Off Subject. Solar for my house.

[Jack66]

Two other things to consider: an energy audit of your home and a quick check of your homeowner covenants (if you are in a HOA).

An energy audit is probably available from your power company and will identify lots of areas where you can lower your energy consumption. You might have poor insulation, energy-hungry appliances, etc.

[V8Cobrakid]

Keep in mind. all of this will be for our new house in boulder creek. It's much smaller. We wanted to break ground on a second house within two years. If all of these panels are not used on 1 home, we could use them on a second. I still like the idea of having a central powerhouse.

[RobH]

Ok, the mounting system looks good.

The central powerhouse is a good idea. Batteries are nasty objects, and keeping them in their dedicated facility is safer. The standard offgrid batteries are deep discharge lead acid units that require regular addition of water to the sulfuric acid. This is a rubber gloves operation, if not at first, then after you learn better. For double the price and half the lifetime, you can use sealed AGM batteries that can be pretty much ignored. If you want to use something like a bank of Prius batteries, then you'll have to find some way to convert the voltage to 48 volts in order to interface with standard solar components.

You haven't mentioned which inverter you're going to use yet. Those panels don't look like a good fit for a 48 volt battery system. You could use them with a Sunnyboy inverter, and connect the Sunnyboy to a Sunny Island inverter. The Sunny Island can cope with the 48 volt batteries, and connect to the Sunnyboy which use high voltage strings of panels like the ones you are looking at. But it's an extra inverter that you wouldn't need with a pure 48 volt system. The Outback is pure 48 volt, and probably shouldn't be used with these panels.

I'd recommend getting the manuals for both Outback and Sunnyboy/Sunny Island inverters. Choose wrong and you could end up paying several thousand extra for inverters that you wouldn't need in a properly designed system.

It's too early to choose any panels. The inverter choice is a critical part of the system design.

[V8Cobrakid]

I agree the inverter should be purchased first. I've read up on the Sunny Island and i'm impressed. Too bad i can't purchase a pallet of panels that would work with the Sunny Island. we... i can.. but not for the same price.

back to researching.

[Godiva]

I've got a Sunnyboy, but I'm tied to the grid and net metered.

[V8Cobrakid]

I've heard great things about sunnyboy products... probably because they are flooding the market right now.

From what i've read.. it seems two things are possible.. a sunnyboy hooked in through a sunny island... or a sunny island along with new panels. I'll keep a search out for new panels. If possible, i would love to get a proper system installed.

Sunny seems to make references to the point that the sunny island can be ran in parallel with just about any othe product.

If i had the sunny island at the center of my "grid".. then i could run these panels off of a sunnyboy and tie in a windboy for a windmill... which brings up question... the windboy has a veriable DC input ranging from 200v up to 250v.. well.. that's the same power the prius puts out... so i'm going to study that documentation a little more.. the only problem i found is that it seems to be a 3 phase product.... the prius isn't running in 3 phrase.. it's only a 2 phase.

more reading...

[Godiva]

Why do you want to run off your Prius? It uses gas. Why not just get a regular generator for the times you need it?

[V8Cobrakid]

We have a normal generator.. it's loud.. very annoying. we figured the prius or my parents lexus would make a great candidate since it's cleaner and much quieter.

[V8Cobrakid]

alright.. i'm too confused for a sunday... i'll continue research once people are back at work so i can ask questions.

I need to contact SMA still to see what my options are for the sunny products.

[V8Cobrakid]

alright.. i'm starting over...

step 1... sunny island inverter.. step two... proper panels.


these outdated panels were frustrating me a bit. I asked for some help from a local designer. he couldn't find any info on these panels.. confused him a bit.