After recovering from the $45,000.00 shock to have power supplied to our new house the decision was made to use an Off Grid Solar Power System. The stand alone system in this website was put together by us. We found that there was not a lot of help and advice out there unless we purchased certain products so our components have been sourced from Taiwan, China, USA and New Zealand. We have established good relationships with the manufacturers of these products along with clear importing lines through Customs onto local delivery.
The system suits our needs. We're not scared to turn lights on or use appliances. We produce 4.8 Kilowatt/ hour of power from our solar panels into 48vdc 400 amp hour batteries. This is enough to run our TVs, fridge, freezer, water pump, lighting (LED), washing machine, dishwasher, etc. It may be that you might require more power so you could just add to this existing system.
We used a 24 volt dc system initially. The reason being that 24 volt dc components were reasonably priced and readily available compared to 48 volt dc, but we increased our panel output to 4.8 Kw and a 48 volt dc system is more efficient. The house itself is wired for 230 volt ac at 50 Hertz. Heating is provided by a log burner, LPG for water heating, gas walloven/hob and energy efficient appliances. AMI have insured the system as part of our house Insurance. An Electrical Certificate has been issued
You will need to get use to the fact that at some stage you will need to run the generator - how many times depends on what you will be running and for how long e.g. using the vacuum cleaner for an hour is not going to help on a rainy day. Using an off grid system means you have to think smart - use appliances that consume large amounts of power/amps like the dishwasher/washing machine during the day. We use the generator mostly during the winter months and never during the summer. Purchase a good quality Pure Sine Wave Generator, it`s your backup so has to be reliable.
There is a handy website called Free Sun Power which explains in some detail how to design your own solar system.
If you have any questions/queries about our system, or how to set up your own system, we are more than happy to help, just use the "contact us" tab.
Finally, there is the "up yours" factor which really feels great - power prices can go up but they won`t come down.
