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> Due to rising power costs I moved one of my homes completely to solar and battery Were you able to disconnect that home from the grid? Most places you're req

> Due to rising power costs I moved one of my homes completely to solar and battery Were you able to disconnect that home from the grid? Most places you're required to maintain a grid connection unless the home is in an exceptionally remote location. While pricing tends to be usage-based, true costs tend to be dominated by the capital expense of building base-load capacity for the few days your home might need to run fully on grid power. So as long as you're connected to the grid, you're still forcing the utility to spend about the same amount of money even if you only use grid power a few days out of the year.

duffpkg 2y ago
Yes. Totally disconnected, zero power bill. That home is in a jurisdiction where that is permissible.
- ManuelKiessling 2y ago
  How do you get through winter? I’m asking in good faith, I‘m using a PV installation myself and cannot see how I could realistically get off the grid.
  - dgacmu 2y ago
    Over provision the panels by a good margin and have them at a more southerly angle (for northern hemisphere). You can play around on nrel pvwatts to see what configuration produces the most even expected monthly output: https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php Most solar charge controllers allow a certain amount of PV overprovisioning.
    - kolinko 2y ago
      In central/northern Europe in january solar goves 10% of the output of summer, and you need 3-4x power to heat compared to cooling down in summer.
      - eichin 2y ago
        It is often surprising that most of the US is south of most of Europe (the common reference is that Chicago and Rome are both 42N. The jet stream complicates the effect on overall climate, but latitude is pretty much the only thing that matters for solar power.)
        gpm 2y ago
        Solar panels are mildly more efficient when colder, the same latitude in an area with similar cloud cover in north America is probably generally slightly better for solar than Europe because it is colder, not sure if it would ever be more than a rounding error though.
        Scoundreller 2y ago
        I’ve been in northern France for a couple weeks in a January and didn’t see the sun once… Not really a thing in Toronto.
        maigret 2y ago
        Solar panels don’t need sunshine they need light.
        Scoundreller 2y ago
        gonna have a lot lower performance in cloudy conditions
        taneliv 2y ago
        The difference between surface solar radiation levels in the US and Europe are wild[1], fully agree on the rounding error view. Anchorage seems to receive the same level of watts per area as Germany and Poland. [1] https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I5kzJIeV4Ds/VFSHUX3374I/AAAAAAAAAsU/L8-hwCSueEU/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-11-01%2Bat%2B2.51.27%2BAM.png https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I5kzJIeV4Ds/VFSHUX3374I/AAAAAAAAA...
  - duffpkg 2y ago
    This is in the american southwest so winters are very mild and the sun is still strong. Summer is the much more demanding part where AC is 90% of electricity use for the year. There would certainly be challenges in other locations but I think you could do the napkin math on it with panels being as cheap as they are. The solution to pretty much any deficit these days is to just add more panels. The biggest issue there is, is if you do not have sufficient space. My panels are ground mounted.
  - mapt 2y ago
    Right now? Using an overprovisioned quantity of cheap cells is part of it. Insulating and air sealing your home well is part of it. Thermal mass approaches are part of it. Without cheap batteries, it's very possible to store a great many kwh in volumes of soil, water, or sand riddled with pipes and resistive heaters. This year it has been pointed out that vertical bifacial solar panels radically outperform tilted arrays if snow is a possibility. Expect this to be the new normal at high latitudes as cell area is very cheap now.
- thrtythreeforty 2y ago
  In jurisdictions where that's not legal, can you realistically maintain a connection for just the cost of the customer fee and draw no other power? Or are there typically other roadblocks to installing solar in such places?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- chickenbig 2y ago
  > Totally disconnected, zero power bill. Great job! Over the last half a year my feelings about rooftop grid-connected solar (net energy metering, feed in tariff which are subsidised by the electricity bills of others) have changed somewhat, but going off-grid you've put in the investment to be energy independent.

duffpkg 2y ago

Yes. Totally disconnected, zero power bill. That home is in a jurisdiction where that is permissible.

ManuelKiessling 2y ago
How do you get through winter? I’m asking in good faith, I‘m using a PV installation myself and cannot see how I could realistically get off the grid.
- dgacmu 2y ago
  Over provision the panels by a good margin and have them at a more southerly angle (for northern hemisphere). You can play around on nrel pvwatts to see what configuration produces the most even expected monthly output: https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php Most solar charge controllers allow a certain amount of PV overprovisioning.
  - kolinko 2y ago
    In central/northern Europe in january solar goves 10% of the output of summer, and you need 3-4x power to heat compared to cooling down in summer.
    - eichin 2y ago
      It is often surprising that most of the US is south of most of Europe (the common reference is that Chicago and Rome are both 42N. The jet stream complicates the effect on overall climate, but latitude is pretty much the only thing that matters for solar power.)
      - gpm 2y ago
        Solar panels are mildly more efficient when colder, the same latitude in an area with similar cloud cover in north America is probably generally slightly better for solar than Europe because it is colder, not sure if it would ever be more than a rounding error though.
        Scoundreller 2y ago
        I’ve been in northern France for a couple weeks in a January and didn’t see the sun once… Not really a thing in Toronto.
        maigret 2y ago
        Solar panels don’t need sunshine they need light.
        Scoundreller 2y ago
        gonna have a lot lower performance in cloudy conditions
        taneliv 2y ago
        The difference between surface solar radiation levels in the US and Europe are wild[1], fully agree on the rounding error view. Anchorage seems to receive the same level of watts per area as Germany and Poland. [1] https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I5kzJIeV4Ds/VFSHUX3374I/AAAAAAAAAsU/L8-hwCSueEU/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2014-11-01%2Bat%2B2.51.27%2BAM.png https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I5kzJIeV4Ds/VFSHUX3374I/AAAAAAAAA...
- duffpkg 2y ago
  This is in the american southwest so winters are very mild and the sun is still strong. Summer is the much more demanding part where AC is 90% of electricity use for the year. There would certainly be challenges in other locations but I think you could do the napkin math on it with panels being as cheap as they are. The solution to pretty much any deficit these days is to just add more panels. The biggest issue there is, is if you do not have sufficient space. My panels are ground mounted.
- mapt 2y ago
  Right now? Using an overprovisioned quantity of cheap cells is part of it. Insulating and air sealing your home well is part of it. Thermal mass approaches are part of it. Without cheap batteries, it's very possible to store a great many kwh in volumes of soil, water, or sand riddled with pipes and resistive heaters. This year it has been pointed out that vertical bifacial solar panels radically outperform tilted arrays if snow is a possibility. Expect this to be the new normal at high latitudes as cell area is very cheap now.
thrtythreeforty 2y ago
In jurisdictions where that's not legal, can you realistically maintain a connection for just the cost of the customer fee and draw no other power? Or are there typically other roadblocks to installing solar in such places?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
chickenbig 2y ago
> Totally disconnected, zero power bill. Great job! Over the last half a year my feelings about rooftop grid-connected solar (net energy metering, feed in tariff which are subsidised by the electricity bills of others) have changed somewhat, but going off-grid you've put in the investment to be energy independent.