Off Grid Solar System!

Choosing to go completely off grid solar was a huge decision, but one I am so glad I made. After living with an off grid solar system for the past few years I can highly recommend it and I am super excited to share my experience and thoughts on it with you!

My property actually has an SA power pole on the road side boundary so if I had chosen to build close to the road side I probably would have connected to mains power and not given solar a second thought. However my ideal building spot was right at the other side of the property which is at the end of a one kilometre driveway! This left me with the dilemma of deciding whether to extend the mains power poles onto my property or whether to install an off grid solar system. This decision was not an easy one to make as the thought of not being connected to mains power was a little scary and I knew absolutely nothing about off grid solar systems and how well they could work.

I had a four different solar installation businesses visit my property to advise and quote a system for me. Their recommendations and quotes varied largely. Something I strongly recommend to anyone going down the path of solar installation is to do your homework when choosing your installer. My initial experience with installers was absolutely horrific, I learned the hard way that there are businesses promoting themselves as specialist off grid solar installers who are not licensed or qualified to do the job and who have been installing systems for people that just don’t work for them. You must check that who ever installs your off grid solar system is a qualified electrician which additional solar installation qualifications. I had two dodgy installers starting the work, one who took a substantial deposit and ran (I recovered the money months later) and the second I found out was unqualified to do the install! A third company, who was not one of the four originals who had looked at the job, fortunately finished the work the second business started and did an absolutely fantastic job. 

The next hurdle I faced was learning to use the system to maximise my power availability! Running the system does take a little practise, trial and error to say the least! None of this was without mistakes! It took a while to get the hang of troubleshooting when problems would arise but living off grid does require a certain level of independence so most of all learning about the system and how it operates was really important! Making changes to how the system runs as I learned more about how it all worked was great to be able to do and of course I do have a back up generator for when the sun simply does not provide the charge needed in the winter months.

There are different ways the system can be set up to best suit your individual needs and this is something that your solar installer will talk through with you, design the system for you, and put into place for you. In my opinion, ideally the best way to achieve this is to have the same electrician that does your house wiring to do your solar install, to give an overall electrical and solar solution system that runs and works together to suit you and your household needs. I was very frustrated having to hear some of the installers tell me that I would have to change my everyday power usage or to install gas appliances if I wanted to live off grid solar! This is absolutely not the case! What I needed was a solar installation qualified electrician who would listen to my power usage needs, who is able to implement a system design that worked for me and in the end that is what I have got.

My Tiny House is completely electric, my appliances including my oven, cook top and hot water service are electric. I run my air conditioner as needed and I also run a dryer for all my laundry! I found early on that my original hot water service was draining too much power and had it replaced with a heat pump hot water service… I chatted about this in a pervious post. My dryer is a “vented” dryer which I chose because vented dryers can be hung on the wall which in a Tiny House is of course space saving but the dryer does use a lot of power so I am looking at swapping to a heat pump dryer… I’ll keep you updated on how it goes! The one appliance that i have that struggles with my system is the split system for heating! It can run for a short time but generally I wouldn’t use it! My fireplace is all the heating I need so not using the heater is no problem! 

About my system…I chose to have my panels ground mounted, so rather than having panels on my roof they are framed on poles dug into the ground. Having the panels ground mounted rather than on my roof meant being able to place them in the best direction to capture maximum sun exposure without having also expose my Tiny House to maximum sun! 

I have a 5.4kW system with 10kWh batteries. 

There are 20 x 270W Tier 1 solar panels on my ground mount, they span an area of approximately 10 x 3 & a half metres. 

My system is an SMA s18.0 off grid inverter SMA SB 5000TL-21 inverter with Sunny remote control. 

The batterys are 10kWh, 4 x 2.5kWh BYD batteries in battery cabinet housing and are mounted on the wall alongside the inverter and all the household and shed electrical meters.

My back up generator is a 5.5 KVA Honda EG 5500CXS powerguard. 

I am able to remotely access the data from my solar system to keep a check on my battery percentage and I have a switch in my Tiny House so I can remotely start the generator to back up the batteries if they are low, for instance in the middle of the night when I don’t want to go down in the cold and the dark to start it manually! This feature is really handy and I love how technology can be used in conjunction with an off grid solar system to make it so automated and user friendly.

If your looking for recommendations for installers I will be putting up a list of “My Recommended Tradies” on my blog very soon, this will include a qualified solar electrician that I would highly recommend for jobs in South Australia. If you’d like their contact details sooner send me an email and I’ll send it to you! 

If you have the opportunity to go off grid solar I’d encourage you to go for it!

Enjoy living off grid ☀️!

If you have any questions you’d like to ask me please send me an email via the “Contact Me” page on this blog, I’m happy to answer and help as best I can.

Thanks for reading! 

Jen 🏡