SUPERCHARGED Off-Grid Solar Power System 

Name something more romantic than dying for your wife's cheese fridge. Oh you can't? Nobody can! 😂

the best part of this video is when he says 'I knew she was the one, and she still is the one'...that is one lucky life and man

Love your channel! We're off grid in Alaska too... 4 years for us. The single best thing you could do to supercharge your system is switch to better equipment. Xantrex and magna aren't bad quality, but they aren't nearly as efficient as Victron. Check out the idle consumption on the Magna vs the Victron Multiplus units. For most people who use these off-grid inverters, the inverter itself is the single largest power draw on the system. Many draw a continuous 100 watts or more. My 3000va Multiplus draws just 11 watts at idle, and with the typical load of the house, I generally have less than 30 watts lost between battery and load. We run a Victron 250V-60A SCC, 3kw of panels 4s2p, the 3kva inverter, with a single 100AH 48v lifepo4 battery. That powers our cabin, 2 freezers and a fridge, well pump, microwave, etc. We have a 36-48 hour battery reserve. If I wasn't running super efficient equipment, I'd need at least twice the battery and panel to get the same performance I get with Victron. Stepping up to a higher voltage SCC would let you put your panels into 6s2p, which would also add to your power curve morning and evening, as the scc would see minimum charge voltage at lower light levels. Not a significant increase, but combined with lower line loss from the decreased amperage, you'd see more net power to your batteries.

Hello Jeff, Since now you have 12 panels in the system, It will be better if you connect 3 panels in series (4 strings instead of 6) and up the VOC to 125ish volts still under 150V of the charge controller. The MPPT charge controller works more efficiently with higher voltage and you would need less cables and still your per string current will be same. Higher voltage helps Charge controller to extract more power on overcast days and will start producing power earlier. Hope this helps.

Your wife has such a nice personality, always has a smile on her face. She is so cute.

The girls are too smart now, when the work starts they mount the horses and get out of Dodge. Lol, just kidding, they are very smart and aren't afraid of work. Looks like Rose is getting serious about her cheese. Good for her, fresh cheese is great. Another great video Jeff, thanks.

Find a good spot in the yard and make your solar array there. Then you dont have to worry about your roof and they are easier to clean in winter. I have found that if you over kill on the panels it will charge your batteries faster or get more power on cloudy days. When your batteries are full, that is the time to use the most electric, laundry, tools, etc, then you are only using solar power and not battery power.

I found your video entertaining! I used to do electrical design of utility scale solar. From 1MW to 100MW systems. You are correct in oversizing the array watts to your system. Since our customer wanted every penny they could get from the system because they were selling the power, we found that 25-27% over was the point to stop because of diminished return. A few thoughts about your system. If the batteries are charged by 10:00 am, when you have the money, you should think about increasing the capacity. When you were checking production, your huge spikes are usage, not production. If you are not using, it will drop production. Your graph would look like what you thought it should if you were charging batteries and using electricity all day to allow the panels to give it their all. Again, enjoyed the video! Best wishes for some great cheese! Kevin

Dad said, "guess what we're doing today?" ... and ... the girls BAILED. They ARE learnin' sumpthin'.

You guys are awesome as usual. Rose is naturally hilarious. More and more content please!!

I love how Rose just smiles and laughs when she is put up as the instigator of the shenanigans that go on on your homestead. What a great partner in crime!!

A typical fridge will use more than a kwh per day, large unit can be closer to 2kwh/day A typical freezer, could be a bit lower than 1kwh/day a large unit a bit over 1kwh/day I run four freezers, three fridges (for my business and home) and run on solar, using 10kW of PV panels, and I still feel I need more for winter and to catch up after cloudy day. Great Vid guys, so authentic, and honest, no sugar coating, just life raw and real. Love it.

We live fulltime on our 40' sailboat and have used up all the real estate we have for panels. Only kicking 1.2kw of PV but we consistently get 4 to 5kwh of collection each day. We have 14.4kwh of LiFePo4 and power everything on the boat, including auxiliary propulsion, with stored solar (and live solar too). Having lived this way for the last 7 years, I give advice to people who are considering the "solar generators" and direct-to-appliance nuts. I should send them all to your channel so they can see what they need to have for that capability and point out that even you have limitations. Nice install and kit you have there.

Rose is so cool 😎 easy going, yet can do it all. 😂 She's awesome

I don't know about anyone else, but the last 45 seconds of this video should be the most important. When you know you know!

Wow ,you love each other,live a simple life ❤you are a good example to the world

Wish'n i had me a Rose give her whatever she wants keeps you all fed and happy

Hi there Jeff and Rose. You sure have a wonderful place. I'm glad that you homeschool your daughters

enjoyed tremendously....you can never have too many panels...lol

Jeff, you two are adorable! Nothing but love from SoCal to you and yours. cheers! ron:)

Hi Jeff & Rose, I wanted to pass on an idea for a system for your solar panels that you want to build, RU-vid channel Simple Living Alaska just built a raised solar panel system you may be interested in copying how they did theirs, they built it with metal & welded it & attached it to the roof of a shipping container. It's very tall, you could make one that could adjust to horizontal or varying degrees of vertical depending on your needs & the weather, then tighten them down so the wind move it. Their system seems extremely solid & was built & posted on their channel this Spring. You've done a great job with upgrading your power today!! Love your channel!! 😊

🤠horse riding video clip 🏇!!!! been looking forward to that since your return to the homestead. Jeff and Rose upgrading the solar was fabulous too... and a horse riding video clip!😃 (if only we could try some Jeep Joint Poutine through video) signed Clyde unofficial fan club

I’m with Rose…you gotta have your fridges and freezers 👍🏼😃

Rose is awesome🙂👍👍

Rose is so right! You do love tie-wraps!

You were the one, and you're still the one ! Can't get better than that👍

I really appreciate all the effort it must have taken to to gather and document all that information great job

I Love my Gridlessness Family. Sooooo cute love you all. T . Y .

MPPT Pulls Amps. That's about as simple as it gets. :) Great setup!

I'm still having fun and you're still the one... Jeff being all romantic..lol

I just imagine having that solar system you guys have in Puerto Rico wow! 😊

Wow,,, Love you guys,,, Great father out there, and the family gives him all the respect because he deserve it. Lovely family. And the girls are so so cool.....💕💕💕

YOU GUYS ARE SOMETHING 😂, COOL, ROSE ALWAYS SO BEAUTIFUL, AND HIS HAIR IS LIKE OVER THE MOUNTAINS CRAZY COOL

Wouldn’t it be more effective by adding a small charge controller attach to the same battery bank? In that way you will also get the higher peak energy input also.

I’m pretty sure many of us love tie wraps too 🤭🫣

Great videos... you were making fun of her cheese frig and when she laughed at your tir wraps, you got irritated.. hahaha...

Years ago I build a large cooler that I put my chest cooler inside. It's 4" thick top,bottom, sides. The compressor/ motor I extended it outside of the cooler. It doesn't run that often anymore. Wicked insulated.

Been loving you guys for about 7 years. This was great info. Mostly I'm just loving that you're giving the camera to others and we get a break from your relentless close-ups. 😜🤣✌ Happy cheese.

Hey, are you guys doing any canning it sure cuts down on freezer time. We had stormy weather in Florida and I'm in my second year of canning, I have canned a lot of chicken pre-cooked hamburgers, and bacon beans and you can keep up to 15 years I like it and build a fire set up pressure cooker make sure your pressure holds and good to go. Winter time just go to the Cubbard and heat it up ? and freezer meat can be canned I saved a lot from my freezer. OK I said enough like watching your videos. Thank you for shareing Mike said that.

Congratulations, Rose. More power is always good. 😁 🌻🌻🌞 Have fun, girl's! ❤️🐎🐎🐎🐕 Home school 👍

Good info...thanks! Good explanation of ones project for Improving your solar Power rate.. C ya on the next video! 👍🐺🧙‍♂️🦊🤙

God sure blessed you with a brilliant mind , also your wife and girls . Very interesting ! Have you had any campers yet ?

Love watching your family's adventures. Inspiring!

Thanks for another great video guys

One thing with those xantrax controller your not fully getting the 60amps of charging. Im thinking you should try and get the magnasine charge controller which is a 100amp so you can add more panels to help power the cheese fridge.

You guys are awesome!

Great fun as usual. Just glad to know that all of you are safe after all the fires.

This was great info and entertainment. Your girls got great teachers. I'm a classmate over here. Thanks

refreshing to see positive outcome with positive action. great work!😀

Thanks alot man! Bless

I always feel good after watching one of your videos.....thanks for that. Best wishes

Nice disclaimers :) Enjoyed the video. Thank you!

I haven't been able to watch your vids for awhile and finally was able to watch them again. I absolutely love this one. One, it's very interesting to see your solar set up. Two, it's always nice to see the love between you and Rose!

You guy's are so great 👍

Love your vids been watching you for years since when the kids was small.

Love watching you guys and I remember those high school days. Jeff made me laugh then and he does again…every episode! I love that I’m learning so much from you guys now - thanks for sharing the adventure.

We are only just beginning our solar journey and your video likely popped up because I have been watching numerous solar and off grid content. We are also homeschooling and I loved how you demonstrated various opportunities to learn that don't require a desk 😉

you guys are so awesome!!

Great video as always!

Great vidio, you and Rose compliment each other in so many ways . Always fun to watch

You guys are the best

This is some of the best solar information I’ve seen.

Love you all ,,perfect family 🎉

I do mine a little different. I doubled the number of panels my controller could handle. During the sunny days of summer it was wasting a lot of electricity so I parallel a second charge controller with the first, Now I capture all my electricity. I used different brands of controllers. I don't know how much battery you have at the end of the day but you might need another. Good Luck.

Awesome breaking though I see the light !!!

Thank you for sharing this video sir God bless

Nice disclaimer', good info 💣👍

Great way to show real life operational stats with your graph, and discussion on the system. Reality vs Sales pitch(s)

If you add weeping hose to top of panels, being kept cool they will provide more power and last longer

Fourth- Alberta Canada. WOOT!!!!

Lovely family..❤ frm Northeast India

As someone who lives off grid on 1700w of solar, I have a few things to add. 1) tilt your panels better. 2) get more batteries. 3) get better mppt controllers. 4) get more batteries. 5) get more batteries. Oh yeah and just for fun, GET MORE BATTERIES! Your system is being held back by your lack of batteries and chargers, NOT a lack of solar panels. 3kw is WAY overkill.

I love your show. I am way over paneled too! I have two Midnight solar 150 classics connected to 30 panels rated at 240w or 7200 kw.. I had to reduce max output to 80 amps each because my buss bar was getting so hot. I bought a plug in temperature controller and plugged a couple small fans into it and increased the output to 90 amps each. Not sure I want the full 96x2 amp capacity going on while I am away. LoL We are in the south so we have to include air conditioning in our grilessness! Well done and we’ll played sir.

This was nice. Now the difference between the two numbers (expected vs measured) could be simple line losses where a heavier gage wire would loose less energy per foot.

You guys are awesome!! You are going to hear a lot of different things....so here is some moe. 😅 We have been on solar power about the same time you all have. This is what ive learned.... If you want to stick with a 60 amp CC MPPT.... thats fine. Buy another 60 amp CC and then wire your Charge Controlers in parallel into a bus.....then into your batteries. Of course not exceeding your batteries max amp for charging. This not only boosts your amp input but also creates a redundancy....so if one CC or solar array became damaged, you would still be producing power. You guys rock! God Bless!!

Just something about the way you guys approach life is like a breathe of fresh air. I don't understand a thing about supercharging solar systems, and after Jeff explained it all I still don't ! 🤣What I do know is that ; whatever you do is interesting and worth my time. I've learn't over the years that Jeff is just KRA KRA funny, but it's Rose's subtle humor that just cracks me up always has. Thanks for blessing my day.

Just getting into solar and I built a small 400Watt system with a 2K inverter running power to a dedicated outlet in my living room. My charge controller is only rated toat 12v and 30Amps, and like you ive noticed that I never ever get close to 30amps. I think Ill be adding another pannel or two 🎉to get that little extra . Love watching your videos, amd getting great tips.

Build a solar rack in your yard and make it afjustbay. It's easier to maintain and clean the panels and trust me when you get older that roof climbing ain't going to look so appealing. Greetings from Australia 🦘🦘

Now you need some foam tape for those clamps, electrical tape, plastic bushings for those knockouts. Doing good.

stanchions in the yard.. a project for you and the daughters, a hand crank that can change the pitch of the pv panels

I have been doing the same thing lately because I have had more panels than controller. It sure helps on cloudy days 🎉. What my worry is chasing it all day to make sure it doesn’t over charge the charger. If the clouds were to open up off and on during the day 🥴. A voltage alarm may be good. And if you were away have wi-fi set up, to alert you. And someway to disconnect the extra panels 🤔.

The effect you are explaining is called Charge controller Power Clipping and is totally fine.

Love it

Ambition strikes the youtube channel they have a good solution for solar pane

It sounds like you guys need more batteries. You're losing all those electrons, even on cloudy days. I really enjoy your videos, you'd make a great Kiwi!

I'm not sure I'll ever understand Solar but,I'm glad you do and your getting more juice😂. You 2 did very well without the Girls 👍. JO JO IN VT 🇺🇲💞

Power tools suck bigly of the watt. That's inevitable. Things to check: 1) Make sure all your appliances are newest, because they drop in power use every single year. A 20 year old freezer can outsuck a dozen larger new freezers. The optimized-for-PV stuff uses 12/24/120v compressors. 2) Use only LED lighting. I finally stopped using my last fluor light about 6 years ago and incandescent about 20 years ago. Every single watt you use counts when you're on limited batteries. 3) Optimize your solar panel placement, angle, and configuration. With the nice open fields around you, I'm surprised your panels aren't ground mounted. And using more of the capacity of the controller (60x150=9kw, not 3kw. Is it sold as a 3kw controller? If not, add more in series to get closer to the 150v max for the array) is simply making more efficient use of it. Good! I took down my 1kWh solar and installed a new roof, then ordered a 5.4kWh offgrid setup (with 20kWh of backup battery) which will provide everything I need, including central air conditioning. My grid electric use is $35/month (annually averaged) without the solar, with nat gas heat.

legally speaking... comfort is a luxury. no whining.

If you have anymore “heavy lifting”, we’ll be able to help in a little over a week!

Have you considered a rotatable PV panel mount (or separate ones) that allows you to max out some or all of your panels depending on the season (or angle of the sun)?

Seems I remember a video on your hydro system. Is it charging a different set of batteries ? I over paneled my system years ago, been off grid since 2013 in the desert Southwest . Best Wishes Always!

Move the panels to the ground and add a tracking system. Your power production will change from a parabolic curve to almost a square.

Bapak jeff.ibuk russ. Mana ziah tanpa ziah kurang lengkap.hhhhh,aku suka skali kluaraga pak jeff.moga sakses

I’m dealing with refrigeration as a vehicle dweller. And I just transitioned from being in a big city & mostly on a university campus where I could charge in the library (though even that was a chore) to staying on BLM land & trying to make things work using solar only. First I had to upgrade from a single 100w panel that was never going to do more than barely keep things running to adding a 200w panel. Now I have to figure out how I’m going to be prepared for overcast days 😳

One thing you have to be careful of is on really cold clear days your pannel output can spike voltage because pannels put out more when its cold.

Makes sense that you wouldn’t receive 100% of panel volume. As panels on average only produce 15-20% efficiency. I sure love your content. Like a refreshing glass of water on a hot day

😂😂 another great video guys!

👍👍 i been looking at the new midnite 600 volt pv in put

Nice work Jeff and Rose. P.S. if you want I can send you the maths for taking into account temperature on the panels to show the girls. Also, if you use a voltage sensing relay (or maybe your charge controller or inverter have an output relay that can be programmed to turn on/off based on state of charge) it would be quite possible to "dump" excess power in much of the year into a normal electric hot water cylinder - luxury, showers without the woodstove 🙂

I truly enjoy you guys, I haven’t seen too much of a smoking hot Dave lately. How’s he doing? T is thinking about the fire place videos you did last year do you remember smokin hot Dave lol.