Nearly Off Grid
Fellow Eco-renovators
It is November and cold wind, overcast with much rain is the environment we find ourselves. Well OK as I peer outside snow blowing around in the wind.
The DIY inverter with liquid cooled heatsink is performing extremely well. Its handling all the load I can apply at this time (15 Kws) Although not demonstrated (yet) I'm confident the full load of 20 kws will be no problem.
Trouble now is the Chevy Volt battery (17 Kwhs) depletes real quick with this load (Testing to 15 kw) and the only way I can charge it is with the solar. The amount of power I have from the solar PV is only 800 watts with all the overcast.
The good news is base load for the house is approx. 2 kW as refrigerator and freezers cycle and this pops up to 3.8 kw as the heat-pumps start. Now this may make most people very sad BUT this is HEATING a 3600 sq.ft. home!!! Who knew you can heat a house with a battery in the garage!!??
OK so I can operate off grid with no compromise for about 4 hrs. (17 Kwh / 4 kw = 4Hrs) and increasingly longer as clouds thin or a little sun makes it through.
The math works as it always does. But to be truly accurate before someone points this out is the loads are up and down with the cycling appliances and one would need a data logger.
The take away from this is I require a larger battery like a nice 85-100 KwH Tesla battery. Whew thats going to take a few $$$. and the teaser if one scrolls back and looks , there is room for 2 complete complements of Tesla pack moduals in the floor battery vault.
Anyone hear of a complete pack available drop me a note
Randen
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