cesep4 wrote:okay, I have a few questions about solar. I've always had this dream of having solar panels on my house, all hooked into my house electric, grid-tied, just so I wouldn't have to pay for electricity. However, that seems too unrealistic, financially speaking. To go completely off solar, I would need a system that could generate 600+ kilowatts a month. So I got a kill-a-watt and figured out how much my tv, computer, other electronics use. So the new plan is to get a couple of solar panels on my roof then bring the wiring into the house, probably my living room, have batteries set- up somehow in there, and have an outlet where I could plug all my electronics into. So that's the plan, now the questions:

1. Do inverters have AC outlet plugs coming out of them? I can't seem to figure this one out or do they need to be wired with an AC plug coming out of them in order for me to plug in 120-volt appliances.

2. When you do a solar setup, the inverter is plugged into the battery, correct? Every time I see diagrams, it's like the inverter and battery are not directly connected like you would use one or the other, not both. Then how do you use the battery?

3. What is with voltage. Do I need 12v or 24v or 48v? I think I read that the voltage has to do with how far the electricity has to travel. For my needs it would be from the living room roof, right down into the living room, so not that far, so should I go by 12v when buying parts?

4. Some batteries need venting, these batteries will be indoors and I think I read the gel batteries, or is it deep-cycle or both don't need venting. So they would be okay indoors? Eventually, I may have a lean-to greenhouse attached to the living room and I could keep the batteries outdoors in the winter in there, with wires coming inside the house but for summer the heat might destroy the batteries, right?

5. Could I really plug some solar panel system directly into an AC outlet in my house and have it lower my
energy bill? That's what these plug-and-play systems supposedly do but if that were the case then wouldn't everyone do it because getting solar hardwired is much more expensive.

NunavutPA-12 wrote:Thanks for that post Courierguy. I knew you'd come through and put it all into perspective.

Our commercial power system here is small and self-contained (no power lines outside the community). The power is very reliable but I do have a generator just in case the 60-year old diesel power plant burns to the ground one day. It's happened in other arctic communities over the years and I don't need to tell you what a disaster that can be in mid-winter when it's dark and the wind chill is minus 60. The entire community of 1,500 would have to be evacuated.

I wish we had the option to be grid-tied.

NunavutPA-12 wrote:Thanks for that post Courierguy. I knew you'd come through and put it all into perspective.

Our commercial power system here is small and self-contained (no power lines outside the community). The power is very reliable but I do have a generator just in case the 60-year old diesel power plant burns to the ground one day. It's happened in other arctic communities over the years and I don't need to tell you what a disaster that can be in mid-winter when it's dark and the wind chill is minus 60. The entire community of 1,500 would have to be evacuated.

I wish we had the option to be grid-tied.