How Many Solar Panels to Run a House Off Grid?

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3 ай бұрын

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In this video, I'm taking you through understanding how many solar panels to run a house off grid.
We start by simplifying into three manageable steps: calculating your load, determining battery capacity, and sizing your solar panel array based on your location. Whether you're pressed for time or here for the long haul, this video is packed with insights tailored for everyone.
Ever wondered about the specifics, like the type of battery to use or how to calculate your actual sun hours? I dive deep into these questions, offering clear, actionable advice every step of the way. From determining the power usage of your appliances to understanding the nuances of battery efficiency, I've got you covered.
I'll walk you through how to calculate your daily energy needs, choose between lead-acid and lithium batteries, and determine the number of solar panels required to keep your lights on year-round. Understanding the impact of sun-hours on your solar setup is crucial.
By the end of this video, the concept of: 'how many solar panels do i need?' will no longer be a mystery. Instead, you'll be equipped with the knowledge to confidently plan and execute your solar project, no matter the size.

Пікірлер: 67

@cleversolarpower 2 ай бұрын

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@CH-pt8fz 3 ай бұрын

Outstanding to the point information. Thank you for sharing.

@Thunderst0rn 3 ай бұрын

Really interesting rules of thumb, thanks for sharing 👍

@CindyBell-mc4xs 20 күн бұрын

Best video i ever saw😅

@stevemack7270 Ай бұрын

Really appreciate the way you explained and reasoned in presenting this info. Thank you

@barrycorney3665 3 ай бұрын

I love watching these videos, and want to build a system but here in Scotland at 57N we probably need to change days of autonomy to weeks or even months.... blue sky days are so rare, seriously, depressing AF!!! Trapped on this prison island since Brexit too...😒🌧🌨❄

@cleversolarpower 3 ай бұрын

Thanks for your comment Barry! You have to make it cost-effective. So, more than 3 days of autonomy might be more expensive than getting electricity from the grid. If you are not grid-tied, then a generator is more cost-effective.

@ElderSwamp 3 ай бұрын

You should come in Italy, buy a cheap contry home and enjoy life and weather

@cajetanfernandes87 3 ай бұрын

Subject to your age and other pertinent factors, try to migrate/resettle to a sub tropical/tropical country, sunshine, blue skies and also rains 😊

@cajetanfernandes87 3 ай бұрын

@@ElderSwampare you an Italian ?

@Ekanselter 3 ай бұрын

Perfect, thanks.

@stanleylelei6807 3 ай бұрын

I appreciate such straight forward approach...how about a little more on selection of inverters? Sizing inverter for the panels i may need to run whatever i am running.

@cleversolarpower 3 ай бұрын

Thanks! Check my video: 'how many batteries for a 3000W inverter'

@Electronzap 3 ай бұрын

Good info.

@linossinkala7840 2 ай бұрын

Thankyou sir

@uwadiegwuemmanuel8809 3 ай бұрын

Thanks

@michaeldedan6567 3 ай бұрын

Hello please can you do for africa. I am along the equator receiving 12hours of pureshine all year through and sometimes longer. can i remove days of aunotomy for this area?

@cleversolarpower 3 ай бұрын

Let's assume you are in Nairobi, Kenya. The lowest sun hours are in November, at 4.1. As I said in the video, sun hours are not the same as the hours the sun shines. You still need to add days of autonomy, but you can reduce it depending on your risk tolerance.

@michaeldedan6567 3 ай бұрын

Thankyou

@timkruse4548 3 ай бұрын

I'm gonna have to watch this a few more times. I have a friend that just had 10,000 watts worth of PV panels installed on his barn roof. But it feeds straight into the grid, NO BATTERIES! He's nuts, or somebody sold him a big fat lie. Anyway, I have to figure out how many batteries (LiFePo) He's gonna need to run his house for 24 hrs so HE gets maximum benefit of the cost of those panels as opposed to being the utility's b.i.t.c.h.

@cleversolarpower 3 ай бұрын

It depends. If the price from the grid is cheaper per kWh than it would be from the grid, then feeding energy back into the grid is a good solution. It also depends on the feed-in tariff. If your buddy doesn't receive money from putting it back into the grid, then it's wasted energy, which could better be stored in batteries. It would be best to have an AC-coupled system because he already has a string inverter. Check out my video about load shedding in South Africa. I also have that kind of system.

@CindyBell-mc4xs 20 күн бұрын

Fantastic info,,,,mind blowing info😮

@ahamatibrahimhassan3265 3 ай бұрын

Hello Sir, thank you for sharing your knowledge over here, I love it. Would you recommend some of the top websites and books for solar panels Techinicien to increase his or her knowledge ? Thank you

@cleversolarpower 3 ай бұрын

Check the second link in the description for my book. Thanks for your comment.

@bisasodaniel8557 2 ай бұрын

Hello sir, I have 8 gel 100ah batteries, 3 gel 200 ah batteries and 32 solar panels of 12volts 150watts, pliz help with the configuration, the controller I need plus the inverter I need, I'm in uganda 🇺🇬 we receive 9 to 11hrs of sunshine daily, and thank u sir for the teaching I appreciate

@cleversolarpower Ай бұрын

Checkout my new video about designing an off grid system.

@Linho-AntoinePaty Ай бұрын

Hi, thank you for sharing and making clear some points. I could be wrong on the battery capacity sizing your formula would not be: 6500 wh+(6500 wh*0.8* 1.25), 80%?

@cleversolarpower Ай бұрын

Why multiply by 1.25?

@rememberarowolo8127 2 ай бұрын

How do you integrate generator to charge your batteries?

@cleversolarpower 2 ай бұрын

I made a video about it. Check it out on my channel page and search for generator 👍

@mohamed3664 2 ай бұрын

Can you explain how 14,625wh came?

@troydenzel9352 Ай бұрын

I have the same question too, Hope that I'm getting it wrong.

@bisasodaniel8557 2 ай бұрын

Where can I get the book in uganda

@cleversolarpower Ай бұрын

Try amazon South-Africa or on my website for the PDF version.

@clemarkstheone. 3 ай бұрын

Hello. Can you do a video of a load analysis table which is already calculated in terms of watts and hours and all calculation done and gotten is 2,542 watt hrs. So i want you to show us if this 2,542 watt hrs if used in seven days on autonomous, on how to calculate the size of batteries in terms of volts and amperes, amount of solar watts and how many of them, charging controller to be used, fuses and dc mcbs and sizes of wires to be used?

@cleversolarpower 3 ай бұрын

Check my video about sizing an off grid solar system.

@clemarkstheone. 3 ай бұрын

@cleversolarpower ok i have watcht it. If possible can you do the exact of what i have send to you because it will help many people.

@youtubeman5033 3 ай бұрын

I’d like to have a solar system to just run my lights all leds so I think 20 lights shouldn’t use to much power and wouldn’t have to be that big,

@wenzydemar4406 3 ай бұрын

Let me rephrase my question from the comments of another video. let's say we are in an area where we have sunshine almost every single day ,unless we have bad weather. would we still size our pv system based on three days of autonomy?....sizing it based on our daily consumption would be better to me.. wouldn't it make sense if we included system loss from the pv as well?

@cleversolarpower 3 ай бұрын

Days of autonomy is completely up to you. I don't think you understand it well enough. Days of autonomy is when the weather is bad, as you say. You are not supposed to drain the battery to 0%, this is just in case of emergency in bad weather. We do not add a correction factor for the solar panels, check the last part of the video where i talk about the difference between sunhours and hours of sunshine per day.

@alihms 3 ай бұрын

If you are near the equator, there is pretty good chance there will be lots of days with dense cloud cover. This is typical for equatorial weather. I am from Malaysia, right smack in the equator. Even though we receive 12 hours of sunshine 365 day every year, the effective sunshine (usable for solar panel generation) is around 4 hours only. Search the Internet for solar irradiance map for your area for more details. I installed a 5kW solar panel system. On average, my system generates around 20kWh daily (ie, 5kW x 4 hrs ). With regards to autonomy, your local weather patterns plays a greater role. During our monsoon season, there are many days I am only able to generate around 5kWh per day. During this season, there many 3-4 days (continous) of little useable sunshine. Fyi, my system is grid-tied. I do not have a backup battery. I sell excess generation (if any) to the grid. Will I switch to battery storage? Yes, but I plan to do that only after my agreement with the electricity provider expires.

@sureshvellinezhi5962 Ай бұрын

6500 wh, 97% efficiency calculation is wrong. 6500X.97=6305Wh. Am I correct Pls clear my doubt sir

@cleversolarpower Ай бұрын

If i give you 6500 apples, and say that's whats left of my harvest after some are rotten. Then the initial harvest wouldn't be less than 6500 apples. It would be more. So 6500/0.97=6700 apples.

@sureshvellinezhi5962 Ай бұрын

@@cleversolarpower okay. Now it's clear 😁 Thank you 🙏

@OrganicPower-Australia 3 ай бұрын

Check out my 20kW system and find out exactly what it takes. 4 bedroom house, with 4 occupants. NO bill happy days!

@Defender_928 3 ай бұрын

Is 4kw system enough for small house?

@OrganicPower-Australia 3 ай бұрын

@@Defender_928 Hi, probably not quite enough. Double what you think you need for repeated cloudy days. If you have AC and electric hot water, 10kW would be more suitable. 400ah 48v battery bare minimum. It will payback very quickly. Use quality inverters etc.

@MrFerrill 2 ай бұрын

So how many batteries and panels?

@cleversolarpower 2 ай бұрын

Did you watch the video? 😀

@shaibuvictor2984 2 ай бұрын

I think there's a huge mistake in your calculations, you assume that the solar panel has efficiency of 100%. Should be around 15%

@cleversolarpower 2 ай бұрын

Go check out my video: 'how much power does a 100W panel produce' for in depth explanation.

@shaibuvictor2984 2 ай бұрын

Ok. Thanks

@MonicaHolly143 Ай бұрын

Average american home uses 30kWh per day not 10

@cleversolarpower Ай бұрын

eia.gov tells me otherwise

@MonicaHolly143 Ай бұрын

@@cleversolarpower eia.gov tells you 10,500kwh is the average consumption in a year divide that to 365 and u will get 30kwh per day Again you are wrong and still dont know it

@MonicaHolly143 Ай бұрын

@@cleversolarpower even by using your common sense you will know 10kwh is not enough to power a 3 bedroom house, the ac and heat alone will use 15kwh the lights tv refrigerator computer fans will still need to consume

@MonicaHolly143 Ай бұрын

@@cleversolarpower "The average U.S. household consumes about 10,500 kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity per year.1 However, electricity use in homes varies widely across regions of the United States and among housing types. " This is what eia gov says, it says 10k kwh PER YEAR which means 30kwh PER DAY U assume 10k kwh annually is 10kwh per day hahhaahhahah

@nathanielwilson1899 2 ай бұрын

Why is everything taking the US by storm

@cleversolarpower 2 ай бұрын

What is taking the US by storm?

@reset-xs9ql 2 ай бұрын

demonic led leadership; turning from Judeo/Christian guidance will pretty much do it to any body, company, country, nation, people, government. not real complicated stuff.

@AskRemy 3 ай бұрын

you failed to tell us how many batteries - disappointed

@cleversolarpower 3 ай бұрын

I'm not sure if you watched all the way to 4:35 ?

@AskRemy 3 ай бұрын

@@cleversolarpower yes I did - does not say how many batteries so you should say 100Ah battery you need 6 or 3 or whatever if you gonna take the time to make such a video why not make it easy for us to the end I don't understand 48v @ 130Ah - I have never seen a 48 volt battery - so what are you saying? why stop at 48? why not go to 60? bit confused on this

@HenryOlson-nx3sb 3 ай бұрын

@@AskRemy It shows in the video the kwh of the battery. Batteries comes in different sizes so he's saying the size is a 6000kwh battery. Those figures are given so you can calculate the size of the battery

@AskRemy 3 ай бұрын

@@HenryOlson-nx3sb show me a 48v battery

@user-rf6jp7wx2b 2 ай бұрын

4 x 12