Solar costs have so many variables, it is difficult to put an exact number on the cost of solar power. It will vary greatly from household to household and state to state. There are currently federal tax credits to consider and some states also offer tax credits or deductions to install solar power.

Added to that, solar panels will last about 25 years, inverters 15 – 20 years and batteries anywhere from 10 – 15 years. The good news is that all three of those components are lasting longer all the time and the purchase cost is going down as more and more products flood the market and solar becomes more popular to consumers.

There are a lot of numbers out there in cost per kilowatt of every kind of power including solar. Many of the solar numbers being quoted are outdated so if you are doing your own research be careful of that. There is a general consensus that the costs are going down and will continue to do so.

Another problem you will run into is that the cost numbers that are published don’t include all of the costs. For example, Washington State has one of the lowest basic electrical rates in the country but by the time the state and local authorities get done tacking on their add-ons the price goes up considerably.

We decided to take a look at our own costs which we can identify now that we have been operating for two years, going on three.

Our system operates a modern 1500 SF house with attached garage, woodshed, and carport and a 1300 SF barn. We also have a well with a 240v pump. Our appliances are typical of most households.

Our initial cost installed was $22,000. The Federal Government offered a 30% full tax credit so we only had to pay $15,400 for the system.

I am going to assume the life expectancies of the main components per the following;
Panels – 25 years
Inverter – 20 years
Batteries 12 years

I’m using 20 years as my cost timeline because the panels and inverter will last that long. Maybe the inverter will be a couple of years short but the panels will last even longer so that would even out. It’s just an estimate and any one of these components could go over or under this valuation. Since the batteries only last 12 years give or take, I will prorate the next 8 years with todays replacement costs for a total of 20 years.

We also have to add the generator and fuel costs. We use our backup generator about 100 – 125 hours per year. To keep this article simple I’ve calculated that cost to be $538.00 per year.

Here is how the totals break down:

System cost for 20 years               $15,400
Battery Replacement 8 years      $ 4,200
Generator and Fuel                        $10,750
Grand Total for 20 Years                $30,350

That equals $1,517 per year or $126 per month or .68 per KWH (per what my system produces).
Where I came from we paid .20 per KWH for public power. Some areas of the country pay much more.

At this point it looks like I am paying a small fortune for solar power but the above information is not complete. If I am going to compare apples to apples I also have to include the cost of public power installation in our formula. It is stated above that I paid .20 per kWh for power where I used to live. That’s true. That is everything that is on the bill but the bill does NOT include costs to hook your power up to your house. The solar numbers quoted above do. Remember that my solar price included installation.

If you live in the city next to a power pole, you might pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars on up to have your power connected but if you build your house further away from the power lines it can cost anywhere from  $8.00 to $14.00 per foot to get connected to the power lines. In my case it would have cost $8,500 IFmy property were next to a road that had power lines on it. I just had an estimate done for a client that wants to build on 80 acres and his quotes ran from $17,000 to $25,000 to connect to the local power utility.

If we use the example above of paying $.20 per kWh and then add the power connection fee to it, that would compute to another $.14kwh bringing the total to $.34kwh and $.62kwh for my client. All of a sudden, solar power looks to be much more competitive.

We can draw several conclusions from this pricing exercise by looking at the numbers above. It is cost effective to have solar power if you live in a sunny climate and don’t have to use a generator much. It is cost effective to have solar power if you build too far away from the power grid (the rule of thumb is ¼ mile).

There is also one other factor to add to the equation. My price per KWh won’t go up for 20 years. I doubt you can say the same for those on public power. By that time my price of $.68 per KWh might be looking pretty good.

Ed and Laurie Essex live off grid in the Okanogan Highlands of Washington State where they operate their websites goodideasforlife.com  and offgridworks.com.

Part 2 Managing the System

In Part 1 we looked at the different components of a solar power system and what their purpose is. In Part 2 we discuss the actual hands on management of those components.

It sounds like the system operates by itself once it is set up, other than a little battery maintenance. That’s true but the system is not as efficient as it can be when it runs on “automatic”. What do I mean by efficiency?

By managing a few things myself I can extend the life of my batteries and backup generator and keep the fuel costs for the generator down.

The inverter is programmed to turn the generator on when the batteries go down to 60% capacity. That is fine for when we aren’t home but the rest of the time I choose to start the generator when my batteries are at 70%. I choose when to start the generator and when to turn it off. I choose the most opportune time to pump water which takes a lot of power. If the pump comes on automatically at night and I catch it on the monitor, I will go out to the panel and turn it off if I know it is going to be a sunny day tomorrow and can use the sun to pump rather than my reserve battery power.

Whether the sun or your generator charges batteries the following will occur:
1. Bulk charge – the batteries will accept the maximum charge possible
2. Absorb charge – in this mode the batteries will only accept a partial charge. They do this to protect themselves for reasons over my head. It’s enough for me to understand that they need to do it. I think it is kind of like eating. You don’t eat your whole meal in one bite. You take many bites but end up the same – full.
3. Float – a trickle charge to just maintain the batteries at 100%

It is harmful to charge the batteries too fast or overcharge them. I am more efficient at generator use than the inverter. When my generator is charging it might be putting out as much as 140 amps. That is fine in bulk charge but when the inverter slows down the amperage to 60 amps (absorb mode) then the generator is still running at full capacity using fuel but not sending all of the amps to the batteries. That is inefficient. When they get into absorb mode I may choose to go hook up my smaller generator to charge with which only puts out about 45 amps.

I also choose when to equalize my batteries. My monitor will tell me it’s time and I will hold off for a bright sunny day so I can use solar power to equalize. That is more efficient than using generator power and paying generator fuel costs.

So in summary, I basically choose when to charge the batteries with a generator (when to start and stop the generator), when to pump water (my pump is 220V), when to equalize and whether to use the sun, batteries, or generator to pump water. By doing those few things I can prolong the battery life and minimize my generator fuel costs. Seems like a lot of benefit for very little effort. I can do all of those things with the push of a button.

Besides that I just think it is a good idea to know what your system is doing at all times. Just by having some interaction with the system allows you to know if the system is working the way it should be – or not. You don’t have to become an expert. You just need to be familiar enough to know when all is well or not. By doing the things I do with my system, I can know at a glance that everything is working the way it should. Knowing all is well gives me a great peace of mind. I’m glad you can program these systems to be independent but I still want to know the programming is working. After all, we are on our own and striving to become more self sufficient. You can’t achieve that by programming alone.

Ed and Laurie Essex live off grid in the Okanogan Highlands of Washington State where they operate their website goodideasforlife.com  and offgridworks.com.

Part 1 – System Overview

As most of you know, we get all of our electrical power from our solar power system. In the blog Our Solar Power I describe a system that is completely “hands off’ automatic if you want to use it that way. I choose not to.

I’ve never had any experience with solar energy before now. When the system was installed I received a pile of literature, user manuals, and an hour of instruction. For me the instructions when right in one ear and out the other. It takes me a while to absorb information that is so unfamiliar.

As you gradually get used to working with solar power you become more familiar with how each component works. The components for us are broken down into the following categories: solar panels, battery charger, inverter, batteries and Trimetric monitor.

There isn’t much to do with the panels. Keep them clean and free of snow in the winter. Adjust the tilt twice a year for maximum exposure to the sun. The sun is high in the sky in the summer and low towards the horizon in the winter. The sun stirs up the little electrons in the panels which creates electricity which is then sent to the charger.

The charger receives electricity from the panels and maximizes that power in terms of efficiency to charge the batteries. Once it is set up it is virtually hands free.

The panels make electricity which then goes to a charger which maximizes the power and sends it to the batteries where it is stored for future use. The larger the battery bank, the more storage capacity you have. This is where our power comes from when the sun is gone at night or on a cloudy day. We have enough storage capacity for about three days. Once my batteries get down to about 60% capacity the generator will come on to charge them back up if the sun isn’t shining.
Batteries need to be maintained at all times. I keep the terminals clean, the water filled up in the cells and the batteries equalized once a month. There are a lot of opinions on how often to equalize batteries. My warranty requires that you do it once a month. Equalizing batteries is a controlled overcharge for a given length of time to desulphate or kind of like a self cleansing. It also causes all of the cells to become equal. For instance if you have one weak cell it will cause the whole system to be less powerful than it should be. By “equalizing” that weak cell will be brought up to the same level as the other cells and your system will be as strong as it can be.

The inverter is programmed to do a lot of things. It is talking to the charge controller, the batteries, and the AC panel all of the time. It coordinates all of those along with your backup generator when necessary. It is the Manager of the whole solar power system. One of the most important jobs an inverter does is to convert the battery DC (direct current) to AC (alternating current). Solar panel and battery power are DC.
Most homes are wired for AC. Ours is too. The inverter sends the converted DC power to our AC panel. From that point on our house operates just like yours for electricity. We use the same appliances and light bulbs as everyone else. Once an inverter is programmed to do what you want it to, it is also hands free.

Inside our house we have a Monitor of what our system is doing all of the time. It tells us how much power there is to use, how much we are using, and how much is left. It is only a monitor. It doesn’t manage or operate anything but is a necessary source of information you can use to manage your system if you choose to.

Part 2 next week – Managing the System

Ed and Laurie Essex live off grid in the Okanogan Highlands of Washington State where they operate their website goodideasforlife.com  and offgridworks.com.

Solar Power has come a long way in the past decade or so. We are living proof of that. What do we know about solar power or even electricity for that matter? Yet here we are in our second full season, living off the grid with solar power.
Systems today are so sophisticated they run by themselves and the only thing you really have to worry about is battery maintenance if you have a battery storage system as part of your package.

While I am sitting here telling you that modern solar power systems are relatively hands free, I don’t recommend that you operate them that way. I believe you should get as involved in your system  as you can. For me, that meant there was a lot to learn and it has taken some time to do so.

My system consists of 8 each 215 watt REC panels on a fixed position steel pole. The panels were recalled by REC, rebuilt and put back on the market at a discounted price. My inverter is a Xantrex XW 4024 with an automatic generator start control module. My charge controller is an Apollo T-80 HV. I also have 12 each Solar One 2Volt batteries for a 24 volt system. My backup generator is a 12,000 watt Kohler Residential outdoor unit. I bought this unit knowing Kohler wouldn’t warranty it for off grid use.
The system capacities are as follows;
Panels – 1720 Watts
Inverter – 4000 watts
Battery Storage – 1160 Amp Hours or 22 Kw Storage which means about 3 days for us because we don’t like our batteries to go below 60%. I actually don’t usually let them go below 70% discharge.

Inside the house we have a Trimetric Reader that allows us to see at all times what our electrical usage is and what state our battery capacity is at. It also helps to track how long it has been since our batteries were charged to 100% and how long it has been since we equalized our batteries which for me has to occur once a month.

Our system will run our house, barn and 220V water pump for two people easily. When the sun shines it produces more power than we need. The only reason we have the backup generator is because it doesn’t always sunshine. You could have as many panels or battery storage as you want. No sun, no power. We use our backup generator about 100 hours per year.

Total cost of this system was about $22,000. The current Federal tax code allows for a 30% credit so we only ended up paying $15,400 for our system. Our panels are warranted for 25 years and the batteries should go at least 10 and up to 15 years.

If there was an electrical source for power at the edge of our property it would have cost between $14,000 to $19,000 just to get the power from the road to our house and then you would have a monthly power bill on top of that.
So in our situation it cost the same amount whether we brought in power or installed solar power and with solar, there will be no monthly bills. The decision to go solar was easy.

As I mentioned earlier, these systems are almost hands free if you want it to be that way. You can program your inverter to “run” the operation with no input or help from you. The only thing you would have to do is maintain your batteries.
In our case, with our preferences, the inverter would do the following:
Allow the panels to charge the batteries to 100%. Once they reach 100% the inverter switches the charge controller off except for just enough power to keep the batteries tweaked at 100%. If there is no sun, the batteries will discharge to 60% capacity at which time the inverter will turn the generator on automatically, charge the batteries back up to 100% and then turn it off again.

That’s the simplest explanation I can give you about how sophisticated this equipment is now. It could manage the whole charge/discharge/ charge process if you wanted it to without you ever lifting a finger.

I don’t allow my system to do everything automatically. I keep my panels tilted in the most advantageous angle. I start and stop my generator by hand. By doing that and watching the weather reports pretty close I can squeeze a little more amps out of my system for less time on the generator. It also helps me to keep an eye on things like battery temperature, water levels and equalization. I also decide when my water pump goes on. It is set up on a float system and would pump automatically but if I see that we can reach 100% first and then pump water because we are going to have sun for a few days I may delay the pumping until it’s the perfect timing for my battery condition.

As stated earlier my system totaled about $22,000. I had other quotes ranging from the same price with different equipment (different design), to $37,000 and $45,000.

Ed and Laurie Essex live off grid in the Okanogan Highlands of Washington State where they operate their website goodideasforlife.com  and offgridworks.com.

When you talk to people about going off grid most of the questions they ask are about solar power. Everyone wants to know how much it costs and how do you figure out what size system to put in?
How many panels? Are you going to have batteries and if so how many? Oh and how much does it cost?

If you are thinking of going off grid you are going to ask the same questions and it doesn’t matter whether you are going to have solar power,  a wind turbine, or a water powered hydro generator.
In order to size any of the above systems you are first going to have to calculate your electrical needs. Until you do that you can’t have an intelligent conversation about what type of system or what size system you are going to need or how much it is going to cost.
There are whole books written on this subject so I am just going to share the actual steps we took to figure out what our power needs would be.

The first thing I did was read the book Solar Power for Dummies. I’m not kidding. What did I know about off grid power systems?  One book led to another and there was a fair amount of time spent on the Internet researching as well.

In all the research, one simple tool stood out time and again in slightly different formats but similar in nature and practical use. It was a chart which listed all of your typical electrical appliances with their associated wattage and how much time you used each appliance each day. A sample is worth 1000 words so you can click here to see one Power Use Spreadsheet.  I created this one on Excel so that I could enter the formulas to make it automatically calculate the watts per day. On this spreadsheet all you have to do is write down the appliance and figure out how long it will run each day and how many watts it uses.

Some of our appliances only listed amps not watts and there is a simple conversion formula for that too. Watts = Volts X Amps. If your stereo is rated at 3 amps and you plug it into an 110v wall outlet then just multiply 3 x 110 = 330 watts! You will find most watts or amp ratings somewhere on the appliance tag. If not, look up the appliance online and pull up the specification sheet or just use something similar. Remember this is an estimate and not an exact accounting.

When we were done our Spreadsheet looked like this – Essex Solar Use. Now we had something to talk about. This was the starting point to research what kind of system and how large a power system we would need. Your daily electrical use will determine the size of the system. We knew we needed something that produced at least 6 kWh per day in order to meet our needs

If we were going to go with solar power this information would tell us how large an inverter, how many solar panels, and how large a battery bank would be needed. If we went with wind turbines it would tell us how large a turbine and also the inverter and batteries for that system. The same would apply to hydro.

Notice that what appliances you decide to go with affect this chart. You can see right away you had better switch from an electrical stove and oven to propane or gas or wood. By creating this chart, this is where you start making lifestyle decisions about how you are going to live, where you are going to live,

It’s a very exciting exercise because you get to choose. You get to choose where to draw the line in every category of living – food, water, and shelter. We made a lot of choices that were different than the way we had been doing things and it made us feel really good to know we were doing a better job for us, our family, and the environment and the best part is, we didn’t have to give up anything to do it. We just made better choices. Research works. The technology is there.

Ed and Laurie Essex live off grid in the Okanogan Highlands of Washington State where they operate their websites goodideasforlife.com  and Off Grid Works.

Are you kidding me? Just two easy steps? If it were that simple everyone would be doing it right?
Well, that’s all it takes and I will list them for you now and save you the trouble of reading this blog if you want.

1. Turn it off
2. Eliminate phantom power

When Laurie and I knew we were going to go off grid and be on some type of solar/battery/generator electrical system we started doing our homework and research. The most common theme in everything we read was about lifestyle changes. Everyone told us that we were going to have to change the way we live if we were going to be successful in our off grid adventure.
That being said, I need to be real clear on this – not once have we sacrificed or gone without in terms of electrical convenience. I’m sure you are wondering how that can be?

In our condo we had all electrical appliances with the exception of a gas hot water tank and a gas furnace. Everything else was electrical including the dryer and stove.
We were using an average of 11 kwh (kilo watt hours) per day. If you don’t know what kwh means it doesn’t matter for the purpose of this blog. All that matters is that we were using 11 of them.

We made a commitment to practice reducing our electrical consumption before we moved off grid. All we did was make a conscious effort to turn it off if we weren’t using it and to reduce electrical phantom power. We managed to get it down to 9kwh per day instead of the 11 we had been using. That is a reduction of 18%!

Before we made our move off grid we had to project our electrical usage in order to size our solar generating system. We projected using just under 5 kWh per day. Well, alert readers, you are already asking how that was possible when the best we could do was 9 kWh in the condo?

Here’s how we did it: We installed on/off switches for all of our wall sockets. They look just like light switches only they are connected to our wall plugs. That is to eliminate phantom power. That is the power you see on appliances like the clock on your microwave and stove, the power lights on your TV’s and stereos, and the clock and power lights on your DVD player. Nobody really knows how much phantom power really adds up to but it surely costs you something in electrical usage. Your appliance is supposed to be turned off! It isn’t if it is using power to light up a clock or be on “power saving mode” or standby.

Multi Plug and Surge Protector

It would not be practical for you to have switches installed like we did in your existing home but you can do the same thing by either unplugging your appliance or using a multiplug with a switch that allows you to turn off your appliance. Many of you already use these for plug in convenience for your computer work stations. As a bonus these will help prevent electrical surge damage from a storm or power surge.

One of the biggest reductions we made was by purchasing a propane dryer and stove and going to wood heat which eliminated the forced air furnace. One could argue you are just trading one natural resource for another by switching from electrical appliances to propane. True, except we also switched from a hot water tank to a tankless heater and we eliminated the gas furnace by using wood heat which helped cut our gas consumption considerably. Over all we reduced our electrical AND gas usage with the choices we made.

The last thing you can do in your current home is to turn it off when you are done with it. We made a conscious effort to do that and got immediate results on the next bill. See how much you can save in a full year!

Remember, just by turning the power off and eliminating phantom power we reduced our electrical bill by 18%!
When we moved and made the appliance changes and added the plug in switches we reduced our electrical usage by over one half and reduced our gas consumption at the same time.

Solar Flashlights

Just a couple of side tips, we also started using solar flashlights and battery operated headlamps. You can replace a lot of batteries with the money you save by not turning on certain lights.

Did you really need to leave that light on when you left the room? Do you need all of your electrical entertainment appliances to be on standby or can you wait just a minute or two for them to warm up when you turn them on? Did you need that outdoor floodlight on when you took the dog out or the garbage to the curb, or could you just grab that headlamp at the door and use it instead?

I still use my electric and gas appliances as much as I used to. I just don’t pay as much to run them.

Ed and Laurie Essex live off grid in the Okanogan Highlands of Washington State where they operate their website goodideasforlife.com  and offgridworks.com.