I've seen the ads for grants to go solar, the "tax rebates", etcetera etc... Even the companies that pay you to put THEIR system on your roof... At which time you pay THEM for the power that is being made on YOUR house.
Most of us just don't have any kind of cash flow to put out on a system that lets us go without tapping into the grid.
that's on my business brother.
it's a grid-tie system and could power 10-15 average sized american homes.
It makes about as much power in one hour as some off-grid cabin-sized system do in an entire month. It's not what we're talking about here, but i had to satisfy sean's curiosity before he started sending me weird e-mails and calling my house again. It took me a long time to put an end to that shit.
Check out wholesale solar and backwoods.
for an off-grid cabin, you could probably get away with a 1-2 KWh system.
you could do it for less than half the cost of a solar-sean-r system.
forget about "net-metering" (selling your excess power back) that's not where your payback is....unless you build a really big system that produces a bunch of power, and you are usually not there to consume it. even then its not a winner. at best it's some sprinkles on top.
for argument sake, say you purchase a unit of electricity for 14-16 cents per kwh, the actual portion you pay for the electricity itself is worth a couple pennies.
say you installed a 2.56kw system, if you are lucky you'll produce about 325kwh in that month, and that assumes ZERO consumption on your end.
your net metering agreement (where available and typically small systems don't qualify) will pay you back an insultingly small percentage, and that comes in the form of a "SREC" credit....not a check.
That's not the way you justify solar. You want to size a system so that you consume all of it. If it's too big, then you paid too much for a system that will not return the investment for you.
In other words, every kilowatt hour you use is worth whatever you'd pay for it from a utility if that is an option, and that is typically 13-16 cents or whatever.
every kwh you do not use is NOT worth 16 cents!
Here's how i am justifying my particular off-grid project.
I am at least 3 miles from a high voltage utility. I am 2 miles from a neighbors utility barn, and if i could talk him into squirreling off the primary line on his last pole and clear cut over to me (which he wouldn't do in a million years) a ballpark estimate i got for doing that was about 15,000 bucks, and that doesn't include excavating and clearing.
I will build a system that seems counter intuitive at first compared to how most grid tie systems are configured.
A smallish array and a bigger battery bank. Figure i can build something appropriate for my needs for 9000-12000. maybe even a lot less.
water i have covered.
and the grey/black water flows to a lagoon which is allowed in the county im in.
