by St. Funogas, Survival Blog:
(Continued from Part 3. This concludes the article)
SOLAR PANELS
In this section I’ll cover something I haven’t seen discussed in any of the books and articles I’ve read on solar panels so don’t skip over this next part. I hope by the end of this that some will be convinced they’re a very good idea for now as well as a post-SHTF lifestyle. They’re relatively inexpensive and easy to install with a DIY approach.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
With solar panels our life can proceed as usual in so many different areas which will make our transition to TEOTWAWKI simpler. Not only will our life be much easier, but we’ll also be able to provide services for our neighbors who didn’t have the foresight to install them. Just as a few examples, we can fill their water barrels from our functioning well and also charge the 12 Volt batteries salvaged from their vehicles. These can run many of the 12v repurposed items from our vehicles such as lights, windshield-wiper and door-window motors, and the pumps used by the washer fluid apparatus among others.
My recent article Using Grid-Tied PV Panels as a Starter System (Part 1, Part 2) on using grid-tied solar panels was a good start, but little did I realize until I did this full-blown 10-day test just exactly what my system can do as an off-grid setup. This was the single best discovery of my off-grid experience. The bottom line is, with a few tweaks to my routines, my particular grid-tied system can be used as an off-grid setup using just a single 12v deep cycle battery ($100) instead of a large battery pack.
MY SOLAR PANEL SETUP
My solar panels are what’s called grid-tied. There are no batteries to deal with, just the solar panels and a small box called an inverter. The inverter changes the solar panel’s DC electricity to the 120v AC electricity our homes use. Grid-tied is so easy to set up that anyone who can hook up an electric water heater can DIY their own grid-tied solar panels.
There’s a huge “But…” with grid-tied. Some will recall during the record-setting forest fires in California in 2021 the grid was cut off in many areas. Those with grid-tied solar panels wondered, “I have solar panels so why aren’t they working when I need them most?”
The simple answer is that grid-tied solar panels automatically shut down during any kind of power outage. This is to protect the linesmen who repair the grid from getting electrocuted if your solar panels are still feeding the grid. Hence the legal requirement to have an automatic shutdown built into the solar-array’s inverter.
Grid-tied solar panel systems are useless in a grid-down world. In TEOTWAWKI-ville the system can be disassembled and the individual panels put to use, but only if you have some of the other components to make it work, especially a charge controller. Most folks won’t have those but solar panels also make good privacy fences and shed roofs.
So what makes my grid-tied system different? My inverter is a Sunny Boy 3000 which has an accessory called a Secure Power Supply (SPS.) The company advertises this device as unique to their inverters and even in a grid-down situation, I still have electricity available.
After installing my solar panels I tested out my SPS. It looks like any other plug outlet in my house but is wired directly to the inverter, not to the breaker panel that services my shop and fees the grid. When I tested it way back when, I plugged a drill motor into the socket, pulled the trigger and declared, “Yup, it works.” I’m embarrassed to confess that’s as far as I took testing that particular prep. The SPS capability turned out to be the most exciting discovery of my whole grid-own experiment. Nothing else came close. Here’s what happened.
THE SUNNY BOY 3000 SECURE POWER SUPPLY
The morning after I began my grid-down test it was urgent to get my freezer running. I went out to the shop and activated my SPS unit. The company’s website promotes it with a small blurb about little things it can do, including one commenter who mentioned a guy who powered his beer refrigerator with it. They all missed the point, as I originally did, of the SPS’s capabilities. The SPS can extract 1,500 watts of electricity (2,000 on the newer models) from the solar panels during a grid-down event when all other inverters throughout the land are in the doornail stage.
The SPS has just a double outlet so with an extension cord I plugged in my freezer. It started running, saving all my frozen items which was a huge relief. Another extension cord powered other things I tested. Then I got to wondering if instead of using extension cords, I couldn’t just add a few wires so the SPS could back feed into my breaker panel and supply my whole house and shop with electricity. I sketched out a schematic, triple-checked everything, and decided it was definitely worth testing out.
After hooking up the back-feed accessory (search “transfer switch” and the appropriately named “suicide cord”), and turning the appropriate breakers back on, my house electricity was running as if the grid were still up. Someone visiting my house and using electricity would have no idea that the grid was kaput. This was a very exciting discovery! I never would have guessed the SPS had that kind of potential to power my whole house and shop (with a few exceptions) whenever the sun was shining.
With grid-tied solar panels, it’s required to have a disconnect switch just below the power company’s electric meter. Mine has a 24” handle which I can padlock into the off position. This assures when the SPS is in use, I can’t feed the grid and no electricity from the grid unexpectedly coming back on can cause problems with my inverter or SPS. In a TEOTWAWKI grid-down world lasting for years, the SPS can and should be hard wired to the electric panel.
USING THE SECURE POWER SYSTEM
After connecting the SPS to my house and shop, the first thing I did was to test each electrical item I have. After my Day One success with the shop freezer my next test was the refrigerator. It started, then tripped the breaker and shut down. My hopes were beginning to fade about using the SPS to power my house and shop. The refrigerator shut down due to the large surge of electricity required to get the motor started before lowering back down to its normal wattage. After the refrigerator fail, I discovered to my relief that everything else in my house worked. I then took the step of seeing how much I could run all at once. Having my normal electricity usage down to 100 kWh per month is a huge help in this area.
For reference, the average US home uses 970 kWh per month. By the time I quit turning on appliances and switches, everything in my house (except the microwave and fridge) was working simultaneously. That included the ceiling fan (65w), woodstove blower (95w), box fan (98w), Kitchen Aide mixer (200w on medium), rice cooker (350w), 17 light bulbs (~135w), TV and DVD player (110w) and the freezer in the shop (92w) for a total of 1,145 watts. That was 76% of the available electricity so I turned on the lights in my well house and shop, then a drill press and a hand drill. The system finally shut down when I turned on a bench grinder, as expected. Bench grinders have a motor with a large startup surge.
I’d never in a million years be running these all at once so the SPS system is more than adequate for my needs. I couldn’t wipe the silly grin off my face for the rest of the day. YES! Oh yeah baby! For things like the microwave (1,100w), countertop oven (1,200w), Foreman grill (1,200w), and bench grinders, I can use them as long as I’m only using a few hundred watts on the freezer and lights for example, before I fire them up. Each of these items worked when tested individually. Most of these are generally used for only minutes at a time so it wouldn’t be a huge inconvenience to turn off other items during their brief usage. As for the refrigerator, it’s very large and I don’t use most of the space. Smaller models are available which use much less energy (100w) and like my freezer, don’t have a surge phase. One more item for the to-do list.
As mentioned in my grid-tied article, one of my biggest worries for taking my homestead off grid is running my 100w woodstove blower for several hours per day using a small battery pack. Now I can rest easy with my SPS, using it to both run the blower as well as keeping my 131 Ah deep-cycle battery charged before I get a larger battery pack. I’ll be experimenting this winter with all the different parameters based on the weather forecast and how early/late in the morning I can start the blower.
During the one totally overcast day during my off-grid test, my ten solar panels were still able to provide enough electricity to power the 100w freezer. They shouldn’t have any problems with my woodstove blower since they are both 100 watts and the harvest freezer won’t be in use during the winter. The more solar panels a system has, the more energy they can produce on overcast days. I’ll also be experimenting with just using the SPS and no battery at all other than a core to power my reading lamp.
For anyone interested in setting up some solar panels, the SPS feature is well worth taking a look at. Sunny Boy claims their system is unique but I’d still check to see what others may offer. IMO, this feature alone makes it worth having solar panels in our preps. Very affordable if self-installed and worth their weight in gold in a TEOTWAWKI world. As mentioned, the electricity they make is a great barter item or good-neighbor gesture to charge their 12 Volt batteries and pump water to fill their barrels.
One last thing to mention. A quick glance at my complete 2018 inverter records shows that even on my worst few days each month, I still generated 1.5 kWh of electricity or more. This is more than enough to run the woodstove blower (100w, 3-4 hours per day) and small refrigerator (100w) for the day.
STAND-ALONE SMALL SOLAR PANELS
In addition to my 3,000w solar-panel system and SPS, I have some stand-alone solar panels as well. They’ve been fun to play with and also serve their functions around the homestead. A 100w solar panel keeps my deep-cycle battery charged and runs both my solar water heater and my backup 12v home water system. In a permanent grid-down world, even a small 100w panel can charge batteries and run low-wattage devices.
GENERATOR EXPERIENCE
My generator experience was by far my most painful, upsetting, frustrating, humiliating, and embarrassing portion of the test. I lost count of how many times I said, “You idiot!” There were only a few “Yes!” exclamations and lots of “Come on, come on, come on…”
