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I have been trying to get solar panels on the roof for years, and just can’t make the Return on Investment to work in less than 10 years. My state of Indiana is not solar friendly, they are power company friendly.
So I began looking at one of my loads – specifically the large upright freezer in the garage. Nameplate amperage was the beginning of the decision to focus on this one appliance. 5 amps. That’s most likely inrush current getting that refrigerant motor started. 600 Watts.
I decided on this appliance because it has roughly $700 worth of meat inside. One long unplanned summer outage away from ruining several hundred pounds of beef, chicken, pork, along with a smattering of vegetables we two carnivores plan to live off for months.
I have some working knowledge of electricity – mostly 3phase high voltage stuff – but I understand the value of a kWh (kilowatt-hour) and this freezer, although only a couple years old, costs about $100 a year at 17¢/kWh, but is one of the most valuable things in the house considering what we keep inside, and summer is the time for unplanned outages, and the time of year I’m least likely to be able to “ride through” an outage with a 90ºf garage sucking all the cold out of it. (Now is not the time to tell me “there’s no such thing as cold, nyanyanya!” I know.)
I devised and hatched a plan to back up the potential loss of alternating current feeding the tall square hungry white beast in the garage. I looked at Bluetti, Jackery, Solix, and some of the others and decided on a 1kW battery from Anker Solix and a portable 200W solar panel. I figured the battery is expandable and so is the solar array in case I’m wrong about how much stored power I need during an outage.
ROI does NOT fit into this project, because it’s not about getting off the grid or having the lights on while everyone else is dark, it’s solely about buying insurance to keep that freezer below 6ºF. in the summer, and having a traveling 120v power source on road trips during the winter.
The Solix C1000 cost was $399 and the solar panel was around $100 when I bought it 2 years ago. Obviously the cost benefit is only part of the project… the real benefit is in peace of mind.
A few things I’m very happy to learn:
1. When the battery has both AC and DC power available for charging, it prioritizes DC power from the solar panel. Cool! I want it to draw from solar until night, when AC will “top off” the battery to 100% ready for the sun to rise again.
2. The freezer compressor motor draws 90W and has about a 70% duty cycle in a 90º ambient temperature garage. So even when it’s summer hot, it’s only drawing about 60Wh. (if you did the math, it’s 63Wh, but I said “about” 70% duty cycle, it’s really hard to know exactly.)
3. Without solar assist, the battery alone will operate the freezer for 15-17 hours. My first day testing brought it down to 20% in 14 hours when I panicked and plugged the battery back into house power.
On the second day (today) I installed (literally tossed it on the roof without fastening it) the portable solar panel and wired it through a window and plugged it into the C1000. I did this at dawn, so to start with a fresh 100% battery thanks to household current, I unplugged house power and watched. Early morning sun at 6:45 provides about 5 watts. Facepalm.
So the battery drained to about 75% by 11 am when the miracle happened. The sun was now bright in a cloudy Midwest sky with big blue patches of clear path between those fluffy white power interrupters. I saw numbers around 150W and more… the best number I saw around solar noon was 170W – which is fantastic for a 200W rated portable solar panel literally tossed on the roof without optimizing the angle to 30º. By two pm the battery was back to 90%.
I guessed correctly on both the size of the battery and solar panel. As I write this at 4pm it’s still at 90% and charging. This means as long as I have decent weather, without using any AC, I can power this freezer on battery and solar alone for a couple of days.
I was pretty stoked to see the gain of 10% over a couple of hours. It got better:
A half hour later, with a load of 108W (likely due to the heat of mid-afternoon) it reached 90%.
I plugged the AC power cord back into the battery and was pleased to see no AC input charge… the battery prefers DC power to charge and every watt in excess of the 108W being discharged increases the battery capacity percentage.
In a few hours, the sun will be west of the panel and DC input will drop off completely as night begins when I assume the AC power will bring the battery back to 100% rather quickly. It’s 4:30 now and it’s 91% with a DC input of 123W.
I have a resilient, low maintenance backup system with equipment that I can easily take on the road in the winter when outages are far less common, and garage temperature rivals freezer temperature.
I wasn’t sure if I had a big enough battery, or enough solar capacity. Both can be easily doubled, to include the garage fridge, or the inside fridge, or if I’m ambitious – the house AC unit.
This is me dipping my toe in solar power – the power company now fears me as they will have to live without my $100 worth of power annually that used to run my freezer.
I’m so glad I did this. A modest solar panel is sufficient for a 1kW battery backup. I tried to add screenshots of the app showing battery percentage and DC recharge power, but something about attributes and legal stuff wouldn’t allow me to publish so I just deleted them until I learn how to diary.
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