Stevehull
The aging process can be sometime a little rough. I too find a big push is necessary to get somethings accomplished. But keep up the good fight.
The system is performing very well. The inverter is really cranking out the Kws without breaking a sweat. The liquid cooled IGBTs is imperative.
Today I'm installing a little PWM circuit to moderate the coolant pumps speed to the heatsink temp. With the exception of a tiny whine of the pump the inverter is silent. The big finned heatsink with two squirrel cage fans was a definite no go.
The seemingly endless days with overcast conditions force us back to grid power. So this summer a couple additional items are planned.
I should add that we do spend many days now off grid and have saved from January till April over $500.00 in electrical costs.
More solar panels AND a wind turbine are planned.
On the roof there is enough room for another 3.5 Kws and the cabling is already there waiting.
Wind is going to be some work. And this will take some time as this is going to involve some structure and some buried cable.
We have received a small turbine for a proof of concept. As with most products today they are still designed around lead acid so 48 volts. We are looking to a circuit to boost it to our battery voltage of 390 VDC from there we will direct it to battery or dump load.
I will elaborate on these plans as they are in process.
For now I'm quite pleased with the system. With the extended daylight hours and improving weather weeks off grid is the norm until we encounter thick overcast conditions for the excess of a day. A thin overcast will still provide us with enough energy to remain off grid.
We have enough to operate the house with normalcy. My wife cooks over an electric cook top and sometimes an electric oven is used. A dishwasher and washing machine are also in the mix and this happens while the sun has already set.
Now we can't get too crazy like expecting to charge the car and run the clothes dryer or having the heat pump running through the night. These high draw devices have to be started during daylight hours.
The Tesla battery pack is sill in the sights but we are waiting for the better prices.
Randen
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