Propane delivery

[kalakoa]

Why on earth would you need a 350 gallon propane tanks and then a 12000 watt solar system.

For some reason I thought "pottery kiln".

Note: anything you do that earns income from your home requires a whole other permit... with a public hearing where your neighbors have the opportunity to "weigh in"... so the Planning Commission can "mull" whether you should be allowed to make a living...

[terracore]

"maybe I can get by with an ice chest for a few days?"

Another thing off gridders do is freeze a container of ice in their solar powered deep freeze during the day and put in in their freezer-converted-to-refrigerator at night. It takes extra effort having to move the ice bucket twice a day but it negates the need for extra batteries. You can store power chemically (in batteries) but you can also store it thermally. There are commercial buildings constructed with giant freezers in the basements that super-cool an anti freeze solution during the night when their electrical rates are lower and the office air conditioning is turned way down and use the antifreeze in their HVAC systems during the day when electricity rates peak.

[kalakoa]

Thermal capture can be leveraged: in the morning, take frozen dinner stuff out of the freezer and put it in a cooler with warm beer. By evening, dinner is thawed and beer is cold.

[A friend indeed]

Thermal capture can be leveraged: in the morning, take frozen dinner stuff out of the freezer and put it in a cooler with warm beer. By evening, dinner is thawed and beer is cold.

I like your way of thinking!

---

Why on earth would you need a 350 gallon propane tanks and then a 12000 watt solar system.

For some reason I thought "pottery kiln".

Note: anything you do that earns income from your home requires a whole other permit... with a public hearing where your neighbors have the opportunity to "weigh in"... so the Planning Commission can "mull" whether you should be allowed to make a living...

 I'm retired, other than photography, no other aspirations to produce income...........Even my photography, I give it away.....Society has provided well for me, and I intend to give back.   Just want that proverbial shack on the beach to watch the waves roll in and out, and the people, maybe a good ten years left to do it.

[1voyager1]

Gotta add my experience on this.
We are only 2 people - adults, no children.
We would have monthly electric bills of $185 or more each month while consciously conserving electrical usage, with no spa use.

Nov, 2014 we installed an 4.5Kw grid tie system to an existing home that had pretty much everything to be an all electric home -  refer, range, dryer, freezer, spa/hot tub, domestic hot water. Cost was about $18k before tax credits were taken out.
We paid ourselves back at $200 per month for about 4 years  to recoup the actual cash out of pocket + interest.

The 4.5 KW PV system was just a bit short of providing all our electrical needs, if we did not use our spa.
If we only used 94°F water in it, we still had a fairly large electric bill of $20 to $40 per month above the minimum charge during what was a fairly cloudy, rainy period.

Then a few months ago, we had solar heating added to our domestic hot water, another $5k. No assistance because we are now both retired with no taxable income.

Now, in a relatively dry, sunny period, and with no spa usage, we have been getting some electrical over production.
We now have about 275 Kw (and growing) of electrical overproduction from our PV system through the last 2 or 3 months with no electrical bills received.
We are still waiting for a credit notice from HELCO for our over production.

At the moment one inverter/panel is offline.
We are still producing an excess of electrical power with only a 4Kw sized PV system.
Got other projects on the griddle right now, but, I will chase down the PV problem and  be adding a simple additional solar hot water system specifically for the spa's hot water.
We should be able to use the spa full time and still have no electrical costs after finishing these 2  projects.