Yes, get started, gently, with almost anything, and you'll learn a lot.
I have a very small off-grid system, originally 20Wp PV and now several times that size and with a little wind on the side too. I slightly wish that I'd bought the 100Ah battery that I was offered rather than 'cunningly' economising with a 40Ah, but never mind.
But it gave me the confidence to commission and install a grid-tie PV system 10x even the new, inflated off-grid system's size, and I intend to triple the size of my off-grid system this year given my positive experience.
I'm not addicted. I can stop any time I want to. Really. B^>
Rgds
Damon[ Parent ]
As I mentioned in another post, the primary reason I even wandered into this particular field was due to power outages. Last winter I sat in the dark and cold for two days because I didn't have an independed means of powering things. Never again!
I've already started somewhat small. I bought one of the Harbor Freight 45W kits, and currently have the panels in a temporary frame sitting on the roof, keeping a 100AH AGM battery charged on the ham bench. I have to be careful how much I use, of course, as the HF panels will only put back around 9AH per day, but the past couple of weeks I've been running my radios and an RV fluorescent light a few hours in the evenings.
But I've had to seriously modify my operating habits to keep within that meager 9AH, thus the desire to step up the system size. Also, the 100AH battery won't run much in an outage.
My end-game would be a whole-house system (including A/C if I want to really dream, but that adds an insane amount to the power budget) but I need to make a firm decision I'm going to stay here long-term before I go that far. There's a part of me that wants to move out of town and get 10-20 acres so I have room to do some bigger things, but I also dislike long commutes so...! I also won't do loans so it'll take a few years to save up to the whole-house price tag. [ Parent ]
