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I have been procrastinating for a few years now about setting up some solar power. I have a fair amount of land but even so there was a couple trees, one huge one, that would shade me part of the day which is very undesirable. I had always planned a ground mounted array, its easier to access and easy to tilt seasonally for better output. I bought 8 panels a few years ago when a local wholesaler was getting out of the business but more recently decided to go bigger. A tree company is coming tomorrow to cut down that monster tree. I bought a skid of 20 panels, 270Watt and a inverter. The inverter is one of the reasons I am finally going forward with the project. Going with a grid tie setup involves a lot of red tape, even the mounting brackets have to be approved. The inverter I bought is a 5KW off grid Hybrid inverter. It is priority based, normal is solar panels first, then optional batteries and lastly draw any additional need from the grid. It never puts power back into the grid so it is not considered grid ties and that gets around all the red tape.
As I said, batteries are optional but I have some really BIG lithium battery banks available FREE that will be used in the near future after the basic system is operational. A friend bought a huge solar system at auction from a bankrupt company, all he wanted was the panels. That system was what they term a demand shaving system, it reduced the peak demand at the factory thus lowering their entire months electric bill. The batteries are lithium, 300KWH total, comprised of 30 modules 10KWH each. The availability of these batteries is another factor that got me going forward with the project. Really big lithium batteries are VERY expensive, its nothing to have $10K in batteries on a reasonable size home system. I suspect I will only be using one or two modules. The setup will not make me totally solar but should be about 80% or so of my bills.
I decided to post about the project because I though a lot of the fellows here would get a kick out those big batteries. The battery bank tied into a 230KW inverter and then a transformer to the plants service entrance. Here is a pic of the batteries, the big inverter and the transformer. The entire system cost $335K when installed and it was only 2 years later they went bankrupt.
As I said, batteries are optional but I have some really BIG lithium battery banks available FREE that will be used in the near future after the basic system is operational. A friend bought a huge solar system at auction from a bankrupt company, all he wanted was the panels. That system was what they term a demand shaving system, it reduced the peak demand at the factory thus lowering their entire months electric bill. The batteries are lithium, 300KWH total, comprised of 30 modules 10KWH each. The availability of these batteries is another factor that got me going forward with the project. Really big lithium batteries are VERY expensive, its nothing to have $10K in batteries on a reasonable size home system. I suspect I will only be using one or two modules. The setup will not make me totally solar but should be about 80% or so of my bills.
I decided to post about the project because I though a lot of the fellows here would get a kick out those big batteries. The battery bank tied into a 230KW inverter and then a transformer to the plants service entrance. Here is a pic of the batteries, the big inverter and the transformer. The entire system cost $335K when installed and it was only 2 years later they went bankrupt.
If I did I would tell Edison to go stuff it.. 
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