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If you have a backyard (or a balcony) I'd start with a single solar panel and "portable solar generator" off of Amazon. For about $500 (admittedly terrible $/kW
by cbhl 3y ago
If you have a backyard (or a balcony) I'd start with a single solar panel and "portable solar generator" off of Amazon. For about $500 (admittedly terrible $/kWh) I felt like I got a much better intuition about things like "solar panels generate ~no power in partial shade" and "power output from a solar panel changes from month to month" which can help you in your decision-making.
It's not obvious to me that rooftop solar panels will still pay for themselves (in the past there were subsidized rates that made the math work better) but being able to run off batteries+solar "microgrid" in a power outage for a few hours is a quality-of-life improvement that I'd consider for the right price. (There's some of this in corporate offices, luxury apartments, etc.)
- itsrobforreal 3y agoDuring the pandemic I built a number of simple indoor solar systems, setting panels in the lower part of my windows (I keep the shades open at the top) and hooking up to either a homegrown controller/battery/inverter system or a jackery. The jackery is roughly 30% more expensive but feels a lot less fragile than my homemade stuff, and I've moved all my device charging (tablet/phone/power tool battery) charging over to these systems. It was a fun project! Cabling is always the part that sneaks up on you so make sure to plan out the cabling / what plug types you want / crimp or buy / etc. ahead of time.