Selfsufficientish.com

The recent weather in December and early January conspired to couple almost complete lack of wind with no sunshine, high pressure gloom I think they call it. Despite cutting load to the bare minimum I was forced to use a grid connection for a while. It was disappointing to have to do so. and I must ...

Greetings and croeso (welcome) from Wales

Greetings Tracy, and welcome to 'ish.

Always wondered as a child why the "warmer morial" seemed just as cold as everywhere else.

Greetings Rachel, and croeso from up the road.

Greenorelse : Thanks for that, no I haven't read it, and although I use a 120 volt setup some parts will no doubt be relevant. One of my major concerns is to ensure that the construction is sufficiently substantial to survive the winds up here. Fortunately the kids have grown up and flown the nest. ...

Hello Peter, The design of your installation is dependent on what equipment you plan to power, and for what length of time. A couple of batteries whether charged in situ or remotely, running one or two 12 volt led lights from time to time will be fine, but more load means more complexity. Good luck ...

Welcome Solarinstallation to 'ish and thank you for your input. Whilst I concede that clean environmentally safe energy will only take off when it eventually becomes commercially viable for the majority, my own personal motivation is the dual satisfaction of knowing that all the electricity generate...

Greetings Clare and croeso from Snowdonia.

Yes, it depends on the intended use, I would choose an inverter rated at twice the anticipated load in order to avoid starting surges destroying it. They don't like it.

I have been down the 12 volt route and have now adopted a 120 volt system. This gives a number of advantages. The cost of cable, rectifiers and inverters are reduced. Losses in rectifiers etc are reduced by 90%. 120 volts dc can be used to power ordinary immersion heaters, electric kettles, washing ...

Having installed 800 watts of solar panels on a south facing pitched roof, it seems that a sun tracking solar panel would be considerably more efficient in direct sunlight. I have constructed a panel containing 10 x 40 watt modules approximately 1.4 x 2.8 mtrs. I intend to mount the panel on a rotat...