Before Looking For Solar Panel Grants

Before you even start looking for grants you’re going to need to figure out what type of system that you want. The easiest way to do this is to simply work backwards. Figure out what your average kilowatt hour per day consumption is and decide what percentage of that you want to generate yourself.

I should mention here that you can opt to produce more energy than you need and sell it back to the grid. If you’ve got the budget for it than over the 25 year lifespan of the panels you would be looking at a substantial return (especially with energy rates going up like they are).

So, let’s say that on average you use 30 kWh of energy per day. In order to figure out how big of a system that you’re going to need you just divide that number by 6 (figuring that on average you’ll get 6 hours of direct sunlight per day) and you’d end up with 5 kW. That means that you’re looking to install a 5 kW system.

Getting a Quote For Solar Panel Grants

Any level of government always wants to know how much things are going to cost before they will fork out any money to you. That means that you’re going to have to get a quote for your system.

I would call up all your local solar panel installers (at least 5) and ask them you’d like a quote for an x sized system (x being 5 kW in our case). This is where things start to look pretty good. The installers are going to come to your house and take some measurements. This is a good time to start picking their brains about solar panel grants.

You see, solar panel installers have figured out that it’s easier to sell a renewable energy system if they can tell the homeowner that they will save thousands of dollars. For that reason, you’ll find that most of them are pretty up to date on what local, State and Federal grants are available at the moment.

A big warning sign to watch out for during the initial quote is if they have no knowledge of grants. This is a sign that they aren’t staying current with what’s happening in the industry and I recommend that you don’t follow up with them.

Doing More Research on Solar Panel Grants

By now you should have a general idea of just how much money you can expect to get from grants; however, it doesn’t hurt for you to do a little extra research. This website is a government website that keeps track of all the grants that are currently available to you.

You can use this website to also do a little background research on the solar panel installers you talked to. You should be able to find all the grants that they were talking about and if you find one that they mentioned that isn’t on the list you know that they are following the news close enough and can scratch them off your list.

A question that gets asked quite a bit is “how much money can I get in grants?”. I really don’t have a good answer for that because it varies by location and also the size of your installation.

The best way (and free) is to get the installers over and do a quote for you. For the most part you should be able to do it for free because they’ll be making tens of thousands of dollars from you if you say yes.

If you’re looking for solar panel grants than just call up some local installers and than verify their report http://www.dsireusa.org/ and you will be well on your way to getting a bunch of money back from the government (and who doesn’t like that!).

For the type of wind generators that you or I will be dealing with (let’s say 10kw and under) there are pretty much only four different types of material that is used in blades.

Wind Turbine Blade Material: Wood or PVC

For the DIYer there’s nothing better than saving money on your project. Both wood and PVC blade materials have been used extensively by DIYers with great success; however, there can be dangers associated with these types of blades as well.

Wood blades are extremely satisfying to build and if built correctly they can work quite well for a DIY project. There is only one problem with them as far as safety is concerned. No matter what you do the blades are always going to get little nicks in them from stuff flying through the air. Unless you do 2-3 month maintenance on the blades where you take them off the tower and inspect them you could be setting up a killer piece of wood. You see, wood blades are sealed with paint or whatever you use to make them waterproof. That’s because when it rains whatever blade has nicks in it is going to start absorbing water. Over time the balance will go out and you could end up with a flying piece of wood that could kill someone.

Avoiding that is pretty simple though… inspect the blades every 2-3 months and while you’re at it check the balance. If the balance starts going out you know that you have a problem and can correct it before something bad happens.

I still remember the first time that I saw blades made out of PVC on a wind generator. I thought “that’ll never work!”. I kind of put my foot in my mouth because not 2 minutes later it started turning when the wind gusted up.

PVC is a decent wind turbine material. The nice thing about PVC is that pretty much all you need to do is cut the blade shape out of the pipe, balance them and you’re ready to go.  In addition, compared to other blade materials PVC simply can’t be beat on terms of price. Of course, PVC does have it’s downsides like the fact that over time they are going to weaken from exposure to UV radiation. Also, PVC blades aren’t very efficient.

That being said, PVC is still the best way to go for a low cost wind generator though. You’ll get maximum bang for your buck and as time and money allows you can upgrade the blades as you see fit.

Wind Turbine Blade Material: Fiberglass

For most commercially available wind generators you’re probably going to find them equipped with fiberglass blades. They are extremely light and exceptionally strong.

The main reason that fiberglass blades are widely used is that they offer good efficiency versus cost. To be more clear… companies make them because it makes them the most money.

If you have the budget for it and can’t afford aluminum blades fiberglass blades are definitely a good compromise. You will have to replace the blades at some point in time, but they usually last quite a few years.

Wind Turbine Blade Materials: Aluminum

If long term is your goal than aluminum blades are the way to go. Unless something heavy hits them they never need maintenance. They will sit atop the tower spinning happily probably until long after you’re dead.

Aluminum blades really only offer a long term cost savings advantage over fiberglass because you’re never going to need to replace them.

There are newer blades coming out using composite materials, but for the scope of the home built wind turbines they don’t really apply because they’re still extremely expensive. When prices come down I’ll probably do a write up about them.

There you have it… the four most common wind turbin blade materials in use for smaller wind turbines today.

Before we get into how you can get started today you should check out probably the best overview video I’ve seen.

For me aquaponics was quite an easy concept to grasp a hold of simply because I’ve had both freshwater and marine aquariums in the past and knew all about water filtration, pH levels and ammonia spikes.

One of the most common questions that is asked is how big can my aquaponic garden be with x tank size?

The answer to that is that you can have anywhere from a 1:1 to 1:3 (tank size to grow bed size) ratio of fish size to grow bed size. That means our 30 gallon tank can support up to 90 gallons worth of grow beds!

Starting Your Aquaponic Garden

This is the easy part. You can either get a small kit or a large kit or you can even take the DIY approach and build it yourself. If you go the DIY route you’re going to need an aquarium and a grow bed in addition to the pump, heater and PVC tubing to connect everything together.

For smaller indoor systems like the example one we’re talking about here (which is 30 gallons) a 100 watt heater, a 100 gallon per hour pump and 1″ PVC tubing is all you need. If you’re going for a larger system just ramp the numbers up accordingly (though 1″ PVC is still fine).

The first thing you’re going to need to do is plumb everthing together. All that means is placing the pump into the aquarium and hooking it up so it can pump water into the grow bed. Than you hook up the return line so that the water can drain back into the aquarium.

Now it’s time to fill the aquarium up with water. Straight tap water is just fine because the tank needs to cycle anyways. Fill the aquarium up and than pump some water up to the grow bed so that the whole system will cycle.

Head on over to your local aquarium store and ask them for some freshwater starter bacteria. You see, you need to jump start what’s called the nitrogen cycle in your tank so that it can function correctly. The bacteria that are added in jump start this cycle so you can be growing plants and fish faster.

Now comes the fun part… leave the tank for 6 – 8 weeks. For the first few weeks that tank is going to remain cloudy, but as the bacteria start working it will clear up. I cannot stress enough how important it is to let your tank cycle at least once. If you get impatient your fish are going to die because your tank can’t yet dispose of ammonia (which is toxic to fish).

If you want to speed up the cycling process you can always add in a couple hardy fish (wait at least a week before doing so). For a decorative fish tank just go to the local fish store and tell them you need some fish to help cycle your tank.

Planting Your Aquaponic Garden

Now is my favorite part… planting! You’re going to need sprouts because you can’t germinate seeds in this system. I should mention that the day you setup the aquarium cycling you can also plant your seedlings so they are able to be transplanted when the tank is ready.

To start growing plants you’re going to need some grow media. Just buy a couple bags and fill up your grow bed. Than it’s just a simple matter of planting the sprouts that you have into the grow bed.

Once the plants are in you can also add the fish in. How many fish to add in though? A good rule of thumb is 1″ of fish per gallon of water. Take into account how long the fish will grow when putting the fish in or you’ll end up with an overpopulated tank!

Caring For Your Aquaponic Garden

This is the easy part! All you need to do is measure the ammonia and pH levels, monitor water temperate and add water as it evaporates.

Measuring ammonia and pH can be done every couple of days and is important so you can maintain balance in your tank. If the ammonia or pH starts going out of wack the easiest thing to do is a 1/3 water change.

The temperature of the water should be kept to what temperate the fish prefer (make sure to check when you buy).

Lastly, remember to top off the water as it evaporates. This can usually be done once a week or so and plain tap water is just fine.

After a little growing time you’ll be enjoying organic produce from your aquaponic garden!

These days there are quite a few listings on eBay for used solar panels and the savings per watt can be quite substantial. The only problem is that in most cases you’re going to have to ask the seller a few questions to figure out whether or not they’re worth buying.

How Old Are The Used Solar Panels?

If the age isn’t listed than you need to ask. The reason being that over time the amount of energy that the panel creates goes down. In addition, the older a panel is the lower the price will be.

Generally, even a 10 year old panel will generate it’s rated wattage simply because most panels when they are new generate about 10% more wattage than they’re rated for (to compensate for the fact that energy production goes down over time).

Another thing about older panels is that they may be damaged. If you’re buying locally always inspect for things like cracked glass or damaged cells. These are quite common problems and they can be fixed with a little time and effort.

Once you know how old a panel is it’s time to figure out how much power it still produces.

How Much Power Do Used Solar Panels Produce?

Here you’re going to need to get out your trusty multimeter. I highly recommend that you splurge a little bit on one that can measure both volts and amps because that way you can figure out how many watts it’s producing.

First, take the panel out into full sunlight and measure the voltage that’s produced (known as open circuit voltage). If it’s a 12V panel for example, it should produce 17+ volts in full direct sunlight. If it’s not producing that many volts you may have a faulty cell somewhere.

Now, turn your multimeter to measuring amps and hook up both the positive and negative leads. This is called the short circuit amperage and will vary depending on how big the solar panel that you’re testing is.

Now comes the fun part… figuring out if the panel is still producing it’s rated wattage. Simply multiply the volts by the amps which will give you the watts. Check that against what the panel is rated for and if it’s near or above what it’s rated for than it’s still in great shape (the higher above it’s rated wattage the better shape it’s in). If you’re getting a low reading than it’s best to do a close inspection of the panel. Either there’s a short somewhere or a loose connection that could be throwing things off.

Are Used Solar Panels Worth It?

For sure! Solar panels are designed to have a lifespan of 25 – 30 years. The nice thing about buying used is that for the same amount of watts produced you could spend 30% – 50% less than buying new. Of course, you probably won’t get the warranty (but make sure to ask!).

Where To Buy Used Solar Panels?

Depending on where you live you may be able to find some local classified listings (also make sure to check things like Craigslist and Kijiji). I also recommend checking a couple times a month on eBay because every once in awhile you’ll find a guy that just wants to unload some solar panels and doesn’t really care about the price. If you’re patient you’ll see one of those listings pop up and you’ll nearly faint over how cheap they are.

Just remember, that no matter what you’re looking for make sure that each panel gets tested so you know how many watts it still puts out. While most people selling solar panels are honest like always you’ll find a few bad apples who have ones that still generate power, but have some kind of problem and they’re not producing they’re rated power.

As long as you do a good visual inspection and get both the voltage and amperage measurements you can be rest assured that whatever used solar panels you decide to buy will work for you.

Choose The Best Inverter Based On How Much Power You Need

I know this seems like a no brainer, but before you do anything you should definitely figure out how much power you’re going to need to power everything. For a small project like a cabin or trailer it’s as simple as taking a look at all the appliances you’re going to be using and figure out how many watts each of them uses.

In order to figure out how many watts an appliance uses all you need to do is take the voltage and multiply it by the number of amps that it draws. There is always a little sticker on every single device that has this information. For example, let’s say my coffee maker draws 110V (standard AC) and draws 2 amps. That means when it’s on it draws 220 watts worth of energy.

Once you know how much energy in watts that everything uses, it’s a simple matter of figuring out what time of day you have the most things on (which is generally in the evening). Write down what’s on at what time during the day and add the wattages up. The highest wattage use during the day is the size of inverter that you need.

Best Inverter: Modified Sine Wave or Pure Sine Wave?

Depending on what you’re going to be powering you may be able to get away with buying a cheaper modified sine wave inverter… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

We discussed earlier what the difference between modified sine wave and pure sine wave inverters is. Basically an AC wave looks like the picture at the left. It goes from -110 volts and up to +110V (which is where the name alternating current comes from). It’s extremely difficult to turn DC into AC so some of the cheaper inverters use a method called a modified sine wave in order to produce their AC.

In the picture at the left you can see that a modified sine wave looks quite a bit different from a true sine wave. These types of inverters are generally much cheaper than their pure sine wave counterparts; however, they have limitations. The only thing I would recommend using a modified sine wave inverter for is for heating/cooling or motors because they aren’t really sensitive to the fact that it isn’t a pure sine wave.

If you’re going to be using anything other than a heater/cooler/motor than you’re going to have to go with a pure sine wave inverter. All electronics are sensitive to the waveform and a pure sine wave inverter is pretty good at mimicking a true sine wave.

Best Inverter: Grid-Tie or Off Grid

This option is reserved only for people who are looking at a larger renewable energy system. For smaller uses like cottages where you don’t have an AC line into the house there’s no need to worry about this step. The reason being is that an off grid system is completely disconnected from the grid and as such you only really need to decide how many watts you need and whether you need modified sine or pure sine wave inverters.

If you’re looking to go down the grid-tie route it’s important that you understand that you cannot use an ‘off grid’ inverter in a grid tie setup due to something called ‘islanding’. A grid-tie system feeds electricity back into the power grid and as such it creates a bunch of problems for the utility company if a power line goes down.

Here’s the problem… if a power line goes down in your neighborhood than the electric company needs to come out and fix it. In order to fix it they need to shut off the power to the affected line, but your little grid-tie system is still feeding electricity into the grid. Grid tie inverters include this islanding support so they can detect when the grid goes down and stop pumping electricity into it so as to not endanger the repairmen.

Input Power and Other Features

Inverters also come with a varying amount of different input voltages so before you can buy one you’re going to need to figure out what voltage the system that you plan to run is going to be. For smaller setups it’s generally 12V, but larger setups can have 24V, 36V or even 48V setups. So make sure you find out that information before buying your inverter.

There are also a ton of extraneous features that are included depending on the model you buy. For the most part you can just get whatever one has the features you like. If you’re doing a grid-tie setup make sure it states that it’s grid-tie or else you’ll be out quite a bit of money.

Where to Buy The Best Inverter?

You can try your local renewable energy store if you have one; however, I’m a big fan of both Amazon and eBay. Amazon has a huge selection and pretty much the lowest price on new inverters that I’ve seen while eBay is good if you’re looking for a deal.

Choosing the best inverter for your setup isn’t hard… just make sure you know what you’re looking for and you’ll be able to filter out and find the perfect one.

There are two different types of hub motors available for ebikes. Those for the front wheels and those for the back wheels. They both have their pros and cons which we’ll be taking a look at.

I highly recommend building your own ebike over buying one because all the parts are readily available and it’s quite a bit cheaper over buying.

Front Electric Hub Motor

As it’s name implies these motors are designed to fit the front wheel of a bicycle. They are quite a bit cheaper because you don’t need to mount a sprocket to them; however, they do have on major downside.

The major downside to these motors is that they produce so much torque that they can actually loosen the nuts and spin in place (that means no quick release on that wheel either). To prevent this from happening there is a little attachment you can get that attaches to the fork of the bike that prevents the nuts from loosening. They can still break, but if you’re looking to save a little extra money on your build they will work as long as you inspect them every once in awhile and make sure they’re tight.

Another downside to the front hub ebike motor is the fact that you cannot use them on a fork that has suspension. Due to the torque that it produces it’s going to bend your fork and pretty much ruin it.

For that reason I recommend that you use rear wheel ebike motors.

Rear Electric Hub Motor

A rear ebike motor is basically a front hub motor that has a sprocket attached to it. They are a little bit more expensive, but they don’t suffer the same drawbacks as a front hub motor does. The reason being that the rear wheel has a nice triangle shape of bars that strengthens it quite a bit. You’ll still need to make sure that the nuts stay tight if you have a higher wattage motor, but overall they are going to be much safer to use.

A rear motor can have anywhere from 6 to 8 rings of cogs on it depending on how many speeds you want to have with your bike. More rings equals more dollars so you can save a bit of money by getting only a 6 speed sprocket.

Electric Hub Motor Wattages

There is a huge range of wattages available for these motors and the higher the wattage the faster you can go, but that also means you’ll need to carry more batteries and generally have a higher voltage battery pack.

I wouldn’t recommend going lower than 250 watts for your ebike. A 250W motor is basically good for 15MPH and will make pedalling significantly easier.

I have seen motors as high as 800 watts and really don’t recommend them unless you’re looking to get into an accident. An 800 watt motor will easily catapult you up to 50MPH and bikes simply weren’t designed to go that fast. Your brakes will get eaten up pretty quick, you can’t stop as fast and at that speed you can cause some serious damage to yourself if you hit something because you’re probably only wearing a helmet.

The happy median in my opinion is a 500 watt motor. 500 watts of power can get you up to a maximum of about 35MPH which is about the fastest you’d want to go with a bike. You’ll get a good mix of range and speed and don’t need a huge battery pack that an 800 watt motor would require.

Where To Buy an Electric Hub Motor?

I did a bunch of searching when I started my electric bike project and the two best places I found were eBay and Amazon. I liked the Currie technologies brand of motors (they have kits too) as they are a company that also builds electric bikes.

Remember that for safety you really should get a rear wheel hub motor and depending on what speed you want to go a motor that ranges from 250 watts to 500 watts will get you speeds that range from 15MPH – 35MPH.

Choosing an electric hub motor isn’t hard and hopefully this clears up some of the questions you had.

A vast majority of people are of the belief that solar panels don’t need to be cleaned. After all, they get rained on which washes them off right? Well… clouds are actually dust and water so when it rains there is actually dirt in the rainwater. You have to wash your windows once or twice a year because they get dirty even though the rain washes them off so why shouldn’t you be cleaning your solar panels?

How To Go About Cleaning Solar Panels

The problem with cleaning solar panels is that in most cases they are on your roof or on an array that is hard to reach. The actual method that you use isn’t that much different from cleaning your windows except for the reach part.

That’s where something like the Mr. Longarm line of products come in. Think of them as a really nice squeegee. They come in different lengths and have what’s called ‘flow through’ tubing (which basically means you can hook a garden hose up to it.

Basically, you’re going to want to wash the dirt off with a cloth and than squeegee all the excess water off. You could just wash them; however, I’m sure you know from cleaning your own windows that this results in water spots.

Here’s a video showing you how to clean solar panels:

When To Clean Solar Panels

This factor really depends on whether or not you live where it snows. Since it snows here I generally clean my panels in the spring and the fall. Every month you should be doing an inspection of your panels anyways and it’s pretty easy to add in a check whether or not they are starting to look a little hazy.

In general though… you should be just fine cleaning them in the spring and the fall. These are times where it’s absolutely essential that they get a clean.

It doesn’t matter if they look dirty or not you can always do a test to see whether or not cleaning them is useful to you. Simply record how many kWh you produce over a 2 week period before cleaning them and than record the kWh that you produce in the 2 week period following cleaning them. I’m sure you’ll find that you’ve generated a few extra watts.

On that note, there’s also an idea that you could use that would let you know whether you should clean your panels or not. All it would take is an excel spreadsheet and recording how many kWh you produce per day.

Obviously, this is a more long term approach, but it’s a little more accurate than doing two cleanings a year. With this method it would be possible to let the solar panels let you know when they need cleaning.

It works like this. You keep track of how many kWh of energy you produce each day and input that into the excel sheet. You make a graph of all those numbers and as soon as your average kWh per day generation goes down by 10% you know that you need to get cleaning solar panels.

Proof You Need To Be Cleaning Solar Panels

The solar panel industry reports that without cleaning solar panels will produce 15% – 20% less energy over time.

That means on an average 3kw installation you’d be losing out on 450 watts of power generation (or 2.7 kWh per day! using the average of 6 hours of full generation per day). Over the course of a year you’re losing out on 985 kWh of energy.

To me spending a half hour or so every three to six months is more than worth it if it means you can generate more energy with what you have. 1 MW is a lot of energy!

If you haven’t been cleaning your solar panels than definitely check out the Mr. Long Arm solar panel cleaning kit. It will more than pay for itself with the extra energy you’ll produce by simply cleaning solar panels.

Before we get to the calculator I’m just going to go over each of the values that are used in the calculator so you can get a more accurate result out of the calculator.

Solar Panel Calculator Desired Daily Power Output

The desired power output is measured in Kwh to make it easier for you to figure things out. The absolute best way to figure this number out is after you’ve taken all the steps in the energy savings guide and reduced your power usage as low as you can make it. Grab your three latest electricity bills and average the amount of Kwh per month that you use and than divide that by 30.5 in order to get an average Kwh usage per day.

Although some people may disagree I always recommend that you add at least 10% – 20% to your average daily Kwh usage simply because there are days when you’re going to use more (and of course days you’ll use less). I like to have that extra buffer right from the get go because than there is no worrying about whether you can or can’t run the dryer that day.

Solar Panel Calculator Solar Panel Watts

Next up is how many watts each panel you have is going to produce. My strong recommendation is that you never go for any panel that produces less than 100 watts (and 220 watt panels are preferable).

The reason for such large panels is simple. As the solar panels get larger the price per watt for them gets cheaper. Solar panels that are cheaper per watt are going to save you money and everybody loves to save money!

Solar Panel Calculator Daily Insolation

While this may seem like a fancy term it actually just means how many watts of power each square meter of solar panels is subjected to each day.

The ‘rule of thumb’ is that on average each square meter of surface area pointed directly at the sun receives 1000 watts of sunlight per hour. Of course, this is different depending on where you are in the world; however, you can use the PVWatts Viewer to figure this number out.

Remember that this number is in Kwh per day! Generally this number ranges from 4 Kwh to 7 Kwh per day (if unsure use 5) as you can generally get 6 hours of direct sunlight hitting your panels per day.

Solar Panel Calculator Inverter Efficiency

Many calculators that I’ve seen don’t take into account electrical losses in the system. Most of these losses happen at the inverter.

Inverters are typically anywhere from 85% – 94% efficient. When checking out inverters for the best inverter remember that buying a more efficient inverter can actually be cheaper than buying more solar panels.

As an example, consider a 3kw installation with an inverter that is 85% efficient. Your solar panels are producing 3000 watts, but you only get 2550 watts out of your inverter because you lose 15%!

If you use that same 3kw installation, but with an inverter that is 94% efficient than you’re going to get 2820 watts out of your inverter. If it’s cheaper to buy a more efficient inverter than an extra 270 watts of power (remember, you’re inverter will need to be able to handle that 270 watts as well) than you’ve saved money.

This isn’t necessarily the case in all situations as inverters come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but as long as you check you’ll find whether or not it applies to you.

I highly recommend that you play around with this solar panel calculator a bit just to see what kind of values it spits out at you. It’s quite interesting to see how orienting your solar panels differently can produce more power (more direct sunlight equals more power produced from the same space).

I really like seeing how different inverter efficiencies can have such a profound effect on the overall system capacity.

Of course, we all have budgets we have to live within. This calculator is going to tell you whether or not it’s better to buy a more efficient inverter or more solar panels.

And… without further ado… here’s the solar panel calculator

Lead acid batteries are without a doubt the best type of battery to use for the choice of batteries in an off grid system. They hold a lot of power and are relatively cheap (as compared to other battery types). The only problem is that over time they hold less of a charge (like most other types of batteries) and eventually they’ll stop holding a charge.

We (like most people) simply threw these old batteries out because we didn’t know that you could recondition a lead acid battery to breathe new life into it.

What Is Battery Reconditioning?

As lead acid batteries go through charge/discharge cycles sulfates begin to build up on the lead plates inside the battery. What that means is that there is less surface area on the lead plates to interact with the charging process. As the sulfates begin to build up even more the amount of charge that the battery holds continues to go down.

What we didn’t know was that there is a little device called a battery desulfator (also called a nanopulser) that can be used to re-dissolve these sulfates back into the battery acid.

It works kind of like this (and I apologize for the electronic references). If you apply very fast high amperage pulses to the battery the sulfates that were on the lead plates get disrupted and get dissolved back into the acid.

If you keep the desulfator hooked up for long enough you can get the battery working to 100% again.

The nice thing about this is that as long as you desulfate the battery before it’s completely dead you can do a number of desulfation cycles which brings the total cost of ownership way down (every time it’s like saving $100 or more).

This is my favorite video that goes into depth about how to recondition battery:

Does Recondition Battery Actually Save Money?

It sure does! Depending on how sulfated the battery is the process can take anywhere from 1 – 3 weeks. In terms of initial cost  a desulfator (a good one) costs anywhere from $60 – $120. In terms of electricity usage you’re looking at less than $10 total electricity used for each desulfation process.

While you won’t save any money from the first battery you recondition… once you start doing more (and many of us have 10 – 20 batteries in our system) the system starts saving you a ton of money. If you figure you do 3 – 5 batteries per year that amounts to a cost of $175 (because you have to buy the desulfator first) whereas if you bought new batteries you’re looking at a cost of $300 – $500.

Our favorite desulfator is the Battery Life Saver 12/24V. Click here to check it out. You can also click here to see if there’s a better deal on eBay.

How Do I Know If I Can Recondition My Battery?

That’s a good question and it really depends on how long you let the sulfates to build up. It’s highly recommended that you do desulfation cycles on batteries to keep them in tip top condition.

There is an easy way to quickly check if your battery is a good candidate though. Just hook up your multimeter to the battery and if you (after a charge) can get at least 11 volts than that battery can be fully reconditioned.

That being said, if your battery reads under 11 volts that doesn’t mean it can’t be reconditioned (as long as it doesn’t read 0V) it just means that the process is going to take longer and there’s a 80% chance that it won’t give good results (the lower the voltage reading the greater the chance that the process won’t work). Generally a voltage reading on a 12V battery that is below 10.6 volts means you have a shorted or open cell. While reconditioning it can rejuvenate the battery you won’t be able to repair the shorted or open cell.

The next thing you’re going to need to check before you proceed is that your battery isn’t a sealed lead acid battery (SLA). Most deep cycle batteries aren’t and it’s easy to figure out whether yours is or not. If there are little caps on top that you can unscrew to top off the water levels than you’re good to go.

Our favorite desulfator is the Battery Life Saver 12/24V. Click here to check it out. You can also click here to see if there’s a better deal on eBay.

Recondition Battery Process

Caution! Always wear safety glasses, remove all jewelry, wear long sleeves, work outside and have someone with you. Battery acid is extremely dangerous and there is a lethal amount of power stored in a battery. Use common sense and you’ll be just fine.

The process to recondition a battery is actually extremely simple. The first thing you need to do is top up the water levels in the battery. Tap water is NOT OK for this step as it contains many trace elements.

The next step is to hook up the battery charger and charge it up. Once that’s done take a multimeter measurement as well as a specific gravity reading (you’ll need a hydrometer to measure specific gravity) and write those two values down.

Now you just hook the desulfator up and let it run for a week or so. After the week is up give it what’s called an ‘equalization charge’ (just hook it up to the charger overnight). Check the water levels and see if they need topping up. Take a multimeter measurement as well as a specific gravity reading. Hopefully the multimeter is now reading a higher voltage (and specific gravity should be higher too).

If you get a higher reading than just keep repeating this process until after the equalization charge your battery gives you a voltage reading of 14.8V (anything above 14V is fine really). It’s important to note that some batteries ‘full charge’ is different so check out the manual that came with your battery.

Our favorite desulfator is the Battery Life Saver 12/24V. Click here to check it out. You can also click here to see if there’s a better deal on eBay.

After a couple desulfator runs your battery will be back up and running at peak performance again… plus once you do a few you’ll start saving serious money every single time you recondition a battery.

As with anything DIY you’re going to be able to get your first panels up and running for less dollars per watt. To do that you’re going to need solar cells. The best price I’ve EVER seen was a deal for 500 cells for $399 on amazon. These are 1.8 watt cells which means you’re cost per watt on the cells is a measly 0.44 cents per watt! Add in the $60 in materials per 72 watts and you’re looking at $90 per 72 watt panel! Check out the deal here. As an aside, I highly recommend that you buy the biggest bundle of solar cells you can get. For example, 108 cells costs about $160 right now, so although 500 seems like a lot (900 watts total) the amount of money you’ll save long term is certainly going to be worth it.

For the DIYers make sure you check out the inverters later on in the post.

Getting Your Feet Wet Solar Panel Kits

If you’re not comfortable installing a larger system than there are smaller 60 watt kits that you can get your feet wet with. Personally, they are quite a bit more expensive per watt than a 130 or 26o watt system, but they are really a great place to start.

Larger Solar Panel Kits

Since we’re trying to keep this as low as possible I’m going to recommend that you start out with either a 130 watt or 260 watt system. I would personally go with the 260 watt kit as you’ll get a decent amount of power out of it and you’ll actually notice the savings.

The nice thing about kits is that you don’t have to worry about anything. All the parts that you need are included and if you’re not very DIY than this is a good solution for you. There are plenty of videos about solar panel installation.

The only thing I’m going to recommend is that if you’re wanting to use a solar panel kit grid-tied that you get a grid-tie inverter. If you’re just planning on using the kit to run a few small things than don’t worry about it.

The Off Grid Solar Panel Kit

An off grid solar panel kit is a little bit different simply because you need to add batteries into the mix.  Since the 130 watt and 260 watt kits both come with charge controllers it’s really just a matter of getting some deep cycle batteries.

In order to save a little money on the batteries go and visit your local golf course and ask them if they’ve switched out any of their golf cart batteries. They usually do this on a yearly basis so if you ask around you should be able to find some. You may need to desulfate them, but still you’ll save over $100 per battery.

Big Kits

If you want to get serious about power generation than a larger solar panel kit will be right up your alley. They were out of my price range when I first started, but if you want to see serious energy savings than a serious system is needed. A 1kw kit can generate upwards of 6kw per day which usually works out to 20% – 40% energy savings (depending how many kw you use per day).

Inverters

I’ve talked before about how to design an renewable energy system so it’s low cost startup, but it allows you to easily expand it. Inverters are a large part of it. You need to buy an inverter that allows you to expand the capacity of your system with just adding solar panels in (after you’ve got your initial setup done).

To that end I recommend that you start out with at least a 400 watt inverter, but preferably go with a 1000 watt inverter. If you’re strapped for cash and just want to get started than the 400 is just fine because it will allow you to at least double your system power (if using 260 watt kits) otherwise get one that’s at least 1000 watts (if you’re going grid-tie than make sure it’s a grid tie inverter).

I hope this gives you enough information to get started on your renewable energy journey today!