Off Grid. What is it ?

At Discovery channel we see a lot of documentaries about people who are living off grip. No power from any company. Harvest their own food. Who doesn’t want that ? No more electric bills. But is it too good to be true. There are people who try to use a minimum of electricity, but they stay on grid.

Several years ago I started with some used solar panels. The panels were cheap and the return on investment was about 4 years for the whole system. I got 3500 watt panels and 2 solar inverters. It looks like its a good start and with 2 teenagers with tons of electronic devices I consume about 4500 Kwh each year. I live in the north of the Netherlands and we get about 1000 hours of sunlight each year, so my total solar power is about 3500 Kwh each year.

How to get there ?

Although I got a lot of automation in my house, led lights everywhere, powering off devices that aren’t needed at that time, I am still consuming more than the sun provides me. Not I don’t have wifi and internet between 01:00 am and 05:30 am which saves me power. I can make a bigger window, but we still wants to have comfort.

It’s time to think about solar battery to store some electricity for dark evenings and days. I still don’t know what the capacity should be and I am still measuring outlets in my house.

If I am going totally off grid, I don’t know. But it’s something nice to do and invest in !

I got the solar panels, converters, cables. only need the battery’s and chargers. How many battery’s is the question right now ! Is 2 x 130A sufficient or not ?

Tesla is coming with their Powerwall. It’s nothing new and maybe I stick with the normal battery’s because of the costs right now. 😉