Solar Power

What do the Amish, doomsday preppers, Bible translators,  4WD enthusiasts, round-the-world sailors and eco-warriors have in common?

An interest in living off the grid.

As I get organised to live in a remote village location, I have been gathering information and learning skills to make that life easier. I could just live like the locals, but then I would have no time to do the work I came to do. Subsistence living is a time consuming occupation. Instead, I look into ways to preserve food, produce familiar food from scratch, and power the equipment I need for my work. Along the way I have found myself on the websites of all the above categories, getting tips for off-grid living.

My most recent adventure in off-grid discovery has been in making decisions about what sort of solar set-up* I need. I’ve had a crash course in all sorts of specifics and technical details: panel sizes and types, battery sizes and types, solar controllers, wattage, amp hours, volts…

There are so many questions that helpful people ask but that sometimes leave me more confused. How much equipment do I have? How much power do they draw? What else am I likely to get? Will I want a 12v fridge? (probably not) Will I want a 12v fan? (sounds appealing) What is my budget? (limited). Argh!

I am thankful for the people who have helped me, explaining and re-explaining concepts to me, answering my questions and responding to my blank looks. They have sure helped me to make practical choices, and then they  took on responsibility for compiling the system.

When I fly to Gulf next, I will have with approximately 65kg of solar and radio equipment. I know the weight because I had to do an estimate for my aviation booking. This will give me 190w of power for a 100ah battery. It’s primary purpose is to run an HF radio with some LED lights for night as a positive side effect. Later I will also use it to power my computer, but for the moment my notebook is literally that, a notebook and a pen.

The Amish have not been much help in my solar quest, but when it comes to preserving foods, suggesting manual methods of doing commonly powered tasks and having catalogues of fun hand tools, they are the people to look up. I suspect it is not the Amish running these websites, but people marketing at the Amish and that they also provide paper catalogues for that market. I have been dealing with the more Amish side of village preparations, but solar had been the biggest challenge this time around.

*Others call it a ‘solar system’ but as I am harvesting the energy of the sun, not revolving around it in miniature, ‘solar set-up’ seems more appropriate. That said, I’m tempted to call my solar set-up ‘Pluto’, for although it is small and remote, it still deserves to be counted.