Since you have switched to a string inverter, all your solar panels are now operating as one solar panel. It's recommended that you now orient your solar panels in the same direction. This is because right now you are not getting the full potential out of the panels. Panels in a string are always all as efficient as the least efficient panel in the string.
I understand you already have this system. It’s a waste of energy but if you buy Enphase 8 you have a safer system and 230v ac straight from your panels. I hope you still have the grid to level out your system.
At the moment it really doesn’t make a difference …. there is way too much sun at this time of the year for our needs. When we put the panels on the carport we’ll optimise the positioning, but right now there’s no need
well done guys. Talking about payback using my energy bills as a rough calculation it would take about 13 years. I have recently installed a 3.2 Kw system with a 3.2 battery and even more recently added another 3.2 battery so 6.4Kw. Cost was about £12,000 all in. Many of my friends and others kept saying you will never get the cost back, I'm 66, but I point out to them it's for my son who will inherit the house and in any case the money wasn't earning much interest in the bank. Looking forward to updates.
Many of your friends are wrong 🙂 I went solar and battery and I believe it has added to the value of the house, which many forget to factor in. Kudos to you Sir for choosing to invest in green infrastructure rather than going on a retirement cruise 💯🙌🙌
Nice! Im sure payback time will not be a problem. And as said in this video: Theres also an ethical side to using renewable Energy. Its funny that regarding energy many people only look at the bill but when buying a car no one talks about "Payback time" or something
@@Gummmibaer Your car analogy re payback makes absolutely no sense. PB is valid as there is already a supply available. Therefore to compare grid V solar makes perfect sense. However PB is often fudged as most kit will breakdown long before break even meaning you're forever chasing PB.
It's true there is no chance of ever getting PB at 13 years because the equipment won't last that long. ESP the inverter as they traditionally only last 5-7 years. On the bright side, at least you seem quite happy to throw money away. Saves the kids fighting over it I suppose. :-)
@@derekcole4949 "typical home could increase its value by £1,891-£2,722. Solar property commands a price premium of c. 0.9%-2%" .. and the older the solar gets the less value it will add as the buyer will have to factor replacement costs or possible damage to the roof etc..
I think my last point (for now) is about safety. I don't want to sound alarmist because the fact is that battery systems are incredibly safe but there is always a chance that something could go wrong and a fire is started. If I understand the layout of the house then your equipment room is pretty close to where you plan to put the internal stairs and where the external stairs are now. My suggestion would just to be on the safe side, put a fire resistent layer on the ceiling and a fire resistent door on the room and a smoke/heat detector in the room (ideally linked to others in the house) so that in the extremely unlikely event of a fire starting in that room, you have plenty of time to use the stairs. We plan to install ours in our garage connected to the house and the garage was required to have fireproofing in case a car caught fire.
I too would advise considering not only the fireproofing but also the ventilation in your utility room. The PV inverters are currently "ticking over". Once you start your canning, cooking and whatever else the inverters have a lot more work to do and just like us humans, they too will start to warm up. With all the other equipment in there in could get quite warm. Please remember standard electronics are built for a maximum ambient of 25C... Without venting you will probably reach that easily even in winter.
FYI: You probably know, but, none of this equipment lasts forever. I had to replace an inverter when it was about 10 years old, that was around or about 2015 and it cost me $1,100. I did no do any of the instllation. Panels were guarenteed for 15 yrs, but expected to last significantly longer. Just something to keep in mind as time passes. I can easily say, that gettin PV solar installed on my home in California was the best thing I ever did for the house. Second best was getting the walls and ceiling (built in 1920) insullated. Good work guys! Keep it going!
I love how you have had the foresight in designing your original system to be able to grow and adapt so very little equipment has to be tossed and replaced. So impressed with all the thought that went into this. Well done on the research end!
Very interesting to have this explained. I had my solar system installed some 13 years ago. At that time no batteries existed. I live in Belgium, so not really a sunny country. And the costs of that rather small installation were about the same as for your much bigger system now. But it was and is still worth it, even though in winter it does not produce enough for my needs. Thanks to some tax advantages at that time for solar, I recovered the costs in about 7 years. If I ever move to another place then I would certainly install solar again and consider also a heat pump.
Kudos to yr mechanical room and its development and installation. I am a fan of installing things that look good, and installing it the right way, this long term makes its pleasing and IF troubleshooting is needed, makes is easier. Labeling will help it even more. Also creating yr documentation is key to making things top notch overall. Again well done, looks amazing and you both make it look easy and work wonderfully as a team 😊. One last comment … in total agreement on big companies and the paperwork/time to get work done, costs and its impact on you. Going solar is 😊 the right direction, independence and scalability is in your control.
About 10 years ago I looked into a "DC-coupled" system with the night-time battery-producing 110VAC here in Northern VA. I estimated 60kWh max peak, but with my installation skills, payback was only 10 years. At the time my short-sighted electric utility "co-op" NOVA would have charged me a still-sizeable connection fee (with the provision to provide needed peak power on a series of weak-charging cloudy VA winter days!). 10 years on and I'm still living in the same house (but have replaced the "stupid shingle" roof) and my electricity bill averages $100/month. I wish I had done it. As an electronics engineer I'm not totally convinced that facing all the panels in the same direction and angle is absolutely necessary. Certainly peak output power would be reduced (and reduced peak power losses), but overall diurnal output power may be greater (over some threshold) by pointing some panels also towards mid-morning and mid-afternoon sun positions. I like the choice of the "AC-coupled" system for the "cooking shed" since you're probably sleeping inside the house during these (hot!) nights. I'd tie-ho on the Garage install. I'd imagine that fast electric car chargers are 400VAC 3-phase only and you may want quite a beefy 3-phase inverter to drive that. A small panel and standby battery could provide lighting in the dark there. I'd temporarily mount your (spare) panels on the fragile outhouse roofs to drive the house "DC-coupled" system for night-time comfort. Just my suggestions. Enjoying this channel (and the previous channel - yeah, thanks RU-vid).
Hi there 🙂 You two are absolutely great in the way you think! You are practical and conscious about the critical points of Our"normal" western daily life style. Well I agree about all the reasons you mentioned here! I am trying to do the same (a bit scaled down) here in Italy while renovating my new home.. I am following your working progress since a while now and you are of a great inspiration for me! Thanks!
You always have very interesting vlogs, even when a lot don’t apply to me, but will to different degrees to many, cheers guys, thank you 🙏💋❣️ In other words a one stop shop for all your power, got it😉👏👍
Although less efficient due to the efficiency loss of the rectifiers (the proper name of the conversion from AC to DC to charge the batteries), the AC coupled has two advantages: you minimise the losses on the cables when transmitting on AC (or you save a fair bit in cable by having a smaller section) and you can power higher AC loads by not being as restricted by battery DC max output (despite having energy or not, instant power rating which can be limited, instead the limitation is on the sum of all the inverters output power connected to the same bus). Depending on the distances you would need to run the cables on a DC system, the earlier inversion to AC might compensate the loss of efficiency of the rectification (at most by keeping £ in the pocket on the cable price, allowing for an extra battery in the long run for instance). In case you have a lot of inductive loads (pumps, motors, etc) and you find yourself limited in batteries max instant output power, if your inverters allow, consider a string of lead acid (yes, old school) batteries just to help in the starting phase since lead acid will give as much power as demanded (although for a very short period of time compared with lifepo) which is just what you would need. Note: I'm an electrical engineer 😀
Thank you for sharing this important information. You are correct, this platform that we all enjoy is a sharing and learning source, and that's what makes it so nice.
In addition to the benefits of going off-grid that you've mentioned is the reliability factor. Although you don't have the weather conditions that I frequently experience in New England that interrupt my power - the worst in a recent winter was four days - in a rural area such as yours, there could still be a prolonged breakdown in the power system, and you don't want to lose all your frozen garden produce! High-quality, properly installed electronics rarely fail if not abused, so you should have reliable electricity for years to come. I understand that solar panels may lose efficiency over time, but they can be replaced when necessary as part of your maintenance schedule.
Currently there aren’t too many power outages here, but one thing we forgot to mention is the voltage surges that happen. It’s quite frequent and can really mess with equipment
I’m in the process of renovating a small ruin in Portugal and want to go for solar as really hate the idea of all the visual pollution which will absolutely litter our now clear and green view and surroundings with electricity poles and horrible night lights! But wow I’m feeling extremely overwhelmed as I know ZERO about it all and it looks so complicated! So videos like this help to teach me a little.. thank you xx
Great video guys. We are living in the Netherlands and have had on grid solar where essentially the grid acts like a battery for many years (around 10) and it has really helped but it's time for us to move towards battery storage in house and both ourselves and a neighbour have both come to the conclusion independently that we want to go for Victron and rack mounted batteries so your video is so appropriate. I have a bunch of questions and observations but I think it best to split those out. Keep up the pioneering work.
On average, a Portuguese household spends €80 a month on electricity. Have you ever thought about how long it will take to get a return on investment? Think that at this moment in Portugal more than 66% of the energy consumed is already renewable.
What's not calculated in energy costs are the costs of maintenance of the poles, transformers, wires that are the links in the grid. All of those will get more and more expensive over time, so independent power generation means a flat cost for years, with do it yourself repair capacity. Storms etc take down grids every day now, and it will be worse in the future.
@@antoniogoncalves7372in the Netherlands my niece needed to set up her electricity and gas supplies again for the new contract time, which is 1-2 years and was forced to go from €150/m to €600/m as the company increased all their prices. Changing to a different company doesn’t make a difference. In Portugal your are still paying much less for your energy than the rest of Europe.
No it's obvious that northern countries will spent insane amounts for heating in the winter and probably also more in xummer with AC. Luxurious lifestyle is over for Europe, globalism is making sure of it alonside with tech development.
Im moving onto a farm here in the UK. hopefully in the next 6 months. I'm adamant to come off grid, so i'm no longer at the mercy of the energy companies. I guess living in the UK im going to have to massively over spec my system to ensure I can get through the winter months on solar alone. Cheers for the video.
We’ve done some research into these and it doesn’t look like the return is worth the investment. But for experiments sake once the carport is built we’ll probably get one to test it out so we can report first hand on the data
thanks for all you are sharing, i'm build a house in portugal near Coimbra, and i'm planing to go full out of the grid, and I appreciate all details you can share. keep the great work
I can only watch and admire. My 7.3 kVp system makes in January whopping 160 kWh, where I need 1200 kWh. :( Perks living 1000 km south. Keep up great work.
I currently have a Portuguese house that is off grid. My own experience even with 5.6kW of solar panels is that I still need to resort to using a generator to top up batteries at some times of the year. If I had the option of connecting to grid power for a backup at a reasonable cost I would do it at the drop of a hat.
I'm not surprise, I helped a friend install 2 x 3.5kw of panels recently . On a cloudy day the generation was 750 watts total. Not enough to power the house + charge the batteries. Luckily when the sun comes out he's got plenty of power. He's going to add panels to the max which the inverter can handle of 2 x 4.5kw per circuit to try to boost it up . During summer it's great and he's dead happy but my gut feeling is he won't save anywhere near as much as he was hoping/expecting over a 12 month period.
If you didn't do the math a priori for an inverter to accommodate more panels...you made an expensive mistake! In that case I advise you to keep the recipt and sell it as soon as possible and upgrade it, also double or tripple those panels and every few years buy a battery.
Brilliant. I love the information sharing as well as the Guinea Pig approach. I tend to agree with you in that it will pay off in the long run. I'm also surprised at how little it has cost...I honestly assumed it would be more. I think this is something very intelligent to do so that you have control.
You like the idea of being a Guinea and still pay thousands?? 😄 Crazy, but there is nothing in this project that is experimental considering the imense amount of homesteaders that vlog their solar systems installations for years...
I think you have done a good job on your solar setup. Sounds well researched. I also like the cleanness of the setup. Makes it easer to maintain and troubleshoot too.
We got a quote off Victron because we watch your channel ….we have a small farmhouse 100 square metres plus a small cottage 50 square metres and a bore pump €40,000 😹😹😹😹
Wowsers! Our first quote was way over spec’d (they made lots of assumptions about usage), so perhaps that’s something to look at. We’re also very willing to change some of our usage habits if necessary- for example, it’s very unlikely we’ll be using the oven, the canning setup and workshop at the same time, so we really only need to cater to the largest of those in addition to the heat pump
We have a 3 phase off grid solar system which powers the car, air conditioning, swimming pool, appliances and our irrigation system and three separate buildings. The main issue in Portugal is not just the cost and time consuming nature of the energy company but also the nature of the winters which we wouldn't be able to cope with on your system - we charge the car at 44kwph - let alone all the other appliances but as it is silent, non polluting and with the Tesla on country roads - a great deal of fun!
@@buteos8632 No we honestly don't heat with wood - aside from it being a fairly valuable asset to sell these days, we use it for mushrooms, Planking and making furniture. We love an outdoor fire, when the weather allows, but my lungs and the mess have put us off fireplaces and the solar is awesome. You will have to pop over and see sometime, we are good friends with the Marshes and Luke and Sarah.
I really appreciate how you two share the details of information for all your projects (equipment, materials, assembly, costs, sources, etc.). It is invaluable. Thank you again for a very informative episode.
As regards electricity prices, a few weeks ago on two occasions electricity wholesale prices fell to zero , IE they were generating so much energy they had to give it away. As solar esp self generation & wind increase those days will increase. This has always been the concern with the big energy generation companies. AS it was mentioned recently they won't be energy producers, rather energy managers. How they price is going to be very difficult. Once people know they are getting 'free' electricty and charging us for it plus the potencia (which is supposedly the grid charge) is again going to be difficult. I also agree regarding the big energy companies being extremely difficult to do business with. In Spain they are extremely powerful with 'friends in high places' and lobbying they keep control of how much they can charge.. If you cannot get sufficient power or it's unreliable, or just to lazy to turn things off it's probably worth it but I looked at it and by being more energy efficient the payback extends even further to almost never (without breakages etc) . The real 'saving' is owning an electric car, that makes a massive difference.. Otherwise hmm I'm not convinced.. Going forward energy production and costs are going to be a very hot topic..
Many high end solar charge controllers handle overloading. That's great for you, or for whoever uses them, because solar panels are relatively cheap compared to almost everything else, so it makes sense to buy a lot of them.
I just got a crazy electric bill from EDP for €2600 + €89 every month it’s a total of €3600 in one year that’s ridiculous I thought it was wasting €89 a mouth now I got this €2600 bill gave me a surprise now I’m looking to go completely solar I’m in the algarve.
Great to hear about your system but also the choices for why is just as useful, thank you. Are you going to be installing any solar thermal as well or will you be using the heat pump for all hot water?
Very nice setup. If in future you want to expand your battery. I have successfully paralleled my 348AH Pylontech with 530AH of DIY battery. (Total 878AH = 42Kwh) Batteries are expensive but essential off-grid. I am also off-grid. (Spain) Compared to the big Pylontech 100AH battery =1329 euro the DIY is about half this price per AH. I will share more detailed information if you are interested?
We have 100 panels and we have $15,000 invested power company invested $55,000. Ant our extra power goes into the grid. But after 10 years we can give the extra power we generate to any person using the same power company.
On the 2nd half part of the video, I was like “ohh, they’re Eco Radicals 🤔 🧐” when Cayle was talking; then “ohh wait, they’re Survivalist / preppers moved in to Portugal 🤯 🫨, blend of british / australian preppers” when Guy was talking (one can have gun in Portugal if you get hunting license); but then he it was a planned experiment, willing to be a _ginnea pig_ on energy self production and consume 👍 All the best for you guys. Oohh, on the possibility of going preppers path, Guy get that welding training 😉 🤣🤣
Very interesting and clear explanation! We are looking to expand our solar system in the coming year with more panels, another inverter and more batteries, so this is great food for thought. Our major hindrance is needing to hide everything, because of the proximity to a historic building... and the permissions from the local council. Very cool to be at the foot of a 10th century enclosure and we don't want to spoil the look of the site, but it does complicate things!
I’m not sure where you’re based, but there are now panels being made (in Europe) that look like roof tiles. These have been approved by conservation officers in the UK for use on listed buildings. They are much more expensive but might be worth looking into if you can’t find a better solution
A friend of ours got an energy bill 💸 for just one month (December) for €1300 ,,, average is not that insane but think solar or off grid is the way to go, to be in control ✌️🇸🇪
Learned so much, as always, when watching your videos ! I’m wondering if you have to worry about lightning strikes on a solar panel system and any damage along the chain of devices connected to the panels?
As you talked about the heat pump you mentioned that they need AC, but I have heard that some pumps can take DC or AC and will prefer the DC but switch to the AC when the batteries are dead. However I realise you already have your heat pump so that is perhaps something others can look into if they want to.
If you have a flat roof building a solar array that follows the sun from dawn till dusk would be awesome. A battery ups and switching so array returns to sunrise from sunset position would maximise solar supply and would only require small amount to power the slow moving array. Worth a thought perhaps get some sponsorship could possibly a product to market?
We’ve looked into the follow the sun type gear, it’s massively overpriced and works out much cheaper and easier to over provision the panels. Maybe in the future that will change
I hope you are considering a backup propane generator for your solar-powered system. Three of the off-grid homesteaders that I follow have these systems in place. Reason being the temperature requirements of solar batteries in case of an equipment failure of the chargers. Two of the three have had to use their backup systems at least one time each. Both are in areas where no grid power is available.
Hi Love your Channel You can use GoldEnergy (my own choice for now), that has 100% renewables in their portfolio. And at least you can, probably, use it (the grid), with a lower tear tarif (it's cheap, and the existing public cable, as you said can for sure provide at least that), just for the times you don't have so much sun/battery and/or also for not to have to dimension the wole system to a Full Off-Grid solution 100% of the time (year) ... To 'shave' the peaks consumptions/demand... And also, if not for any of the reasons above, has a redundacy/backup if the offgrid system, for any reason, stops (breaks or maintenance)... and vice-versa... Hope this helps
...Also, you have bi and tri-horario tarif... what that means is that, if you choose any of those options, you could benefit for super cheap energy (at night), when the sun doesn't 'shine', and in case of the batteries are very low or even empty the grid could kick in... When and if needded ofcourse. By the way, a brewery, if electrical, will for sure use A LOT of power! And not only that, Peaking for long periods of time!... I think suporting that with just solar/bateries could be an issue... if it's only for small/hobbie batchs (20l a time), probably not so much, but still... Going up these scale, it's a whole new thing... If you want any help with this I can help a bit ... been an amateur first and then a comercial brewer for a long time - not anymore though... And a certain point I used electrical systems, some comercial brands but also design and made my own systems ... the last one i design was a 3 tier system (aprox 250 liter - batch volume) suported on 2X3X5500W electric coil heaters (16.5 KW in each tank - just 2 were heated) ... If I remember correctly, my brewery had a 3 phase 15 or 30 Amp contract. Cheers
I believe once we add the additional panels we might need to (exceeding a 4kw array). We still have to get sign off of our install so we’ll be checking on that too
For all you seem to plan as future activities 3 phase current would seem favorable. Are there Systems around, with which you can achieve that off panels or batteries without being an electrician.
Eu gosto muito de ver os vossos vidios mas infelizmente nao consegui entender nada porque nao tenho legendas em português o que é uma pena. Com os outros proprietários que vivem perto de Castelo Branco tambem nao tenho tido traduçao sinto me muito frustada. Muito obrigados e sejam sempre bem vindos 😢😢👍👍👍
As legendas são traduzidas automaticamente pelo RU-vid e, por vezes, demoram um pouco. Talvez seja melhor tentar um pouco mais tarde (selecionar primeiro a ‘auto translate’ e depois o ‘Portuguese’)
Very informative video. I hope all your plans work out. Only question I have is, is it wise to have your water system (heat pump) in the same room as your electrical. What if a pipe were to burst and spray water in the room.
May be my question is stupid, but may be not..... Back from when I learned about electric energy in school (about 45 years ago) I belive it was like that electric power has to be produced when it is used, or used when it is produced. If you have a power storage like batteries then you are always can use power to load those when you don't use enough on other things (light, heating, appliances). But I'am still wondering what (in a completly off grid system) is if you don't use power (for what ever reason) and your batteries are fully loaded. Where does the power generated by those panels go? Just creating heat in some probably unwanted places
Just wondering: in summer you probably have the ability to generate far more than you need. Is there any support in Portugal for feeding it back into the grid and getting paid for it. Even without that, some very rough maths suggests 10-15 years to be break even, which, if you're going to be there for 30 years seems well worth it.
Yes, with some providers there is, but normally it’s a credit off your energy use rather than them paying you cash money … and you still always have to pay the standing charge and taxes. It’s also very little payback so not really worth the bureaucracy (in our opinion)
@@MAKEDOGROW there is one thing, you reduce the need for the expensive batteries, by essentially making use of the grid "battery" capacity. As you know the traditional lithium batteries have a significant environmental impact... The extra energy you produce and put back in the grid also helps to reduce global CO2 emissions...
I'm confused about the inverters, batteries and solar panels size selection process. "10kVA max output (from parallel Victron Multiplus inverters), 14.4kWh of Pylontech batteries, 5.3kW of solar panels." My understanding is: Batteries power the inverters, solar panels charge the batteries. How did you choose the correct size batteries, inverters and solar panels to suit your needs? Did you start from finding out how many watts of energy you use in an hour, then size accordingly using online calculators and that?
Just a point about fossil Fuel. Every single thing you touch daily has had fossil fuel involved in the making of that object. Including ALL the parts of your solar power setup. This will be the case for well after your or my life time.
Of course we are not blind to that, but where we can we try to buy/consume products that reduce our overall consumption. It’s very unlikely anyone could avoid fossil fuels, even the most eco of warriors (which we are not)
I wish someone would address, the elephant in the room, thermal runnerway, and the risks of fire, here in Australia fires are increasing in frequency, so the need to locate the battery storage away from the residence, now need to be a consideration.we will not park our EV near our home or other vehicles
what sizes are your Canaleta Cableado, I notice you have two sizes and they look very nice/adequate? On another note, we are off grid, similar to you and I would advise to go heavy on panels & batteries. We have12kw of panels and I am just adding another 6kw for a tesla requirement. That said, 18kw of panels will reduce to 1kw when raining so go heavy, don't scrimp :) We like you, won't sacrifice on home comforts and we have 51kwh of batteries plus a jenny. We learnt the hard way this winter when it rained for a good few days that you can never have enough backup capacity. The inbuilt heater function on your starlink will consume 3/400 watts in harsh winter
Its on the list for the future, but we want one that can provide a backup for the house (ie. pull energy out of the car and feed the house batteries). There are only a couple of models that do this at the moment but we think this should change in the next 5 years. The Ford F150 lightening is an example
