BRUTAL truth about Off grid solar - OFF GRID IN ITALY 

Yeah Kris is the goat! you have just bent my brain!!! 🤣 There are indeed plenty of ways to skin this cat. 👍🏻

Heating a house with electrical heater crazy, those things suck the life out a battery. They should look into some other way to heat a house, a gas boiler, a fire place or a portable propane heater.

Yep the turbine needs to go up ASAP but I want to make sure it is the last time it goes up so need to do it the best of my ability once I've done enough research. I'm planning on running a DC generator in my water battery setup.

@@FarmsVilla but instead of running a generator that makes a candle them converted to dc is more efficiency to make a dc generator because you can use a 5hp to use less fuel

I'm not understanding you?

@@FarmsVilla look for DIY 48v generators on RU-vid

@@solarandwindinsouthtexasda1473 will do. Thanks. 👍🏻😊

Yeah winter with solar sucks. No other way to describe it. If we get sun I can get the battery bank fully charged before the sun goes down and we are ok till the next morning. If the sun doesn’t come out or it is a dark overcast the generator comes out by about 10am. A light overcast is ok and we can charge enough but obviously need to watch our power consumption. I wish I had access to running water. Go for the hydro generator. It’s a no brainier. 😊 check out Kris Harbour on RU-vid if you haven’t already. He is a wiz with hydro generators. 👍🏻

This is where I got the idea from. 👍🏻🤣

Thanks for your suggestions. 👍🏻 I'm not too worried about the current draw of the inverters as mine draw about 45 watts each so no biggie. I'm quite happy with the way the system currently handles loads as long as we don't try and draw more than 8Kw we are fine.We have only tripped the system 4 or 5 times since installing at the end of 2019. It's amazing how you always seem to be monitoring current draw when you go off grid. I used to have an enterprise grade POE switch to run the cameras. That got ditched very fast. Draws 250 watts continuously. 😳

Thanks Beau! I will email you the address to send the cruise tickets to. 👍🏻🤣🤣

@@FarmsVilla since the plague cruises are cheap.

@@beaurouse7429 That must be the reason you offered us the tickets then! 👍🏻🤣

Building the house higher closer to the sun also helps 😂😂

@@oror3837 I had not thought of that. 🤔🤣🤣👍🏻

It is like money, it is not what you make it is what you keep. I not sure what your inverter used at idle but I was guess 50 to 60 watts. 50 watts times 14 hours = 700 watts hours. You might be able to almost not use one kw. Might be around euro or more of petro. But if you only need the larger inverter to pump water, oven it could be more. A tank of water with a small pump could provide you with water. A float to turn the big pump on. One way valves you could set up that you do not have to turn on valves. A 200 gallon storage tank or a 275 350 gallon tote. Make wife approved. Just things to ponder on. Or it might spark something in the old noggin.

Hi there. Thanks for your input. Much appreciated! My system is made up of 2 x 4Kw inverters running in parallel. These are all in one units with charge controllers built in. This is for both AC and solar charging. When I designed the system it was to support only 1 house. Circumstances changed after I ordered the system and it now runs 2 houses. 🙂 It is wired into the main D/B for both houses and is located in the garage which is a fair distance from the distribution boards. So separating loads is not really feasible. Sadly the pellet boiler I have does not have a port for an electric element. I do use the borehole pump as a dump load as it draws 3Kw when running. In summer we have no problem using our excess energy as we have vegetables that need watering daily as it gets extremely hot here in summer. Not to mention the raw materials for the composting plant (Lawn) also needs watering. It looks like I have replied to 2 of your comments in this thread. 🤣

Yeah if I want to scale it up I’m going to need a stronger roof! 🤣 you have got my mind working at the moment as I might actually put the holding tank at the back of the property as I think I may have a similar head height. More investigation required. This is currently just an idea in my head that I am working through. I am also looking at building a dc generator out of an old lawnmower and a treadmill motor that I can run via a solar charge controller to charge the batteries when required. I’m getting mad scientist vibes at the moment. 🤣🤣🤣

I have been doing that. If the generator runs its pumping max load into the batteries. I am also about to embark on a DC charger build. Scouring the dump for an old treadmill motor to add to an old lawn mower motor I have. Will then hook that up to the charge controller for the 2Kw bank on the back of the garage. If I need the generator it means there is no sun so I can just switch over when required. I could just throw more money at it and sort it out but where is the fun in that. 🙂

FFS! My exact words when i saw it!! 🤣 🤣 Messed with what I had planned to include in this video so I was not amused.

@Farm Villa I bet! Not something you planned to deal with in Southern Italy eh? I actually took some great footage of the frost on the ground and somehow forgot to include it in our video. Maybe I'll make it into a shorts video.

@@notyouraveragegringos Snow is not totally unexpected as it has snowed before. Thankfully it doesn't stick around for too long. I don't mind snow if there is enough of it to have fun in otherwise you can keep the slushy mess!

Cheers Mac. I am working towards that conclusion myself. There is no doubt that angling the panels towards the sun increases output on a sunny day. I have also determined that angled panels during a cloudy overcast also improves the output. I’m trying to measure the impact of angling the panels during a dark overcast day. I never though a day would come when I wished for dark overcast conditions. 🤣 I’m convinced that the panels generate more during a dark overcast when lying flat on the roof. I just need evidence of that to share. 👍🏻

Also meant to add I have a 2kw wind turbine to go back up once I sort out a decent mount for it far from any buildings.

For sure angling the panels gives more output. Particularly in winter. I’m leaning towards building an automated tilt system for them in the future. 👍🏻

I also meant to add no matter if the panels are perfectly angled when there is no sun it makes no difference. 😊

No arguments from me on what you said. 👍🏻 the battery bank still has a good few years of life in it yet. I can get by most days except on very dark overcast days. If the batteries hit full charge before the sun goes down the charge in the morning before we get any generation sits around 50 to 60%. Nov, Dec & Jan are the worst months here. I am hoping that by the time I need to replace the battery bank there is new battery tech available. I’m hearing good things about salt batteries. 🤔

@@FarmsVilla I have 6 lead acid 100ah batteries in my shed backup system, I have a standup freezer and full fridge that I have running off that. But my house I have 500ah Lifepo4 system. But I’m not fully off grid yet. But I’m working on it.

@@iiinsaiii Sorry I missed your comment. Yes the good thing about building your own system is you can expand it as you get more kit to eventually get to the point where you can go off grid. Good luck. Be warned when you do eventually go off grid you will be overcome by an immense smug feeling. It is normal. 😀

🤣 👍🏻 Exactly my thoughts. A bigger better battery will go a long way. I'm actually about to do a video about angling the panels to maximise generation. In sunny conditions there is no doubt angling them makes a big difference. Almost an extra 180 watts per 750 watt string. But I'm still not convinced it will make as much difference on an overcast day. If it does I will eat my words and start building decent brackets. 😁 I'm not too worried about the amount of energy required to pump the water up hill as I can't use all the energy generated on a sunny day. All of our appliances are A+++ rated. Otherwise we would be in a whole new world of hurt!

@@FarmsVilla ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-89_jM_KlEy4.html from time 10;15 shows the power increase as the solar is tilted. If you don't tilt the panels for winter you are simply buying more diesel/petrol for the generator. You can't store energy you haven't harvested, if the batteries are not full in winter add more panels. If a full battery is exhausted before 9am then the battery is too small.

Thanks for the link. 👍🏻 Just watched the section you recommended and no arguments from me I can make more power by tilting them in sunny conditions, which I have proven to myself already. I am going to do the same exercise when it is cloudy to see what increase it brings. When I sourced the system components it was only ever to supply one household but circumstances changed. Battery bank is fine when we have sunny days and it hits full charge before the sun goes down and covers cooking in the evening for both houses as well as standard draw through the night. If the next day is overcast its generator time which is not good. I do have 2Kw of panels hanging vertically on the back of the garage for winter generation. They do really well and are pushing up to 1700 watts consistently from about 10am to 4pm. But when it is cloudy they only produce about 48 watts. 🙄

If you were close by you would be able to smell the wood burning as I mull this over in my head. 👍🏻

@Farm Villa I would vote for this well over a water battery. If you look on RU-vid a guy built a whole water battery and put it on his roof, reinforced the roof, and made hardly no power out of it. I don't remember specifics but turned out to be the same as one AA battery... which must have sucked. I did my first winter with solar this past winter. Depending on your system a small space heater with 2 or 3 settings would be all you need(a 2 setting heater is usually 1500w and 750w here in the US anyway on 110v). I ran a power relay from the dc load on my cheap charge controller that would let me set load-on voltage and load-off voltage. When voltage gets high enough relay switches on and the heater comes on. When it gets low it turns off. I've left it on over weekends even when I'm not at the house. Just get a power relay that is the same voltage rating in DC as your battery bank and connect the coil to the relay. And then on the switched part is your AC and make sure the normally open side is enough amps for your heater. I could do 1500w of heat for 6 hours on sunny days during the winter here but sounds like your winters aren't as sunny as here. Regardless, a space heater will put out some heat. I considered a heat pump but can't get one cheap enough to justify it.

@@lancealderman2755 yeah I saw that video. It’s where I got the idea from. 😁 I know he didn’t make any real power but I thought if I scaled everything up I could make a bit more power. If I can get 300 watts out of it overnight for a few hours that will help the load on the battery bank. Steady draw on our system is between 250 & 750 watts depending on how many fridges are running alongside central heating etc. planning on using 2 x 1000 litre tanks with about 100 m of about 20 cm diameter pipe between the 2 feeding a water turbine. Should be fun to do even if it doesn’t yield the desired results. 🤔 And it will put the idea to bed in my head one way or the other. 🤣🤣

@Farm Villa 😅 Then do it! Haha. I'm with you, my mind has explored a bunch of different options, compressing air and using it like you would water, making hydrogen with electrolysis, making a flywheel battery (my current favorite), lifting a heavy object and then using that weight to drive a generator, just dumping the excess energy into a heating element and heating water. It's just easier to buy batteries though 😅 I wish some of the ideas made a lot of sense and cents but the efficiency of lithium batteries vs the horrible inefficiencies of my ideas always just leads me back to buy more batteries. I only have 4.5kwh of batteries on a 4kw solar array so I'm a little underbatteried. Never been through a summer with everything set up but summers are hot here. I've already been running a window unit for 13-15 hours a day straight some days but that leaves maybe 3 or 4 kwh of solar unused during sunny days. So I could use some more something. There is also math involved and you could figure out how much energy is stored in so much weight. You'll lose efficiency pumping and also with the generator too. I hope you do it and it works great and I'll subscribe to see when you make progress.

Hi Jason. It's not that I'm disappointed in solar. More like I'm disappointed in cloudy weather! 🤣I do need a bigger better battery as the system was originally sized for 1 house not 2. I have the wind turbine already. I was up for about 2 weeks before it started generating. That lasted for about 3 days until the wind ripped it out of the wall. With a daily consumption in winter ranging between 15 & 20 KWh per day a generator is not a luxury it is a necessity. The battery is usually around 55% in the morning so as long as we get sun every day we are fine. Most months it isn't really a problem here apart from Nov, Dec & Jan

@@FarmsVilla - Until I got serious about solar, I never really paid that much attention to how sunny or cloudy it was. Turns out I live in one of the cloudiest places in North America. 😕 Still, I am intrigued by alternative generation, storage and utilization of electricity. I feel it is the future of energy for our global society and I like being a part of that.

@@jasonbroom7147 I agree. I am also very interested in alternative energy generation to the point that I'm about to build one of those infinite energy generators with a motor and a car alternator that are all over RU-vid. It has been "debunked" as fake by many people but I'm still going to give it a try. That will resolve all my problems. 🤣IF it works! I have a few ideas on how to improve the designs out there currently. I am also keen to try out a water battery. I can create a head of about 10 meters with approx 100 meters of pipe on the layout of our property. If I can get it to supply 500 watts for a few hours through the night that will also create more breathing room. The only thing missing from our property is running water otherwise I would also have hydro going. I just can't shake the smug feeling I get whenever I see my solar pumping! 👍🏻

I also meant to add it is a 2kw wind turbIne and for the short period it was working before it came down I saw it charging at 36 amps. 😁

Our daily draw generally is about 20Kwh in winter. In summer it is closer to 60KWh with running the pool and borehole pump for 6+ hours per day. On dark days we can only generate about 4 Kw so the Generator needs to come out. When I first installed the panels they were angled correctly for our area and yes they were delivering significantly more power but we only get about 8 hours of usable sunlight in winter so by leaving the panels flat it isn't making any real difference to getting the batteries fully charged before sundown on sunny days. Yes a larger generator would be great but it is what we have so need to make it all work. Besides which I'm looking forward to playing with the wind turbine again as well as experimenting with a water battery. 👍🏻

@@FarmsVilla Holy cow, that's a high draw. Our average daily consumption is about half that. We only do high draw on sunny days. Laundry etc. Our panels are roof mounted and the inverters are wired up directly below them to keep line losses to a minimum. When output is really low we economise. We are grid connected but for us it's still worth it because our exports cover the fixed line costs and minuscule import. If it becomes untenable we will go off grid but the credits we earn are working in our favour. We export ten times more than we import. The batteries give us enough float to ride without having to have a massive expensive bank.

@@joschmoyo4532 it sure is. Summer is even worse. 😳 but everything in both houses runs on electricity. No gas. And we have lots of gadgets. 😊 if we had the option for grid tie here it would be a no brainier to add plenty of panels for the dark days and then sell all the excess back. Not possible here. Hell I’m not even sure I’m allowed to do what we are doing now. 🤣

@@FarmsVilla We do have gadgets and I have a lot of three phase machinery running off a phase converter. I think the hardest part of off grid is getting enough battery storage and the cost of it. I only pump water when the sun provides enough power. I also store water in tanks. It's the same principle as batteries. I siphon water to one tank and even though it's only a trickle it's non stop and fills the tank in two days without power being used. Diversified storage and low output can meet your needs if you get clever. Big generator's are wasteful unless your charging a very big bank. True off grid is a huge investment. I'm thinking of stroking energy as compressed air. Eventually home hydrogen generation and storage will be a game changer. Water is fuel.

@@joschmoyo4532 you are correct. If money was no object I would throw 50kwh of lithium at it and be done with it. Our borehole pump does not run unless we have sun. It draws 3kw and to get everything watered it normally runs for 6 to 7 hours a day. The pool pump runs depending on how much charge is in the bank as well as how much solar is coming in. The spa only runs in summer. 🤣 it’s amazing how much more aware you are as to how much power each item in the house draws when you go off grid. I can pretty much tell what the mother is doing next door just by watching solar assistant. Even with the hassle of juggling power and running a generator I still can’t shake this smug feeling I have whenever I think about generating my own power. 😊

I looked at Victron when I was putting the system together in 2017 but opted for MPP solar off grid inverters.