Given the recent wildfire events in Pacific Palisades, Malibu and SoCal in general, I found myself sharing this information about creating self-sufficiency with several solar panels and batteries.
Will Prowse has been making DIY Solar Power YouTube videos for 7 years. He has about 1 million subscribers. I find his videos to be high quality: DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse
In these two videos, he describes how affordable it has become to power one’s home (and even their EV) with off-grid solar + batteries in one’s backyard.
- DIY VS Ecoflow Ultra! Save thousands building the Solar Kart
(In this video around minute 7:30, he describes how you can build a simple/small backup system for around $2000) - Solar Kart Version 5! Ultimate Offgrid Homestead Power Station: Outdoor Rated 8kW and 16kWh LiFePO4
To summarize the math (of a simple/small backup system):
- Solar Panels: Should cost about $0.50 per Watt (or less, even $0.25/W if you go noname brand). So (4 x 400W panels) 1600W x $0.50/W = $800
- Batteries: Can cost between $100 to $1000 per kWh (Based on brand & quality). In one example he suggests using 2 x 3.6 kWh batteries for $500 each.
- A cheap inverter for $150$.
A four-panel, 1.6kW solar system should produce electricity for about 4-5 hrs a day, in other words, a total of 6-8kWh a day (about 25% of an average US single family home’s consumption). And that 7.2kWh battery should be able to store all/most of that production. (Useful fact: An average US home consumes about 800 kwh/mo, 27kwh/day, 10-15% of that is for the refrigerator).
To calculate ROI:
This sub-$2000 system should generate 6kwh/day x 365 days/ yr (Panels last 30+ yrs. Even after 30 yrs they produce at 80% of 1sy yr production) (Such a battery is supposed to be good for 15000 cycles, that is 40 yrs), in other words, 2190 kWh/ yr. The average value of kwh is about $0.40 these days in So Cal (and $0.20 in the US). So if you run part of your appliances on this setup, you would create (2190 x 0.40 =) $876 worth of electricity in one year, in So Cal. It is almost a 2-year payback.
Another exciting thought:
One can have 4 such setups (for about $8k total), bypass all (construction) permits and the (utility) interconnection /net metering red tape, and never pay for electricity again.