Hey, anybody do a grid tied solar setup yet. What I'm thinking of is setting up to grid tie a small 120 watt system that I have out at the BOL that I use only for back up, so far. We're only there 2 weekends a month and it's just sitting and keeping the batteries charged 100% of the time. If I grid tied it I'm thinking that 26 days of the month it could be offsetting the draw from the frig and maybe the heater kicking on occasionally? To much trouble or ?? "Pack" input please!

Prepper

Got a 5Kw grid tie system a year and a half ago. It has been great, some months we have no bill at all. I have been looking into adding the battery/ charging setup but that would be another 10 to 20k$ that I just don't have at the moment. Me and the lady have done zero to try to use less energy, i'm sure we could get it down to no bill all year long if we tried.

9.4KW grid tie system, we love it, 120W would not be feasible, losses and finding an inverter that would connect to the grid would be difficult. My system runs at 300 to 400VDC

120 watts would not be worth your time to grid tie, Plus if the grid goes down your system will go down too, to keep from killing a lineman. However you can grid tie and have a battery backup system Islanded away from the grid, but its an expensive option. You are simply not making enough energy to even fool with feeding back into the grid; net metering or getting a check from the power company.
2.5-3kw would be a good low end start for grid tieing

Hey, thanks guys - I was figuring that it might not be worthit or even possible... You know how it is, you get an idea and need to check it out. Just looking for something productive to use as a wattage sink for after the batteries are charged, which is almost always! I'll just be happy with the back up system and wait for the funds to show for a real system!

Prepper

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/2941/solarcells.jpg
It's only about 6-months old. (5.5kw)
I'm still learning about billing/budgeting stuff with the electric company.
We did it because of the huge kick in from various State agencies and tax rebates.
Otherwise it wouldn't have been worth the investment.

Wow, looks great! How much did you end up paying after the rebates and such

Prepper

I don't really think a grid-tied system does what most people in this forum want....provide independent power.

Now, here in southwest Colordado, you can get some pretty dang good rebates from the local power company. They will give you a $2 rebate watt for grid connected solar up to $3000 total. In addition you can still get the 30% solar rebate from .gov on the same money ( I think ). They will also net meter throughout the year and cut you a check once a year for excess power at the average value for the year. They have a nice big 25Kw generating capacity window.

The downside is that you still don't have reliable power if the grid goes down unless you add a battery backup.

With the new micro-inverters that are panel mounted things get pretty affordable. Last time I added it up you could get a 1.5Kw grid-tied solar power system for almost 'free' once you got your rebates back.

The downside to the panel mounted micro-inverter is that there is no real easy way to add storage capability without a second inverter system, which then, is not very cost affordable.

I think the ideal setup around here, but your not going to find it, would be a 25kw hydro setup that could run year round. If you could pump that 25kw back into the grid 24/7/365 you would get a nice little check at the end of the year. Getting next to a water source that flowed freely year round in Colorado is the hard part.