Off-grid means to me, gas stove for cooking, solar or gas water heaters, solar panels and or wind turbine with a charge controller and battery bank, plus inverter for AC appliances. A lot of people overlook the important part, gas plays in an off-grid installation. Before I went into the solar panels, i installed a gas stove and that brought down the electricity bill. The next thing was getting a solar geyser installed. The gas stove and solar geyser plays a big role in an off-grid installation. How many of you guys have a gas stove and solar/gas water heating?    

Hey Regie,

 

Yep I am the same as you. the only thing i find is that the tankless gas geysers use a fair amount of gas. I have a 20lt per min unit ( semi commercial ) supplies 3 bathrooms and kitchen all at once if need be. I have a grid tied system plus an off grid backup system on a manual change over and gas. I am seriously considering going totally off grid... the only hold up right now is the 24 x 2v 960ah batteries i must purchase...at approx R73k

Hi Mike

 

Do you have a solar geyser? and if you do use it as a pre-heater for the gas system. How much battery storage capacity do you have currently?

 

P.S pitty the grid tie fails when the grid fails   

Hi Regie,

nope i don't, but it is my intention to get one. a friend of mine has his setup so....seems to work - less gas used

Regie

 

Quite true. So many people want to go solar to run their stove and geysers from the panels... 

 

Happily the house I bought roughly a year ago already had a 5 plate gas stove as well sa geyser with evacuated tude system on the roof. It's a pump circulated system so I think the little pump uses like 40 or 50w to circulate but it works well. It summer the element is completely switched of via the geyserwise control panel and reaches between 50 and 75 depending on the weather.

 

I can get down to about 16 - 18 units per day for the total household including pool pump so I'm looking to go grid-tied for a start and then later try and move to off-grid.

For now just getting all the ducks in a row to start the whole setup...

Hi 

 

I agree, most people look at their total monthly electricity bill and then they want to determine how much solar they gonna need. If you do that you gonna need a lot of solar panels.

 

Mike hope you got some batteries by now, even if it is just a few not to be left in the dark.

 

Regards

Hi 

 

I agree, most people look at their total monthly electricity bill and then they want to determine how much solar they gonna need. If you do that you gonna need a lot of solar panels.

 

Mike hope you got some batteries by now, even if it is just a few not to be left in the dark.

 

Regards

Hey Regie,

yep about two weeks back I brought in a hybrid inverter for myself and have put 4 x 102ah on it. i am going to add another 4  this week. my house idles at 1,2a per hour at night, and have run through the night on them as a test with a drop of 2.3V