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How to add a OffGrid Solar-System to a house that already has grid-power

How to add a OffGrid Solar-System to a house that already has grid-power ?

Situation

The following situation is a very common occurrence. It’s one we’ve had come up in the community a lot, and for most people in a semi urban environment this is the most likely scenario: The House already has a grid connection. However you want solar to have the option to be self sufficient if need be, as well as saving considerably on electricity costs.

Solution

The most easy solution for this is a OffGrid Island setup with a grid input connection. Basically it means to build a self-sufficient solar system with a battery, using a OffGrid-AllinOne-Units to then connect the existing grid power to the system. This also allows for an easy connection of a gasoline generator.

Types of OffGrid-AllinOne-Units

Там есть 2 main types of OffGrid-AllinOne-Units.
OffGrid Island Inverters with grid input option and Hybrid Inverters.

” While both systems aim to maximize the use of solar energy, their main difference lies in the way they handle storage of energy. In an Off-Grid Solar System, the inverter will attempt to use solar energy for “self-consumption” by sending it directly to load or use it to charge battery. If there’s any excess solar power, nothing will be done as there’s simply no more room for energy storage.
On the other hand, a Hybrid Solar System will still attempt to maximize the use of energy through load or charging battery, and any excess power will simply be “fed” to the grid, which act as a nearly limitless power storage. “(1)

Installation – Legal

In many countries the injection of solar power into the grid using a hybrid inverter will require some sort of paperworks and legal permits. Make sure to double check your legal situation before installing a hybrid inverter.

Going with a OffGrid Island setup with a grid input connection is more often the easiest solution, as one does not need to touch the existing house electric to install and operate it. The grid input can be done with a normal plug. One simply plugs the OffGrid Island setup into the existing electric system of the house like any other household device.

Using one of these devices also makes it easy to have a seamless fallback to grid power in case of no solar power present and the battery being empty. Most OffGrid Island Inverters will have detailed configuration options on primary power source, fallback source and such.

Configuration

This Video details configuration options for a Mpp-Solar OffGrid Island Inverter. Most other solid brands like Victron will have similar options but possibly different apps for the interaction.

Сообщество

If you have any questions, ideas or input dont be shy…. join our community discord server.

(1) Source: https://www.mppsolar.com/v3/product-overview/

Earthship – Sunray Circle

Earthship – Sunray Circle

A magical circular earthship build deep in the wilderness of Northern ontario. Built from more than 80% reused or natural materials We cut the trees and milled the wood to build our home, and used 80,000lbs of earth rammed into tube netting for our primary walls.

Размер земли : 50acres
Размер структуры:1000 ft² home with 400 ft² greenhouse
Жилое пространство: 1000 ft²
Расположение: Ontario, Zone 3a

Powersystem

1600 Watt солнечная Panels
540ah 24v deep cycle marine Batteryblock
1400w pure sine инвертор
3000w modified sine Inverter
A gas/propane generator soon to be using methane digested from our animals (биогаз).

Обогрев

Natural passive heat from earthship design.
6-8kW Wood stove and in floor radiant heat

вода

вода sourced from a sandpoint well that was driven inside the greenhouse.
Pump it to cisterns both in the house for the home water and up into a water tower where it auto irrigates all the gardens.
The home is 50ft from a large rivers edge, between two waterfalls, one 30ft and one 17ft. The plan is to to generate power from the river eventually.

питание / Garden

Size : 12,000 ft²
13 separate gardens, mostly keyhole style.
The garden is using hugelkulture mounds and permaculture companion planting, utilizing the local established ecosystem to create an abundance of wild forage including hazelnuts, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, mushrooms and plenty of vegetables.
Plenty of livestock: chicken, sheep, horses and such .)

Special thanks to OffGridEnclave сообщество member Xivanari for providing Pics and Infos to present this as Project.
If you would like to see more pictures or read up on details of the build go visit https://www.facebook.com/SunrayCircle/ .

Cabine – Camp Decadence

Camp Decadence

Расположение: North-Central United States – Climate Zone 7

All framing is 16 inch on center. Main floor joists are 2×10 inches, walls and 2nd floor joists are 2×6, and roof rafters are 2×8. Roof pitch is 12/12 (45º). Everything is insulated with R-19 fiberglass.

Construction began in 2012. Total cost so far is around 13,000 USD and completion should top out around 15k. This includes a small amount for labor, specifically installing most windows, the roof, and the house wrap in 2013. It also includes some second-hand материалы that reduced costs.

Cabine:

Total Size : 400 ft² usable space
12×16 main room
12×6 covered porch
12×8 loft bedrooms (2) upstairs with…
12×5 landing/hall between

Система питания
400 Watt солнечная Panels
2x AGM Lead Acid батареи at 24 вольт : 35 Ah
60A MPPT charge controller
1,6 kW Inverter

Обогрев
14 kW Stove for wood logs or coalbrickets. (can be leveld down to 3kW )

вода
Wash water is sourced from snow in winter, rain gutters/barrels in summer, and an on-property creek when those fail.
Drinking/cooking water is sourced in town and brought in jugs.

Special thanks to OffGridEnclave community member nirreskeya for providing Pics and Infos to present this as Project.
If you would like to see more pictures or read up on details of the build go visit https://old.reddit.com/user/bergamotandvetiver76/submitted/ .

Техническое обслуживание и мелкий ремонт свинцово-кислотного аккумулятора глубокого разряда

Техническое обслуживание и мелкий ремонт свинцово-кислотного аккумулятора глубокого разряда

We will be looking at maintenance and small repairs on a deep cycle lead acid battery. Commonly these are used for forklifts or OffGrid power systems. We are talking about big battery blocks, not the ones used for common cars.
To ensure optimal lifetime of your deep cycle lead-acid batteries you should do maintenance at least once every half year to a year.

On the image you can see here there is quite a bunch of sulfation that formed. Initially sulfation will be green but, over time it can take all sorts of colours. While it is still green it usually is rather easy to remove, once it turned brown’ish to black its becomes very solid. As an idea of size, this battery here is my main block, it has 1250 Ah at 24 volts.

For safety, before we start doing anything on the battery we will be disconnecting all the connections. First by turning the fuses from the inverter and all the solar charge controllers off. Next we physically disconnect the battery from the system by separating the connection plugs. For this system each inverter and charge controller has its own connection plug.

If you are interested in how this complete OffGrid power system works check out the Project Link.

After removing the connections to the battery, unscrew each of the batteries cell connections, and remove any sulfation you encounter around the pole.

This can require quite some force. It is recommended to wear safety googles and a dust mask for this.

After cleaning all the connections of sulfation, make sure to apply batteryfat to all the connections before screwing them back on.
This helps to protect against moisture and future sulfation or oxidisation.

Some 2-3 hours of work later, your battery should look something like this. No visible dirt, dust or particles of sulfation leftover. No sulfation on the connections and a fresh layer of batteryfat.

Next we will be checking the waterlevel of the battery.
Each battery cell has the connection for the distilled water in the middle.
when you look closely you can see there is a small window build in. Under that is a swimmer that shows the water level of the cell. This will indicate a need for refill.
Use only distilled water for this, do not use normal tab water as it will damage the battery!
After refilling the battery reconnect the system plugs and we are done.

Solar Suitcase

Solar Suitcase – A portable Generator

Here we will be looking at small and portable yet powerfull mini solar system. This system was done as tutorial and training to get some basic experience. The design was choosen to have a electricity supply for power needs during camping and other outdoor activities. Charging the phone, run some small stereo, illuminate a construction site using led’s, и т.п.. nothing like powertools or such.
This little system is running since 2014 and is always usefull to have around. I can not count how many times it was great to have a small mobile electricity source that recharges itsself.

Technical Stats

10 Watt Solar Module
5 Ampere 12 Volt Solar PWM Chargecontroller
20 Ah 12 Volt Lead-Acid Gel аккумулятор
Voltmeter
300 Watt Modified Sinus инвертор
5 вольт / 12 вольт / 220Volt Output

Materials used

As housing i choose a aluminium suitcase. They are reasonable cheap, very lightweight and easy modifiable. For DIY проекты any casing that can house the components should do.

The size of the solar module was picked so it would fit inside the suitcase for transport. The solar chargecontroller supports a lot more power-input so it is possible to have a larger “home station module” to connect the suitcase to. This is highly recommended to have if you DIY this project, as the 10W solar module will take quite a while to charge this battery size.

As mounting for the chargecontroller and the switches i choose a sheet metal plate and cut it with an anglegrinder to fit the suitcase middle bar.

For connections i used the power plugs and cables from computers.
The Plug in the solar suitcase was recycled from a broken pc power supply. These make for smooth connections. As this system will not be getting to much power from the solar panel the cable diameters is not a problem.

Inside the suitcase

To stabilize the components i used a few wooden blocks that got fixed by screwing them into the suitcase. I made some distance pieces and used ductape to make shure the metal cover and inverter or cables dont touch.
The inverter was fixed to the suitcase using additional screws.

Output

220V and 5V output of the inverter and the 12V output of the chargecontroller are placed to the right side of the suitcase.

Questions, ideas or input on this or many other projects ?!?
Join our community discord server.
Enjoy our You-Tube channel.

Advanced OffGrid PowerSystems

Advanced OffGrid Power-systems

The Information here are more advanced setups. It is assumend that the reader has the basic knowledge of solar, inverters, charge-controllers, batteries, generators а также basic solar-system types. For questions or input join our community discord server.

Redundancy

If a vital system breaks and you do not have a local backup installed or a workaround is deemed impossible you might be in a position of having to source things quickly. Having systems setup from the start that take that into account can ease a lot of stress and basically removes the need for spending “emergency $/€” to workaround something until it gets properly replaced. This should also be taken into consideration for the budget.

Example: having a generator is a legit “workaround” for your electric system, good to use when maintaining batteries, changing cables, installing new solar panels etc, but it is not a “backup” for when your main inverter dies. It is exponentially more expensive to run a full household 24/7 on a generator, to maintain everything while you need to wait for your new inverter to arrive. The proper backup would be to have a 2 inverters setup, use one as default and resort to using the 2nd if the default one fails. If it does, casually order a new inverter; and when it arrives run your generator for 20 minutes whilst replacing the broken one.

Redundant Off-Grid Power-system

For our redundant OffGrid power-system we will be using “OffGrid Inverters”. These house a inverter, solar-chargecontroller, generator/grid-chargecontroller and electronics in a single unit. You can connect to these units via USB and configure them according to your needs.

The idea behind this approach is a maximum of flexibility and redundancy. Having two inverters gives plenty of options for the household, and eases the load on each for bigger houses.
It is recommended to not “hardwire” the battery to utility connection but use plugs and flexible cables. (These plugs are usually used for electric forklifts). If need be you can then always connect any device to any battery. For bad weather conditions this can be great, you have the option to connect all your solar-lines to a single battery. No matter which part breaks or needs maintenance in the setup, your power is sustainable.

TheHappyBunker Power-system

A certified, tested and running system that is used in the HappyBunker project. The location is central Europa in the Czech mountains. This is built to sustain electricity during prolonged periods of fog, clouds, snow and general bad conditions.

For questions or input join our community discord server.

Microgreens ABC

What are microgreens?

Microgreens are vegetable greens usually grown only week or two, untill the stage of cotyledon leaves have developed or first set of true leaves. They are really easy to grow for even a beginner and require not much.

Basically you need some tray/dish with some kind of medium from soil to even just piece of paper and water. Also you need the seeds and light.

Growing radish microgreens in a week!

Here’s an example grow with the radish. I’m using double black tray with one on top with holes and bottum tray without holes, for watering purposes.

As of medium I use coco coir, which has very nice characteristic of water retention, so its actually very hard to dry them out and it has worked very well for me. You only need layer 2cm of coco coir. Make sure the coco coir is evenly spread and damp, there should be no pooling of water. Spread the seeds evenly as you can across the growing medium and give light spray of water.

Now I cover whole thing with another tray so the seeds are in dark and have light pressure on them. Helps with the speed of germination and the first radicals to figure out the orientation.

After a day first radicals are starting to poke out already! Just give them light mist from spray bottle to keep them moist. Some seeds like Cress or Chia are mucilaginous and develop slime kind of substance around them.

Another day, and more development! Small white hairs around seeds is not mold, but root hair with which the plant absorb water through osmosis.

Here we can see actual vertical growth. And these little things are strong! My sunflower seedlings have no problem lifting even 5kg. But this also means we can flip the top tray, so that they can more easily grow lenght. We want to keep them still in dark for the reason of that we actually want them to grow in lenght, which helps the harvest later on.

First roots are also poiking through, which means we can start watering the radish from the bottom and let the suirface part of the plants to get drier, which helps to keep them mold free. Additionally you can use nutrient solution (NPK) for watering and you can also use light hydrogen perocxide solution to further prevent mold. This more important for microgreens with longer germination times, quick one like radish is most likely fine even without.

Now it starts to look like correct height. Tomorrow we shall introduce it to the light and get the photosynthesis started. You can use either artificial light or daylight, or combination of both. However don’t expose them to the direct strong sunlight and short winter days are not really enough for the light by themselves. I used for them 150W worth of LED lights, which mostly are blue and red as plants don’t actually use all the wavelenghts of light.

Light means green colour, and it happens really quick. We’re actually getting close to harvest already. That was quick!

Almost there! All those lovely pink stems. Don’t give them more water for last 12h, this makes them less wet at harvest, which means drier product that lasts at least a week in a fridge.

Here we go, ready for harvest. Ones on the side are starting to already fall over, good sign to start the harvest.

All done! Nice bag of goodies to use in smoothies, garnishing or part of salad. Microgreens tend to have strong flavors, so use with caution.

Bon Appétit!

Forest Mobilheim

Mobilheim in Forest.

There is small garden around the mobile home bordered by a fence, as of now there’s only small growing patch for vegetables and few holunder trees, rest is covered by grass. There is also five big solar panels on their rack providing the mobile home the needed electricity. Outside the fence there is small forest on one side of the mobile home and grasslands on the other side.

Размер земли : ~ 1200 m².
Размер структуры: ~ 36m².
Жилое пространство: ~36m².
Расположение: Центральная Европа, Shumava CZ.

Система питания
1400 Ватт солнечные панели
Deep Cycle Gel аккумулятор at 24 вольт : 320 AH C5
High Frequency инвертор 2,4 Kw
3 Kw Gasoline Генератор Multiphase 220/400 вольт

вода
Rainwater harvesting into 120 l barrel.
Butangas Water Обогрев 4Kw.

Обогрев
6 Kw Печь для бревен или угольных брикетов.
8 Kw Butangas central heating.
4 x 50/150Watt Infrared electric heating panels.

связи
30/30 Mbit directional Wifi.
3G Mobile Connection.

питание
Vegetable garden, about 12m².
Местные фермерские рынки.
Местный супермаркет.

This is a mobile home with dimensions of 3,3 meters in width and 11 meters in length. Despite the name, it is not really mobile compared to its smaller brother the caravan. However it is possible to be moved by special transport, and due to this transportability it is long and not so wide habitation module. It consists of a living room, a bathroom, a service room, a storage room, a bedroom and a toilet.

As the structure will most likely be parked in one place for a while, it is important to have solid foundation underneath. The mobileheim has its tires and supports in each of the corners, we also used additional jacks to give mobilheim a few additional support points, and by use of concrete it was made sure the contact to the ground is a proper one. Then the sides were covered with metal plates in order to stop the air movement under the mobilheim to increase the insulation specially for the winter months. There are other improvements to the insulation inside the mobilheim, mostly in form of styrofoam. One should keep in mind that adding improvements to the mobilheim will add to the total weight, which might hinder future moving of the mobilheim to a new location in future

As mentioned electricity of the mobilheim comes from the sun and then is used or stored in the well sized battery on a reinforced floor within the mobilheim. There is also possibility to add powersource from outside in rare event of power running out. Gas is another major system within the mobilheim with its own piping network and is used for heating the mobilheim and water and also for the stove. Water is sourced from barrel within the mobilheim, so it will stay liquid also in the winter conditions, and is filled outside source, however water collecting system has been planned. As for outgoing water, it goes to underground barrel, which can be emptied from solid matter as needed. Mobilheim has self added fireplace with a proper chimney for additional heating at central placement. It is also possible to heat with electricity using small heating panels installed on the ceilings of most rooms, however this is tricky and situational at best as we’re after all living offgrid. Internet comes through directional wifi antenna installed on a pole on the other side of the forest, from which there is cable to the mobilheim.

For questions or input join our community discord server.

Live Support Module

Life Support Module

Small, efficiant, and lovely. This 2m x 4m container got modified into a fully OffGrid housing for two persons (and a dog).
Adapting a lot of idears and devices from the caravan world to save space. Technical devices are nicely arranged to enable a maximum of luxery on a minimum of space. The features include two beds, a shower, a small cooking corner with 2 plates, a fridge, a watertab + sink, outside and inside led lights, 120l watertank incl. pump, multible closets, wood-stove, a table and room to sit, 2 sealing lights and last but not least a fully functional solar system.

Размер земли : ~ 1.000m²
Размер структуры: ~ 8.5m²
Жилое пространство: ~8.5m²
Расположение: Центральная Европа
Building materials used : ~ Wood, sheet metal, styrofoam-plates isolation,

Система питания
320 Watt солнечная Panels
Chargecontrollers: 1 x 5A pmw, 1 x 20A mppt
1x AGM аккумулятор at 12V : 220 AH c100
1x High Frequency инвертор 1 Kw 220V
700 watt Gasoline Генератор Singlephase 220 вольт

вода
Rainwater harvesting into 120l inside tank.
25watt 12v pump

Обогрев
3 Kw Stove for logs or coalbrickets.
200 watt micro boiler 6l .

связи
10/10 Mbit directional Wifi.

питание
Vegetable garden 30m²
Местные фермерские рынки
Местный супермаркет

Toilet
Portable Festival Toilet

Overview of the inside structure

For questions or input join our community discord server.

A Special Wooden Garage

A special wooden “garage”

Core of this special construction is a Caravan. The structure legally counts as garage. For these legal terms to apply there was no solid foundation used but compressed gravel and the toilet needed to be seperated from the structure. Build onto a beautifull hillside this structure is surrounded by grassland and light forest. With a double layer of wood and styrofoam as isolation this structure is suitable for winter as well as hot summers.

Размер земли : ~ 3.500m²
Размер структуры: ~ 60m²
Жилое пространство: ~45m²
Расположение: Центральная Европа
Building materials used : 80% Дерево, 10% Styrofoam Isolation, 10% Misc.

Система питания
16Amp – Grid Connection

вода
Главный water sourced thru well, 48m deep drilled hole

Обогрев
6 Kw Печь для бревен или угольных брикетов – Exhaust Pipes run thru inside for 3m.
5 kw Stove for logs or coalbrickets
11Kw Electric water heating

связи
10/10 Mbit directional Wifi.

питание
Vegetable garden, about 120m²
6-8 Куры
Местные фермерские рынки
Местный супермаркет