Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeD
I don't know for sure but regulating the power output is probably too hard to do without batteries (think when a cloud shades the panels and the power level drops). Fluctuating input power to devices in the home could be damaging.
This looks promising https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/...verter-mb1494/ |
It's easy to do with some battery capacity. You have a transfer switch just like a generator does.
I'm probably going to add a system to my house that will put a small battery bank and and good sized split phase inverter in place, and a manual transfer switch to keep it simple. And then trickle charge the battery bank (say, 2-4 kWh - a Tesla Powerwall is 13.5 kWh) from the Chevy Bolt EV, whose traction battery is 66 kWh. The trickle charger connects to the 12V battery, and the traction battery keeps it charged via the onboard DC-DC converter.
The car could easily power us for a week or more, as long as we were judicious in what we tried to run. I have circuit datalogging on my panel so I know, for example, that my 15 ft3 chest freezer and my refrigerator both use about 1 kWh/day, the heat pump water heater a bit more, and lights and plug loads are another 1 kWh/day. We wouldn't be powering the range - electric kettle, microwave, and toaster oven would take the cooking duties.
There's a way with more cost and complexity that I could add my 5 kW solar array into the system but I don't see that being necessary - unless we were hammered by a Cat 5 hurricane and power out for months.