Review and Critique My Off Grid House Plans Please

[cc223344]

Hi All

New here...just discovered forum after posting this elsewhere but probably better advise here

Please be kind.....Ive done as much reading as I can and I although I find most of the calculations and formulas impossible, I've ran through most online calculators and now have the following plans

My house is in Northen France near Falaisen which is south of Caen

The house is wired to UK standards and up to now has been run off generator

I plan to go full solar for electricity by the turn of the year

I have worked out that my usage is approx 5000w/day

My plans are to run a 48v system....due to the current wiring being installed to normal fuse box and through reading I decided this seems best...what do you think?

I plan to have 600ah battery bank using 2v batteries from this guy http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FORKLIFT-B...EAAOSwPe1UIQ9y

I plan to have a 5000w array ground mounted using 20 250W panels

Outback 48V 3kw inverter

2 x Outback FM60 MPPT Controllers

Outback Mate Monitoring System

Im not sure about Mounting and wondered if I should use something like this http://www.midsummerwholesale.co.uk/...al-ground.html ??? or DIY?? I had visions of changing angle a few times a year for optimal output......my position is unshaded and on concrete hardstanding

What Im still trying to get my head round is making sure I can keep things going over winter when there is ver little sun....is my array meant to recharge what I used the night before during the next day? and it so would it be fair to say that if only 1 hour is achieved during a winters day it'd be equal to what volts come out the array...this is where I end up getting lost..Im very practable and will be able to istall all this no bother....but my mind hurts at some point lol

my budget is 10k and roughly so far I reckon 2k for panels if bought from gumtree or ebay 3k for batteries and 5k for eveything else including mount and wires

any advise would be much appreciated

 

[Pascaleto]

Hello ,

Because your off-grid system is not small (like for camper vehicle).
It will be better to make an AC-coupled system, rather that DC-coupled system.

You will save a lot of wiring, and this will make a simpler system. I think even cheaper and reliable.
In this way you will have optimized generation of solar electricity.

Those type of panels are not good to be used to charge batteries with solar charger.

For more info about AC and DC coupled systems you can find info in internet.
I can recommend to use a products of SMA Germany, they are very reliable and have a good explanations on their i-net site.

If you have some other questions I am happy to help.

Best regards

 

[Gavin A]

hard to answer without the right units - what does this mean?

"I have worked out that my usage is approx 5000w/day"

That figure needs to be in kWh a day, and the peak consumption level is also useful. Are you saying your consumption is 5kWh a day?

600Ah x 48V = 28.8kWh which at 50% daily depth of discharge gives you a regular capacity of 14.4kWh, with another 7-8kWh of reserve for the worst periods, so that should get you through 3 bad days in winter....... but then you need to be able to recharge it again, and at the peak of winter the solar is going to struggle with that.

I'd suggest adding a small 48V wind turbine into the mix rather than more solar, as that will keep you going better in winter. It doesn't need to be a big thing, because it can generate up to 24 hours a day in winter, so even a 500W turbine would massively out produce your 5kWp solar pv array in winter months assuming you have a reasonable level of wind on site.