Carrie
Size (sf) of a home has little bearing on the cost of a solar electric (PV) system. What you need determine is your useage - just how many/what size, lights, motors, appliances, etc, etc your home will have and how many hours you use them.
Here in our little (640 sf) home in Ninole, we have a PV system I put together using info from Home Power magazine and stuff I bought off ebay and shipped in our container. It has been a real, and interesting, learning experience. Did we make mistakes? - yep. Do we suffer or do without? - nope. We've been living TOTALLY off grid since last Aug. Solar power, catchment, wireless broadband, cesspool, cellphones. Always have cold beer/soda/milk/water/food in the fridge (a dorm sized electric model). We've lost no food to spoilage, but the freezer hasn't had any ice cream in it yet and we kinda stopped making ice because we weren't using it. The original PV system cost me approx $4800 and a neighbor helped me install it. Since then, I had added 2 more solar panels for another $1300, which increases my capacity from 492 to 742 watts. I also changed out to a better charge controller (Outback MX60), that had I been smarter I would have purchased/installed originally. Our costly mistake was ruining and having to replace our first bank of batteries. But knowing, they were at risk, they were the cheapest deep cycle (Sam's Club) I could find and the new bank is doing great. I have purchased a small (400 watt) wind generator that I will add to the system soon after I get the mounting hardware. I do believe this will be the last major change/addition to this system for a long long time. We do have a Honda EU3000 gas generator that we run when using the washing machine or during the extended non sunny periods - like before 2 weeks ago.
Our main house, which we are building, will have a completely separate PV/Battery system of 36 panels - 4.5kw. We did have to double the size of the system due to the pool pump. I will assist in the professional installation and given our experiences with our small system, I have no qualms about living with this one. Installation of these panels we begin in very near future.
If anyone has a specific question, please feel free to email me through the forum.
A good website/forum for solar info:
http://www.wind-sun.com/smf/index.php
Nobody would ever confuse me for a tree hugger/enviro wacko type, but we are very happy with our off grid systems.
David
Ninole Resident
