Off grid power

[Squirrelcatcher]

Just started a small scale electrical back-up project. I live in a village which has suffered a few outages in the past.
It's knowing where to put your money which flummoxes me. Solar is supposed to be the answer, but I live with a 21C family including three teenagers. A bit of a challenge. We have a woodburner (a saviour when the boiler breaks down). I have just purchased a 105Ah battery, with the intention of buying another to provide resilience. I also have a small solar briefcase (the type recommended for boats/RV and two 12v LED lights.
If anyone has any advice/recommendations, then I am all ears.
Thank-you.

[jennyjj01]

Just started a small scale electrical back-up project. I live in a village which has suffered a few outages in the past.
It's knowing where to put your money which flummoxes me. Solar is supposed to be the answer, but I live with a 21C family including three teenagers. A bit of a challenge. We have a woodburner (a saviour when the boiler breaks down). I have just purchased a 105Ah battery, with the intention of buying another to provide resilience. I also have a small solar briefcase (the type recommended for boats/RV and two 12v LED lights.
If anyone has any advice/recommendations, then I am all ears.
Thank-you.

Hi,
Remember that at first principles, your battery is just the 'reservoir'.
Your solar panel or generator of whatever sort is your 'source' and all the devices you need to power are your 'drain'
You need, on average, for your source to supply at least as much energy as your drain will use if you want to power your devices continuously... Plus allow for 'shrinkage' throughout the whole generation/storage/usage cycle.
I suspect your solar panels are massively inadequate.

[Yorkshire Andy]

Never discharge your battery by more than 50% depth of discharge

So for arguments sake and easy maths assume it's 100ah

Now low rate discharge say a 1a led lamp can be run for 50 hours 2x for 25hours.....


https://www.lifesure.co.uk/blog/2015/06 ... batteries/




https://batteryuniversity.com/


What's the output of your solar panel?

[Squirrelcatcher]

Are you calling my panels "inadequate"?! Yes, you are probably right.
This is only a play around with project at present, which I'm planning to build upon. The panels are just those fold-up RV/boat ones which will trickle (on the sunniest day of the year?).
I currently have a 105ah battery, but was planning to buy more and run them together.
All early days, but thanks to those who have provided advice.

[patjunfa]

Could either of you point me to simple sources to learn more about what solar/wind hybrid generators and battery systems I should consider? I am only beginning to look at this now and seeing what are the factors I need to be considering. A friend was intending getting one of these
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/EU-Stoc ... 0.0.pVsZeb

Thanks

[Yorkshire Andy]

Could either of you point me to simple sources to learn more about what solar/wind hybrid generators and battery systems I should consider? I am only beginning to look at this now and seeing what are the factors I need to be considering. A friend was intending getting one of these
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/EU-Stoc ... 0.0.pVsZeb

Thanks

Start looking at the motorhome / caravans sites


Before spending any money you need to know how much power you want from what you want to run....

You can go small .. or BIG!