. you shouldn't have a problem with overcharging IMO. 25000 w / 18,000w = 1.5 hours, but charging efficiency? maybe 2.5 hours?
so during the middle of an average day you can charge your batteries with no problem. however, if you lived where i do; northern idaho, during the winter i might get one day out of six with
sunshine and that sunshine might last 3 hours with luck. my 20kwh batteries can operate my kitchen only for 12 days in the summer, but maybe only 1.5 days in the winter? I haven't tested
it yet. with another 2 batteries i might be able to go 2 days. i need to get up to 3 days because of power outages that sometimes last nine days. i have a generator i could use to charge the
batteries while supplying power to my kitchen. i figure that i might have to run the generator for 7 hours while charging and do that every other day. expensive fuel and generators don't last
long unless you can afford a really expensive one. i don't get enough wind for a wind mill. So i need to cut down on the power i use. the fridge and a few LED lights and maybe the TV. i will
buy a small, cheap freezer to use during the winter and keep my food in a room that stays cold...cutting off the fridge and saving maybe 200 watts. that alone will let me run two days i hope.
more solar panels will charge my batteries with light coming through clouds. maybe 300 to 400 watts total? another test. 2 more batteries on top of these changes might get me 3 days.
then i will only have to run the generator every third day and i might be able to run a small space heater for a few hours?
I use 3000 plus on my electric
Just use gas for most heavy loads.
In normal times, I would say I agree with you. Here’s a video I literally just made explaining why I think that’s a bad idea now.ruclips.net/user/shortsURKZxhI2xvg?feature=share
My nieghbor has a gas stove gas heater gas hot water none need electric . now i see africa has engineers that make home biogas for cooking they do not have to buy gas
My thing is 300 a month bill times 20 years is 72,000 that’s plenty of money to get 2 solar systems
Solar is worth it cause your not paying the government
And that $300 per month is going to be going up by about 3-10% annually.
If/when the stupid EV industry finally converts to Lifo batts, then you can just use the solar charged car batt to run the house at night. Or have 2 easily swapped car batts( via a trunk accessed roll out battery cart ala ems type gurney).Alternate the batts every other day so you always have a charged batt. If Musk and others focused on this instead of space exploration,Mars missions, our energy and be cleaner air/climate change problems could be resolved . But big oil and the utility industry makes the politicians drag their feet as long as possible meanwhile WE suffer the financial and environmental consequences!
but your 4 ton AC shouldn't run all the time. Only with its calling for cool. During the day My ac runs more because its hotter out. I can go in to and app and see how long my AC has ran. night time about 2 hours , and during the day 4 to 5 hours depending on how much the kids run in and out. So all in all if your AC only runs for just a few hours you should or could last all night.
I have a manufactured home with not great insulation. And I’m in Texas where it’s extremely hot at times. My AC seems to run about 70% of the time. At night it’s less. But that big an energy draw really drains my batteries at night.
*watt-hours 😜
Good catch
@@unpluggedtexan Another thing is load power is measured in watts, not watts per hour. W/hr is a legitimate unit, but one of rate of load change (technically acceleration of energy) and is normally used in a bigger system context; i.e. iffen your system only has 15MW of spinning reserve and load is increasing at 1MW/min, you have _at most_ 15min to spin up some peakers or Bad Things happen.
And I know that you want to have better spinning reserve margins than this, but remember that all kinds of critical infrastructure is run by hyperideological mouth breathing idiots.
Course if you'd bought any EG4 batteries and six of them that would have cost you only $9,000 and they are five whatever kilowatts battery each don't know what they're exactly but I know they're five kilowatt something of rather don't know what it is exactly because I don't own any they're just very costly.
It's very misleading to say kilowatts when you mean kilowatthours. Those are very different things and you are just confusing people with this video.
I understand what you mean. I think it’s more confusing to say “it uses 5 kwh’s.” The average person has no idea what in the heck that means. It makes more sense to say it uses 1 kw per hour in my opinion. I know the professionals say you’re an idiot if you say that. But the pro’s intentionally want to make it more difficult to understand so you have to pay them $30k for the install. Sorry you think it’s confusing. Most average people tell me this makes more sense to them than all the other videos they watch on battery consumption. So feel feee to watch their channels instead of complaining about mine.
@@unpluggedtexan Sorry, but if you want to make videos about this you need to use the correct terminology. Watts (W) is a measure of instantaneous power draw. It is actually a short-hand for Joules per second (J/s), energy per unit of time. Watt-hour is a measure of energy (1 Watt-hour = 3600 Joules). It would probably be less confusing if the industry used Joules and Joules per second instead of Watt-hours and Watts. People seem to have a hard time getting their heads around Watts. Just remember that Watts is a measure of RATE of energy use. And Watt-hours is a measure of energy. That's it really.
@@unpluggedtexan Your statement "it uses 5 kWh" does not make much sense without context. It could make sense for example if you said "this device uses 5 kWh to cut my lawn". That statement tells you how much energy the device used to complete its job. It does not say anything about how long it took. It could for example have used 500 Watts for 10 hours or 5 kW for one hour.
I’m not incredibly skilled in this area and I picked up on the difference. No biggie
I don't want to come off like a jerk here, but when you make a claim like " I use THIS inverter because then I can add to my battery bank" What special feature of the solark does this? Are you suggesting that EVERY OTHER INVERTER in the world can't have batteries added later? that would be silly to suggest. You are saying this because you get a kickback when someone buys a solark using your link. Be honest bruh, is your integrity worth the kickback? Be honest, be real.
Inverters have a max amount of batteries you can put on them. The Sol-Ark 15k can handle A LOT more batteries than other inverters. That gives you the option to scale up later as your budget allows. I am being completely honest and real. Of course I get a kickback when someone uses my link, why do you think people spend a bunch of time putting videos together to show how these products work? Am I adding value to the viewers? Based on all the emails I receive where people are thanking me for the info now that they are energy independent I would say I’ve helped. Sorry for being so direct. But when people ignorantly just assume someone lacks integrity it frustrates me. I agree there’s a lot of con artists out there. I purchased the Sol-Ark 15k retail after doing a ton of research. It’s the best inverter I have found, and it took me forever to figure out how to build this system. That’s why I started this channel as I thought it could help others do the same. THE SOL-ARK 15k CAN ABSOLUTELY DO MORE THAN MOST INVERTERS IN THE MARKET.
@@unpluggedtexan okay, I can assure you that you are 100% wrong here. there is no difference with a Solark as to the number of batteries you can connect vs say an MPP Solar or a Growatt or a PowMR or a Sun Gold Power. So before you reply, you will want to gather some proof for me to debunk, because I will.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt here and say that you were told something that wasn't true to shield your integrity. You are on notice however that what I am telling you is TRUE.
I only comment on these videos to do my part in cutting through the bad info people can find on the internet, there is a lot of it out there. Please understand I am trying to look out for the masses here that will stumble onto your video and "learn" something.
Your energy audit was fair enough btw, there was value in that.
@@sNEAKYnIGHTmUPPET can you physically hook up as many batteries as you want (as long as they’re in parallel at 48 volts yes). It’s the software in a lot of inverters that can’t handle going over a certain limit. The Sol-Ark 15k can handle from 50-9,900 amp hours. That’s up to 475 kwh’s of batteries the Sol-Ark 15k software can still successfully communicate with. I’ve been told that is far more than the software on competing inverters can handle. I guess it’s possible I’m wrong, since Sol-Ark seems to be the only company in their spec sheets that even discuss that.
@@unpluggedtexan so you were told. Ok, there IS NO LIMIT in software. The ONLY thing that COULD be limited might be a capacity gauge. Software communication aside, there is not limit.
You may be correct, but that is just the capacity tracking.
Most systems on the market today do not use the Inverter to track capacity like this. Some CAN, but most DON'T. You could hook up a bank as large as you could fit on your property and not have an issue. The only real reason this may be an issue for anyone is that you are limited, and ALL SYSTEMS ARE, by the amount of AMPS they can output for charging. I have a few different systems over a few different properties. The one in Arizona has a max charge rate of 360A in full sun. The one in mexico has a max charge rate of 120A. the one in Canada has a max charge rate of 240A max.
So, if i had a 100,000aH battery connected to each system, and somehow managed to discharge it heavily then I would have a harder time recharging. but this is a completely unrelated challenge that more solar panels would help with.
Please, Understand I am coming from a good place here, I am just challenged with people giving howto videos that either Lie, or just don't know any better but speak like they are worthy of giving advice. People view videos like yours and think you actually KNOW something, and clearly you know enough to make it work, but everything else you just know what you've been told.
I have many systems personally and have many people out there that I have done systems for, and others where I have just consulted.
I understand you made a video, and you want to do youtube as a job, but just because you did a thing, one time, doesn't make you an expert. I see many people do videos like yours, and wish a disclaimer was provided. Something like " I did a thing, and this is how I did it, but this is not a HOW TO VIDEO!" That would be honest.
@@sNEAKYnIGHTmUPPET I appreciate the feedback. While I have a lot of electrical experience, I’m not a licensed electrician or solar installer. I get a lot of emails from people and always tell them I can’t give advice since I’m not licensed, but here is how I did it. That’s the best I can do. My PDF I let people download clearly states that, and recommends a licensed electrician as systems as big as mine can kill you if you screw up. My goal is to get people thinking about producing their own power as a way to shield themselves against our failing electrical grid and inflation. They system I have installed has been awesome for that. If I can help others understand how to do it then great. The more of us who become independent the better. I’ll make mistakes from time to time in videos, I do not have the market cornered on knowledge. I welcome constructive feedback for sure. Thanks for the conversation.
It pains me to give you this lecture but you keep confusing Kilo Watts with Kilo watt hours. Kilo Watts is a unit of power. Kilo Watt hours is a unit of energy. Never again say KW when you mean KWH. You are welcome
Yeah I always get those confused. I try to not be scripted and just speak without a script. Hopefully the point I’m making still comes across as there’s a huge issue with this industry not helping to make these videos common sense for average people. I’m not an expert in terminology, but I feel like I’m pretty good at making it make sense for people who aren’t “experts.” I’m sure I’ll drive those people nuts with the terminology mistakes.
@@unpluggedtexan Being a retired Electrical Engineer, I just couldn't help myself.
@@dubrd5926 I certainly don’t have the market cornered on knowledge. I appreciate the constructive criticism.
Okay guys for dinner has a 400 w actually it's 350watt air conditioner when it's running on high and it blows out some cold air it's a 5,000 BTU now I put an 18-in 18 volt lithium powered fan in front of it and I only charge that battery off the Sun and I have two of those batteries actually I have several of those batteries but I only use two of them one a day while the other one charges it's pretty simple and I get air conditioning all the way through my 1600 square home.... Just got to keep the door shut and the blinds down. Shit lasts all day as long as the sun's out. Then I got about 4 to 6 hours after that because it all runs off of a 2000 watt hour lithium battery backup. It's beautiful and I have 800 Watts of solar panel feeding back into it during the day that's why I get to run my air conditioning free I could run two of these air conditionings if I wanted to. He's right get a mini split they're only like 600 Watts EG4 is the brand you want
I’m a combat veteran and I laugh at clowns that wear these Faketriot shirts… How can I take you seriously? 🤡
Thank you for your service. Sorry to let you down.
Good video.
Thanks!