In March 2016, we installed a 7.5 KW photovoltaic system, that comprises of thirty x 250 Watt Solar panels, an Outback Power Inverter system and 12 x 4 volt 1104 Amp Hour Flooded Batteries. The idea of this system is twofold: to produce power and sell it to the grid, and to establish comprehensive off-grid capabilities.
How Our System Works
We have an agreement with New Brunswick Power. They apply a credit to our account that offsets future bills. This is called net metering. Our energy needs are served with solar power, when possible. If not, we get grid power. When the grid is down, we run off of battery power. When the batteries are full and we have excess solar production, it gets fed to the grid, offsetting our grid utilization costs. Should we choose to, we can disconnect from the grid any time.
Performance to Date
Everything has been working flawlessly. We have had no problems with this system. We are pleasantly surprised by how well the system is running (knock on wood). When the system was new, there was a small software glitch pertaining to the reporting of the battery level status, but this was fixed in a software update. I expected the system to be complicated
and finicky but it's been really steady and reliable.
Here are some of the benefits we get from this system
- Small power outages do not affect us at all, we don't even notice them
- Extended power outages have not impacted us
- Flawless power feed off of the batteries: no longer blowing any light bulbs
- Monthly power bills are significantly lower
- Exposure to power rate increases is reduced
- We can disconnect from the grid entirely & generate our own power
Reducing Your Energy Consumption
My husband has spent quite a bit of time monitoring and fine tuning our energy usage. He's got it down to knowing exactly how many watts of electricity we use, what each appliance draws and so forth. I am most often the cause of his graphs and charts spiking :)
When you actually see how much money you are throwing away or "donating to the power company" you become quite motivated to eliminate energy wastage. Here is a quote from my husband 
I cannot underscore how important this part is. Your energy awareness and philosophy must be correct if you are going to ever successfully make a go of the energy limitations of a reasonable sized solar array and battery bank. The panels and batteries and inverters .. those are just tools. If you ask too much of them, they will not work for you. Trust me when I say that the most important part of solar design is you, and your energy use. Start there.
Appliances
For the most part we are running regular appliances, though high efficiency. We've just ordered a new stove that is entirely propane and the only problem appliance we really have is the clothes drier. We hang clothes on the line as much as possible and always look at the energy draw of any appliance before we buy it. We are also running a wood furnace rather than the electric system. This results in a draw of less than 1kw in the winter time. The furnace runs Nov-March and in the shoulder months we run the small wood stove in the house. My husband runs low power computers and we keep fine tuning things so that if we want to disconnect from the grid it won't be a problem to do so.
Things You Can Do
There are energy measurement tools such as the Kill A Watt, e-Gauge(Amazon Affiliate link) that we've found extremely useful. It's really easy to use. Plug whatever item you want into the device and it will tell you the kilowatt per hour that it uses.
You can also look at things like:
- Low voltage computers & electronics
- Turn off the television
- LED light bulbs
- Gas stove, wood stove, non electric appliances
- Energy efficient appliances
- Propane/gas appliances
- Washing lines
- Unplug things that aren't in use
- Mindfulness
Even if you aren't planning on installing solar, changing your habits will save you money and benefit you in the long run!