All About Solar! How we live off grid on solar, what we power, and how much it cost us!

Welcome. Grab a coffee or tea and settle in. This is a longer read where we cover our solar power system, what it looks like and what we power, how many solar panels we have, how many batteries we have and what it all cost us! I've tried to label each section with headings to help you find the info you are specifically looking for but there is so much great info in here, its best to settle in and read through.

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Solar power is dirty!

My unpopular opinion, solar power isn't really a green energy. Panels are mass produced in large factories who no doubt create carbon, precious minerals and metals still need to be mined from this finite planet using carbon producing equipment to find them. But if you pair solar panels with lifestyle changes, this is where change and impact can be made. It's good but better. When you can reduce your power needs and consumption you require less and can utilize a smaller solar system.

Anyone can line their big roof in a sub-division with solar panels and create enough energy for themselves and even help support the grid. But this just means you have a lot of money to buy all the panels to support all the other houses who will continue leaving all the things plugged in and all the lights on. If you are moving off grid to support yourself and live more gently on the earth, you should reduce your needs.

This is my belief, anyway. We used to live in a three story townhouse, just in our kitchen we had the typical items: microwave, refrigerator, stove oven, coffee maker, kitchen aid stand mixer, toaster. The bedrooms had alarm clocks, bathroom had flat irons and blow dryers and the basement had a standard washer and dryer set. Lights were left on, dehumidifier and television, ran constantly and then there was the electric baseboard heaters heating three stories of a home we couldn't possibly use all at once.

How we reduced our power consumption

Once we dreamed up our little off grid farmhouse and permaculture homestead in 2013 we started making changes. First to go was the microwave and no one noticed for weeks because we cooked fresh home-cooked meals regularly, anyway. We got rid of the extra appliances and unplugged everything. We switched all the light bulbs for energy efficient LED light bulbs. We switched to french pressed coffee, started stirring batter with a spoon, left the curls to air dry, and learned to live with our bread untoasted.

What we run off of our solar system

A lot has changed since we lived in the three story town home. We downsized into a 700 square foot apartment for a couple years before moving into an RV to become debt free and build our home and homestead. Now that we are here in our little off grid farmhouse, this is what we are currently powering (It's nearly 2022):

1. We charge our 4 tablets once daily, which we use for home education and entertainment, 2 cell phones, and occasionally the laptop on days that I am working online. You can google your device to find out how much power they use when they are charging but they typically are 5 running watts each hour they are plugged in charging up.

2. Our internet 'stick' or receiver, and wireless modem uses 40 running watts. I get that there is a debate about whether being off grid with internet counts as actually living off grid but I am working from home to pay for my dream life and home educating my children so I give myself grace on your behalf, it totally counts! And we only have the internet stick and modem on when we are actually using it, it doesn't need to be plugged in and running all the time. Typically, after we have had our breakfast or during afternoon tea, we turn on the internet and check in for an hour, answer emails, check notifications, and google our many questions. We also turn the power on in the evening before bed again but are sure to turn everything off each night before bed because why would you leave it on?

Learn more about getting Internet off the grid here!

3. We also recharge our Ryobi One + lithium ion batteries as needed. Ryobi is great in that they have well over 200 tools and other items that all work with the same battery. Drills, saws, whipper snipper, a fan in the summer heat, a flashlight and even our chandelier is plugged into a Ryobi inverter powered by a Ryobi battery!

4. Lastly, we have a regular household 11 cubic foot Magic Chef chest freezer. We chose this freezer because it was medium in size and the energy star says it was the most efficient. This is new for us and we are smitten. Previously we were pressure canning all of our homegrown protein but now we are able to freeze it. We also relied on a local grocery store for ice to keep our dairy cool but now we create our own ice. Our freezer uses about 80 running watts which is not a lot but is still our biggest draw of power. Not what you'd expect, right? But also, we don't run our freezer all the time, they are designed to keep your food frozen for 48 hours if the power goes out. Each day when the sun is hitting the panels, we turn the freezer on and it runs until it the condenser turns off and it's cold again. This works! Our food stays rock hard frozen and we get to control its power consumption to a time of day where solar power is abundant.

What our solar power system looks like

This is what our solar system looks like currently but we are making changes as the budget allows and I'll explain why. We currently have two 270 watt 12 volt solar panels (540 watts total) that are run to our 40 amp charge controller on our two 6volt/220ah batteries. We also have a 3000watt modified sine wave inverter which we plug everything into directly. We haven't run electric through our little farmhouse because our life, and our needs are just so simplified that it isn't necessary. Our chandelier plugged into the little Ryobi inverter is all the lighting we need and we have a power bar plugged into the inverter for all our devices.

We also have another two 270 watt panels that are waiting to be hooked into our solar power system that would give us a total of 1080 watts. But we want to create a 24v system and run them in parallel and will need to replace our modified sine wave inverter to do so (it won't run with 24v, only 12v but we also don't like modified sine wave power, its choppy and the lights flicker, so we're splurging on a pure sine wave inverter) and since we are adding more solar panels, we're going to add more batteries. We've also considered diversifying and adding wind power being that we are on the east coast, on top of a knoll but aren't ready for that quite yet.

Where we mounted our solar panels and why

Our first year we had our cheap Canadian Tire panels (don't even think about it, don't buy them, they are way too expensive and small) mounted on a pallet which we pivoted awkwardly around the yard to get more sun. We had other priorities, like build a house that faces directly south before the snow fell.

Our second year we replaced the cheap panels for our current panels which we purchased from Cabin Depot and mounted them to a frame which we attached onto an old satellite dish mount so we could them up off the ground, higher in the sky and we could pivot it on the end of a pole or log to track the sun which greatly increases the amount of power you produce, as long as you remember to do it. It's an awful way to have them mounted if you face them east for the morning sun and forget about them or leave for the day when the sunsets in the west.

Now they are mounted on top of a pergola on the side of the house which faces due south. They are on about a 45º angle and cast a shadow in the summer over our living room window to keep the house cooler. We chose to put them there because we had the structure for them to be safely mounted, it was much higher and out of any casted shadows but still easily accessible to brush the snow and ice off of them.

How much did our solar system cost

We live in Canada so if you're south of the border you'll have to convert these numbers from CAD to USD. We pay no more than $1.00 per watt for our solar panels now. We have purchased them from Canadian Tire (don't do it) when we mounted our first pair to the roof of our RV. But when we moved to our off grid property, we upgraded and purchased them from the Cabin Depot. They almost always have a boxing day sale and can get them for even less than $1.00 per watt. Although, if you are lining a big roof you may be able to find a better bulk deal.

Our charge controller was a $240, the inverter was $180 (another Canadian Tire purchase but it's a modified sine wave inverter, yuck) and the 6v batteries are about $250 each. So in total our current solar power system, not including the panels we have but aren't using, would cost about $1500 with the extra expense of cords and cables to connect it all.

$1500 is what we would have paid for only two months of electric power in that three story townhouse in the winter of 2013 when we dreamed up this whole off grid life we are living.

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