How to Generate your own electricity with solar panels and inverter - Off Grid Set up
How to Generate your own electricity with solar panels and inverter - Off Grid Set up
How to Generate Your Own Electricity with Solar Panels and Inverter: An Off-Grid Setup from Voltacon for Easy Self-Sufficient Power
With an increase in severe weather events, attacks on utility stations, and supply chain disruptions around the globe, more households are making a smart decision and opting for solar power. Here’s how you can make your home self-sufficient with a relatively simple off-grid solar system setup from Voltacon.
Why an Off-Grid Setup Is Preferred
We recommend using an off-grid solar system rather than one that is designed to feed energy from your system back to the municipal grid. Whilst allowing your system to provide energy to the grid may gain you credits with the utility company in the future, it’s a much more complicated process to install solar power this way. An off-grid system from Voltacon requires no permission from the power utility, and running the system is a great deal easier too.
Components Required for an Off-Grid Setup
Our off-grid systems use the same basic components, which we customise to each property based on its electrical needs, budget, and spatial considerations.
Solar panels
Your solar panels (aka photovoltaic array) collect solar energy from the sun, which is the primary source of electrical power for the system.
Inverters
The off-grid system uses two inverters that convert direct current (DC) electricity from the solar panels to alternating current (AC) electricity to be used in the home, the same as you’d get from your receptacles connected to the grid.
Our inverters have five-colour digital touchscreen displays on the exterior, so you can monitor what’s going on within your solar system. They are also wifi enabled, so you can view this data on a mobile device.
Batteries
Dual batteries store the energy from your solar panels converted by your inverters. They also provide the electrical load to the home simultaneously. As a backup, you can charge your batteries by connecting them to the grid. We suggest doing this at night, when the cost is lower.
Busbars
Busbars are an intermediary between the solar array and the inverters. They let you generate a higher amount of power more quickly than having the panels connected directly to the inverters.
Distribution panel
The distribution panel functions as a control panel, similar to a regular household electrical panel or fuse panel (aka breaker box or consumer unit). It allows you to shut off power to certain regions of supply, such as when you need to eliminate the risk of shock when installing a new light fixture. It also includes a changeover switch, which allows you to go between the off-grid solar system and the grid with one toggle. This is handy if you’re doing maintenance on the entire solar installation and want to bypass it entirely to run on the grid temporarily.
Why You Should Use Two Inverters
As you can see, we’ve built redundancy into our off-grid solar power system by using two inverters and therefore two batteries and two busbars. This offers two key advantages for your home:
- You have a backup inverter, battery, and busbar if there is a problem with the others or want to perform maintenance on one side of the system without losing power completely.
- Using two inverters lets you divide wear on the system, which reduces the heat load on each inverter, protects your equipment, and extends its lifespan.
Powering a Typical Home with an Off-Grid Solar System
Many clients enquire about the ability of a Voltacon off-grid solar installation to power everything they need for daily living in their homes. Rest assured that our off-grid setup can run all the electrical items in your home just as if you were connected to the grid, so you have continual power to your water heater, appliances, electronics, lights, and the like.
Let Voltacon Set Up Your Solar Power System for You
Although the solar installation described above is simple to maintain and run, setting it up is not a DIY job. It’s essential that everything is connected properly and that the right cables are chosen to connect the various components. This ensures your system will operate correctly and that there is no risk of electrical shock, fire, or damage to your elements.
We welcome the opportunity to tailor a Voltacon off-grid solar installation for your home. Contact Voltacon at info@voltacon.com or reach out online to let us know more about your electrical needs.
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