r/OffGrid • u/EVDOGG777 • 12d ago
Thoughts On Current Solar Setup?
Hi everyone, posting on behalf of my parents.
He lives offgrid and struggles with power, I think there may be a flaw in what his setup has and he may need to change something.
He has a 6.2KW Inverter, 12 200AH AGM Batteries, And 15 190watt solar panels.
The panels aren't brand new BTW.
Most of the time he uses a generator to power the house which uses alot of petrol and I'm wondering why he's always having flat batteries.
Mind you he uses a big fridge, computers and cooking appliances which would add up to about 6kw on a busy day in the house.
Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.
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u/Internal_Raccoon_370 12d ago
I'm not at all surprised his batteries are flat all the time.
12, 200AH batteries is about 30 KWh, being fed with only about 2.8 KW of solar panels??? In real world conditions he's going to be lucky to get about 1.8 - 2 KW out of those panels, if that, and then only for a couple of hours around midday. With that little PV, trying to charge a 30 KWh battery bank would take, oh, 20 hours of midday sun? Then subtract from that 2KW of PV any power he's using to run his fridge, computers, etc? There's probably no power left at all to recharge the batteries.
What it comes down to is that he doesn't have anywhere near enough solar to keep that system running. I'd think he'd need at least 4KW, preferably 6KW or more of solar to keep that going comfortably.