Earl Ledge
Member
I’ve run solar panels at my cabin for many years. My impression is, if you get professional information on design and installation you should be fine.
Second, the sun works in the summer but not so much after three days and more of rain. The generator will be used, but the larger the battery bank, the longer between recharges. I think it’s more important to have more batteries than a whack of solar panels, the power is cheap out of the genset to replenish a low bank. LEDs lighting and a dc system for dc things makes sense, but microwaves eat relatively huge power. Lastly, if you get an electric start genset and an auto start and stop system for it, it hardly matters how much power you use ( relatively ) because all you have to do is haul fuel. (But only around 5 kilowatt or over do they have start systems). The battery system and inverter are for convenience, i.e. always on and ready. But I have friends who just use a little Honda and they just go out the back door and yank the cord when it gets dark. And they do keep a couple of batteries for dc, which covers lights and charging phone, radiotelephone etc.
Second, the sun works in the summer but not so much after three days and more of rain. The generator will be used, but the larger the battery bank, the longer between recharges. I think it’s more important to have more batteries than a whack of solar panels, the power is cheap out of the genset to replenish a low bank. LEDs lighting and a dc system for dc things makes sense, but microwaves eat relatively huge power. Lastly, if you get an electric start genset and an auto start and stop system for it, it hardly matters how much power you use ( relatively ) because all you have to do is haul fuel. (But only around 5 kilowatt or over do they have start systems). The battery system and inverter are for convenience, i.e. always on and ready. But I have friends who just use a little Honda and they just go out the back door and yank the cord when it gets dark. And they do keep a couple of batteries for dc, which covers lights and charging phone, radiotelephone etc.
