So far, Solar has been our largest investment but also the biggest return.

Our solar system is the only thing that I have not installed myself but I have done all of the electrical work since like adding plugs and breakers. The work was done by Joe and Lisa Pound, a local husband/wife team and great people. Our initial quote included a battery with 1/2 of the capacity that we ended up with on the advice of Joe. The cost increase was substantial but the cost/ kWh dropped significantly and overall that additional capacity is good to have on cloudy days. Right now we have plenty of power for our current needs. The total cost of our solar system was $9,000 installed. I still feel it was a great deal even though battery prices have dropped significantly since we got the system.

Our battery drops to about 75% with overnight air conditioner use and is charged back to 100% most days by noon. On a hot day, this is usually when we crank the AC down to the max and still hardly draw on the battery. We have had the system running for 2 years now and the battery has run through about 100 cycles. LiFePO4 batteries have an expected life of 3000-5000 cycles. We could get even more if we drew the battery down more consistently than we do now.

Solar Power

LV6548 Inverter – 6500 Watt inverter with 2 80 amp charge controllers

14 kWh LiFePO battery (15 x 3.2V cells)

9 x 270 Watt solar panels (Used) mounted on sloped steel rack

Runs: Air Conditioning, Refigerator/Freezer, 3x20amp outlets inside, 1 outside outlet.