ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area "wiring solar panels for residential"

The long-running saga in this thread shows how solar sometimes comes into its own simply due to circumstances making grid-power impractical (or unaffordable).

It's certainly a juggling game for the owner of that property to make solar work reasonably given his limited resources. From memory, at the moment he has about 300W of PV panels plus a wind turbine which is nominally 20A peak output, feeding into a battery bank of about 600 to 700Ah and an inverter to convert to 240V 50Hz A.C. for feeding the mobile home. Consumption in the latter is mostly compact low-energy lamps, plus radio, TV, computer/phone chargers, etc. Heating and cooking is LP gas.

To supplement the solar/wind power, he has a generator (see here) which can be cranked up as needed to give a boost via a 60A fast charger and make best use of the fuel to run a washer/dryer at the same time (if he ever gets around to upgrading the feeder cable, that is).

There's also a changeover switch to put the whole mobile home onto the generator instead of the inverter while it's running.