Been an interesting week or three setting up our new solar system. Consists on 30 — 270 w panels ( 8.1 KWh array ) .
Panels round the back of our place
Inside I decided to use part of my virtual cycling room as a battery store house. Has this pretty impressive and very heavy set of long life agm batteries . All up 1.2 ton. Was a major effort to locate — took four big guys and lots of huffing and puffing.
All the kit has been supplied by an Auckland business called “AAsolar”. They are a great bunch of helpful guys– good to deal with.
Have used a sophisticated Swiss brand of programmable inverter charger . We are presently testing this system. My design spec is that we will be able to store up to 20 KWh ( useable ) that we can draw down on overnight. This gives us a nice margin as data incoming from our smart metre suggests we need about 10 KWh per 15 hours of night till solar production– PV .
With changes to consumption patterns — eg running bigger appliances in the mid day time when the sun is giving us heaps of juice and changing to a bunch of LED lighting options we think we may be in reach of Eldorado — the golden day when the power co may not be hitting us up with big bills any more .
The Internet allows full access to see how the solar ( PV) is going and the Swiss brand of inverter ” Studer ” is connected via the net for monitoring all functions — batteries , and programming the huge range of potential parameters .
The power companies are paying a pathetic amount to customers who feed back into the grid ( approx 1/3 of what they charge ) so the model of “self consumption ” by own storage looks promising. We will still have a certain amount feeding back into the grid — but the target is to store the nights usage ( about 10 KWh ) during the daytime.
Will keep this post running — it will be a learning curve to share.
whatisbruceupto 
Very interesting Bruce. A big front end investment with lots of promising features. Hope it all goes well and will be interested to read your updates.
Yes indeed — lots of storage now — just like you guys 😉 fact never seen any one on the road with more energy than your rig. Did the issue with the flexible solar panels get resolved – Kimberley were footing the remedial as I recall.
Our project has been lots of fun – still some programming to the inverter but it is performing well. Think living in our 5 th wheel is a great intro. to becoming more energy self sufficient.
Reblogged this on Kimberley Kruising and commented:
This is for any of my readers who are interested in battery storage of solar in domestic use. You may also have seen or read the claims made by the Climate Council in an ABC report yesterday where there pricie research shows it to be a competitive alternative in Australia by 2018. Well here is a friend of mine I met on the road who on returning to NZ has taken the leap by configuring a set up in his own home. Now if a bright kiwi can take the plunge with the amount of sun hours there, imagine what more efficiency can be achieved here in our more intense sun belt regions.
Hi Roz and Bruce
are you settling back in after the big trip.
Hope all is well for you
Maria Orr
Excellent result😊 this looks great. Will be interested to know the pay back period