minimalist solar electric system

Creating a simple shelter - and living with it!

Minimalist Solar Electric System

On this page I'll describe the system that provides a family of three with electricity year round in a full time living situation. All comments and opinions regarding
solar power on this site is based on this modest setup.


	Our System Why Solar? Compromises Appliances Gadgets 50000 amp/hrs

Solar panels:
300 watt array divided on 4 x 75 watt Siemens panels.
The stand is 2X4's braced and hinged for seasonal tilt adjustment. It is crude, and was thought as temporary but is still going strong after 3 years of snow, rain, strong winds and lots of sun.
We have since added about 100 watts of old, unmarked panels from a friend.

Batteries:
4 each 6 volt T105 batteries installed in series parallel. These Trojan workhorses (no pun..) are affordable, widely available and seemingly doing their job without much fuss. These are still going strong, with only minimal reduction

Charge controller: Trace C-35. This little gadget with the optional LCD display is the brain behind the daily operation.

Inverter: 1750 watt Portawatts inverter. Very cheap, very basic. If we were inverting more than the occasional kitchen blender, a better instrument than this would be nice. But as mentioned elsewhere, our cabin and just about everything in it runs on pure and unadulterated 12V DC.

Generator:
Cheap, noisy, polluting gas engine of about 3500 watt. Again, for more demanding use than ours, a higher quality generator might be money well spent. It is shown here in its semi permanent installation in the shop: A vented box with fans and exhaust lead to the outside.

Battery charger:
TrueCharge 40+. Whenever it is time to fire up the notorious gasoline beast, it is nice to have a state-of-the-art apparatus that directs every available amp to the batteries. Lesson learned: Cheap generators don't mix with cheap chargers. Go big on one or the other.

Total cost of all components:
Less than $4000 in the fall of 2003.