Living Off Grid

Living with a solar battery system is an exciting opportunity to do something big to help our environment as well as reducing your energy costs significantly.  You too can live with pride in your heart, knowing that the energy your using is completely environmental friendly.   There is no noisy, polluting generator humming away in the back ground. No power line cutting through your property and no power station pumping out carbon dioxide on your behalf.

Living off the grid will probably mean reducing your electricity consumption - or at least being more aware of the energy you are consuming - but that's a good thing right?  Living off the grid, however, should not mean missing out on modern living essentials and comforts.  Selecting the right system for you is a balance between the amount of available energy and the size and cost of the system.  A larger system will provide many extra benefits but if it's over-sized then it may not be money well spent.  Below is a list of things you can do to reduce your electricity consumption. 

Reducing Electrical Energy Consumption:

Hot water: Hot water systems use a large amount of energy.  A typical 3 minute shower using 10 lpm shower head will use 3,150 kJ (0.88 kWh).  More cost effective options are Solar hot water (where the sun heats the water directly) or gas hot water systems.

Cooking:  Electric hot plates are rated at 1000W so cooking a meal at 50% for 30 minutes on one hot plate will use 0.5 kWh and ovens use around twice that.  Better options for cooking are a gas cook top, gas BBQ or Weber.

Room heating:  Nothing beats sitting by a pot belly stove or wood fire place in winter.  They are also a great way to heat the room and a pot of water on cool winter days.  The energy collected by solar panels in June is around 1/3 of the energy collected in February making winter electrical energy a scarce resource and not practical for room heating.

Lighting:  The advent of LED lighting has been a huge benefit to off-grid energy users.  LED lights are very efficient and should be used instead of florescent or other globes wherever possible.

Clothes dryer:  A small load of clothes in a clothes dryer uses around 3.3 kWh of energy.  A far better option is to air dry the clothes on a line either inside or outside.  

Moving Energy Consumption to Sunlight Hours:

The batteries used in our systems are the safest, most efficient and longest lasting available but that also makes them expensive.  Our systems are designed so that the battery capacity and use are optimized so that you get the best value for money.  Moving energy consumption to day time hours will help make the most of the energy available from the solar panels.

Washing: Using the washing machine during the day time will mean there will be more energy available for other appliances at night.  Most washing machines have a timer and can be set to start when the sun is well and truly up.

Air conditioning:  The energy available during long sunny summer days is around three times more than the energy available during winter.  This means there is usually enough energy available during summer to run an air conditioner for several hours.  Be sure to only run it during the day as it will quickly drain the batteries if used after the solar panels stop generating electricity.

Vacuum: A standard vacuum is rated at 1500W and so uses 0.25 kWh per 10 min of use.  If possible, using the vacuum during the day is a better option.  Another option is to use a battery powered vacuum with the charger plugged into a timer so that it charges up during the day.

Laptops, battery powered tools and appliances:  If possible, running battery powered equipment at night off it's own battery will reduce drain on the house batteries.  Make sure to only re-charge batteries during the day time.  A good set-up is to have a power board on a timer switch with all battery powered devices plugged in (laptop, vacuum, power tools...) and set to turn on in the middle of the day to charge all the devices during the peak solar radiation.