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Fun-Succotash6777 t1_j4lrn5m wrote

As others have said, you would need an intense battery set up and probably a big overkill on the panels themselves to make it through Thanksgiving-Valentine's Day (or maybe more). A backup generator would be a less-eco friendly but more budget friendly solution. If you're only powering maybe a fridge, lights and a television, you're going to get a lot further than if you're also doing laundry, vacuuming, cooking with an electric stove/kettle/microwave, using a hair dryer, dishwasher and electric hot water tank.

I looked into doing a battery backup on my small cabin's solar install but both companies I got quotes from told me 2 Tesla batteries would only keep my 800 square foot place powered for 2-3 days with extremely minimal or no usage of the heat pump and none of the "extras" - keeping it set to 40ish degrees or using the wood stove.

I will say it adds insult to injury that I get charged an "energy efficiency fee" by Green Mountain Power on the total kilowatts I use INCLUDING what I generate :/

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InformationHorder t1_j4n91ai wrote

You would be surprised how efficient it is to use the backup generator to fill batteries only when necessary. Takes less than an hour to top off a power wall from near empty and burns maybe 2 gallons of propane in the process. And it doesn't have to happen all that often.

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Fun-Succotash6777 t1_j4qdfri wrote

Good to know! A decent solution if you're far from a grid tie in (especially now when running wire is so expensive - maybe even a good temporary solution while we hope and wait for the price of that to go down).

OP, the biggest issue you may run into with this build is almost every lender will require you to be on grid. I believe some people on this sub before have listed some smaller local banks that may fund a project like this.

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