I wanted an emergency PV system that was priced and sized for my needs.

Since I always do things

the hard way, I built it myself with components that I liked and would hopefully work. My parts cost
was about $800. I bought two additional batteries which doubled my storage capacity and made it
$1100 all in. I wanted to share this with others who might be looking for new ideas.

My design is based on a particular application. I needed a

system that will run a fridge and freezer in an emergency.
After the food is gone from the fridge, I have lots of power for
SW radio, coffee pot, flashlights, etc. So I wanted something
I could easily wheel out to the backyard, hook it up and catch
direct sun.

My friend Jim suggested we stack the CC, inv. and batteries

on a dolly for easy handling and transportation in and out of
the house.

You can see the dolly-mounted components- wires to reach

the panels and a ground wire-are looped over the handle.
The charge controller is on top of the stack with the inverter
in the middle and the heavy batteries on the dolly’s steel
bottom plate.

The dolly system weighs about 80lbs. Solid rubber tires. I

just wheel it out to the garage run my wires outside to the
panels, plug in the quick connectors and start generating power.

I have 2600w of battery—4x55Ah/660w SLA’s—and I use about 1.2-1.4kwh per day for the fridge
and freezer. I used a Kill-A-Watt unit to do 24hr power draw estimates on different appliances.
Freezer and Fridge burn about 1.3Kw per day. That was my max usage. Computers, radios,
flashlights, fans draw far less. So assuming I can eat through my perishable food supplies in a couple
of weeks and disconnect the fridge and freezer, I won’t be drawing 1.2Kw/day for very long. I will
have a lot of power for neighbors who may need it.

NOTE: I did find that the SLA batteries cause a low voltage cutout on the inverter as the thicker plates
cannot convert chemicals to electricity fast enough. AGM’s have a longer life with deeper and faster
discharges. I would not go with SLA’s again. Only AGM’s.

I have two 18yo 120w panels in an aluminum frame I piano-hinged

in the middle to fold for storage. They are wired in series for 24v to
a charge controller that smoothes it out to 12v and outputs to the
batteries. I use quick connects to attach those wires to the dolly.
The inverter then powers my
AC stuff.

These are the pos/neg

leads to the panels and a
ground wire. The ground is
terminated with a heavy
alligator clip. I use a SS rivet that “just fits” into my house AC outlet ground and clamp the ground wire
to it.

Make sure you fuse your charge controller on the panel input side
and the 12v battery output side. I use
30A ATO auto fuses in a waterproof
holder. I always remove the blade fuses
when not in use so I maintain open
circuits, i.e., the CC will draw power
unless disconnected from the batteries. I
keep a bag of extra 30A blade fuses for
insurance.

The inverter is close to the batteries to attenuate transmission losses. You can see the 150A breaker
between the battery positive cable and the inverter pos feed cable. Make sure you connect multiple
batteries in parallel to maintain a 12v feed to your inverter. Connect the inverter pos/neg diagonally to
the opposite terminals to balance the draw/recharge current from the batteries. Trip the 150A breaker
when not in
use for
safety. The
inverter lugs
are not
covered and
subject to a
horrible
short if
you’re not
careful.

So that’s my story and it’s working very nicely. I would recommend everyone buy a Kill A Watt meter--
$27—and do tests on any appliance or device you want to use. That will tell you the total wattage
draw for your favorite things. Then you can predictably configure your component sizes—solar
panels, CC, Inv., batts, wire sizes, etc.

We had a three day outage several years ago and kept cool and well fed during a hot AZ summer.

Electricity is a barter item! I’ll charge your radio batteries for a week for 1oz of silver. Think about it.