4 ms·

I’d have to find my notes on the topic, but if memory serves for the results, I was targeting 200kWh of battery with a ~1000sqft space. I can’t recall my calcu

I’d have to find my notes on the topic, but if memory serves for the results, I was targeting 200kWh of battery with a ~1000sqft space. I can’t recall my calculations on the number of panels because I was later working on another design for mobile use with my car, but I do remember it being around $20k-$30k in panels alone to do what I wanted. Panel efficiency and price has gone down since then, so I would expect that price to be lower now. I wanted enough generation to simultaneously charge two EVs as well as be capable of heating a space. I was planning on doing all the labor myself so that is not in the numbers for cost. All things told I was prepared to spend around $75k on electrical to make this happen in a remote location, which seemed reasonable to me given the capabilities & stability I would get in return. It is not something most people could afford, but most people here on HN probably could which is why I mentioned it.

Someone 4y ago
Did you consider how that would do in a week-long storm that deposits a foot or more of snow on your panels? For emergencies, I think I would put more trust in a low-tech wood burner, moving extra wood in-house whenever there’s a serious storm forecast.
mindslight 4y ago
Well, I apologize for what I originally said because it seems you have seriously run the numbers out. On its own that still seems like a massive amount of battery for a single dwelling, but hard to put into context without other numbers (design heating load, electrical load, atrophy over time, oversized for slower wear, etc) Still, in general it seems like the ultimate design constraint is always low probability events adding up - eg solar generation getting severely cut for a week, due to snow on the panels and cloudy days or hardware failure, coupled with many cold nights in a row. For which a fall back to a more traditional denser energy source (wood or gasoline) that you'd end up using every few years comes in much cheaper than trying to oversize the primary battery storage to handle every long tail event.

Someone 4y ago

Did you consider how that would do in a week-long storm that deposits a foot or more of snow on your panels? For emergencies, I think I would put more trust in a low-tech wood burner, moving extra wood in-house whenever there’s a serious storm forecast.

mindslight 4y ago

Well, I apologize for what I originally said because it seems you have seriously run the numbers out. On its own that still seems like a massive amount of battery for a single dwelling, but hard to put into context without other numbers (design heating load, electrical load, atrophy over time, oversized for slower wear, etc) Still, in general it seems like the ultimate design constraint is always low probability events adding up - eg solar generation getting severely cut for a week, due to snow on the panels and cloudy days or hardware failure, coupled with many cold nights in a row. For which a fall back to a more traditional denser energy source (wood or gasoline) that you'd end up using every few years comes in much cheaper than trying to oversize the primary battery storage to handle every long tail event.