You and the solar system
This article is part of a series of understanding small-scale, off-grid solar systems . Make sure you start and return to the overview article.
Being off-grid in general requires a fundamental shift in your attitude and approach to services and things that you have probably taken for granted all your life. This isn’t a bad thing, but unless you are open to change and adaptation, forgiving of the weather and circumstances etc, you may struggle!
Being off-grid will mean that at times, you are dependent on the weather and the seasons. You’ll become more aware of and in tune with the natural world, which is a good thing!
The key is setting your expectations in line with reality of your power generation and storage capacities and adapting when conditions dictate.
Setting expectations
If you’ve read the other articles in this series, you’ll have an understanding of how to calculate your electrical ‘needs’, and from that, you should be able to match up an appropriate solar panel and battery to supply them. Some people (me included), do it the other way, which is buy a solar panel and see what it can do, adapting as needed.
What’s important is to understand and appreciate that you will not be able to run every electrical appliance that you would at an on-grid home (with a mains electricity connection) unless you have a) a large roof to house all those solar panels, and b) a very large budget to buy all the battery storage you need. And even then, there may be extended periods of bad weather which will deplete the batteries.
With an understanding of what is possible, you will also need to communicate this reality to everyone at the dwelling. It becomes important only to use what you have to, to switch things off when you’re not using them, to think about the needs of others and, as to adapt (as in the next section) where necessary.
Adapt where necessary
Most people will be using solar for lighting, and with the advent of LED bulbs (which consume much less energy than incandescent bulbs), much easier and convenient to run your lights from solar. However, if your battery is low and you have extended bad weather, you will need to adapt – this can mean anything from resorting to torches or using candles, or just going to bed earlier.
Think about each appliance and consider the consequences of not having it for a few days or a week? Is that even possible, and if not, what can you do to adapt? A power bank for your phone?
Resilience
Some things are ‘nice’ but not essential. For example having a TV is great, but if you can’t use it for a few days it’s not a great deal. But what if your water pump was electric – not having water ‘on tap’ might be a big problem. You might be able to design out some things such as having a manual hand or foot pump for water, or have a manual pump as a back-up. Being resilient is an important quality to have.
Changes through the year
Summer is usually glorious for solar, but here in the UK, we can still get long periods of poor or no sun (and who knows what climate change will bring). Late spring and early autumn are also usually pretty good, but winter brings the triple whammy of low sun angles (weaker solar power), shorter daylight hours and a greater chance of cloud cover – all of which mean it can be a struggle to keep those batteries topped up.
You’ll need to learn to keep an eye on the battery voltage (state of charge) and adapt as needed by using less electricity. When you get a good day of sun, and your battery is full, that’s the perfect time to recharge the phones, tablets, computers and power tools!
Design for zero energy use
Sometimes this isn’t possible, but if you can, try to design your dwelling to minimise or eliminate energy use. This isn’t always possible, but if you’re building something, consider utilising as much natural light as possible. You can also maximise solar gain in the winter (which will allow light and warmth in, naturally) by having larger windows facing south.
Equally, smaller windows on the north side will minimise heat loss on the side that gets the least natural light. Remember that a tree in the winter may not have leaves, so will let light through, and conversely in the summer, those leaves will help keep the full sun from overheating the place.
Much of this will be new to you, but in time, it becomes second nature!