this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025
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Neat breakdown with data + some code.

(page 2) 50 comments
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[–] tal@olio.cafe 13 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (5 children)

What I want to do is find out what the maximum size battery I would need in order to store all of summer's electricity for use in winter.

I mean, I think that it's probably not a good idea for this guy to try to go fully off-grid if he has access to the grid, but for the sake of discussion, if one were honestly wanting to try it and one is in the UK, I'd think that one is probably rather better off adding a wind turbine, since some of the time that the sun isn't shining, the wind is blowing.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/322789/quarterly-wind-speed-average-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

Wind speed averages in the United Kingdom are generally highest in the first and fourth quarters of each calendar year – the winter months.

The UK is one of the worst places in the world in terms of solar potential:

https://globalsolaratlas.info/

But it's one of the best in terms of wind potential:

https://globalwindatlas.info/

[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 7 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

Small wind turbines are really, really poor. You need to go high to access the good air-streams and wide to get useful efficiency out of the turbine. Any wind turbine you put on your roof will vastly under-perform for the cost spent on it.

[–] tal@olio.cafe 9 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I'd be pretty comfortable saying that buying enough battery storage to power-shift a year of power is more expensive.

[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (8 children)

O, absolutely. The reality is the only reasonably economic way to do off-grid is with solar, battery, and a diesel or propane generator to top off the batteries when solar isn't cutting it.

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[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 62 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (16 children)

they generate about 3,800kWh per year. We also use about 3,800kWh of electricity each year

Obviously, we can't use all the power produced over summer and we need to buy power in winter. So here's my question: How big a battery would we need in order to be completely self-sufficient?

O, god, it's going to be huge. You really can't do the off-grid thing unless you have enough power production to satiate you over any given 3-day moving window. Trying to store power from summer until winter is going to be too expensive, instead buy more panel.

This isn't even going into the fact batteries lose charge slowly. So any power generated in summer will be much diminished by winter, even if you have big enough batteries.

[–] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 7 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

they generate about 3,800kWh per year. We also use about 3,800kWh of electricity each year.

Holy shit. I think we used that much last month, which is higher than average but not that high for August around here.

[–] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

How ? Is it just AC ?

We oscillate between 300 and 800kwh per month and it's with an old water heater, an electric car charged at home, a dryer and electric oven.

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[–] oyo@lemmy.zip 3 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

You leave 5,278 LED light bulbs on 24/7?

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[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

glad I'm not the only one that noticed that.

last time I checked I was using around 4600-5800kwh from May to August. the rest of the year its 3300-4200.

I live in a dual zoned 5200sqft home and my average power bill is around $900.

I've had solar sales try to talk me into solar panels but once they see my consumption they stop answering my calls lol. could be because I told them I'll buy once I can get net zero.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 7 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

could be because I told them I’ll buy once I can get net zero.

I'm not following your logic. You aren't willing to accept any savings unless you can completely zero out your power bill? Judging from your consumption I'm assuming a good chunk of that is for cooling your home? If so that means you're likely in a pretty great place to harvest solar power. You'd reach payback of your investment on your array much faster than most, and be saving money for probably 35 years or more with little to no additional investment.

Making some guesses for how much your electricity rates are, and how much you're consuming (assuming much from cooling), you might be a full payback in less than 7 years if you took advantage of the tax credit. Then, every month after that you'd be gaining money back.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

my house is over 120 years old. it still has knob and tube in half the house. I have even found gas lines for the old sconces, that were "conveniently" used as grounds for said knob and tube in some places. the house is a nightmare, electrically speaking. the only new-ish electrical are the HVAC systems, the 200amp panel, and the basement (where the rack lives).

for me to get proper solar installed, it would cost more than the house cost to buy. For me to find it in any way cost effective, I would need my $900 a month power bill to pay for the $200k loan on top of my mortgage.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

That house sounds like a terrible investment.

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[–] ThunderQueen@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Wtf?? Are you running a crypto farm or something?? $900 is insane

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

that's an average btw. last months bill was $1100.

this month is already at $960 and we're only halfway through the month.

this year has been lower than previous. I had new insulation installed last November.

highest bill I have ever seen was around $2200 which is over my monthly mortgage.

no crypto farm. though it would probably be higher if I was.

[–] orgrinrt@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I have personally never seen a bill of more than 60€ per month. I have some friends living in bigger houses, not apartments, and they tell they can get over 100 fairly frequently, the bigger ones more in the North can get over 200 in the winters, but even still, I’ve never even heard of anything reaching 300.

But I’m in my thirties and don’t really know anyone from beyond upper middle class. That might help explain my experience if it happens to be the outlier, but just reading the responses to this, I might not be the outlier here.

Anything four figures is just crazy surreal to me. I can not even imagine what it takes to reach that kind of electric usage. Or maybe it’s just extremely expensive, not the usage itself being crazy? I would think living in a place where sustaining one’s existence requires that kind of resource usage would be very hostile against settling and building in general?

But if it’s just personal usage rather than the regional climate or whatever, and an insane price of electricity isn’t the main reason, then I don’t even know what to say. That’s crazy.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

it's kind of a mix of everything.

I grew up poor. like, "take a nap for dinner" poor. I was afforded great opportunities that allowed me to become comfortably wealthy, as in I can freely go to the store and just buy groceries without concern. This is important because I always promised myself that when I grew up I would live comfortably.

I keep my house between 68F-72F year round. I don't open my windows because I have terrible allergies (that my kids have also inherited). at least half of my bill is just heating and cooling. the other half is likely a mix of the servers and the regular appliances.

I have family ranging from 30-60 years old. when I told them how much I spend on power their eyes popped out. they don't run their hvacs as much as I do, and actually use their windows and attic fans. they also don't have the allergic reactions I have either so 🤷.

in my old home, 1600sqft, our highest bill was around $300, and that was still high for the area. our neighbors were average between $100-$150. they were in their 70s though, so likely they didn't use their hvac as much either, nor the technology I was running.

[–] orgrinrt@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Fair enough, that’d explain it. I did expect air conditioning to be a big part of it, kind of makes a lot of sense that you do run servers as well.

Still, that’s a huge bill to eat each month.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

Still, that’s a huge bill to eat each month.

don't I know it 😭

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[–] plz1@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

is that per-month, or for the whole span?

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
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[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 22 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (9 children)

Seems to me his panel capacity is to small anyway.
We have 11 kWh panels, and yes in the summer we routinely produce 4 times more than we use, and we have a 7.5 kWh battery But November December and January it's not even close to enough.

In the Winter you can easily have a week with near zero production:
Our Import / export from grid last year:
November 215 / 59 kWh
December 300 15 kWh
January 268 / 34 kWh

Despite we have almost 3 times the capacity, and produce more than twice what we use per year, and we have a decent battery and believe it or not, even the shortest day we can produce enough power for a whole 24 hour day if it's a clear day! But we can also have clouds for 14 days!
But for those months we imported 783 kWh and exported 108 that could have been used with bigger battery. But the net import was still 675 kWh!! For those 3 months, and that's the minimum size battery we could have managed with, and then we even need 10% extra to compensate for charge/discharge losses.

TLDR:
Minimum 740 kWh battery in our case, and that's without heating, because we use wood pellets.

That means it would require at least the equivalent of 10 high end fully electric car batteries. But also a very hefty inverter, which AFAIK ads about 50% the price of the battery.

PS: Already in February we exported more than we imported.

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[–] Sxan@piefed.zip 6 points 11 hours ago

Factorio has prepared me for þis challenge...

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 22 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (7 children)

Basically why the grid exists to begin with. You're not supposed to be solving these engineering problems on a household budget inside a single home.

You'd be better off simply reducing your consumption or finding alternative methods of power (nat gas or maybe wind or geothermal) during the longer winter nights.

If you really want to go crazy, you should consider investing in a bigger home with better insulation and roommates. An apartment/condo block can at least leverage economies of scale, if you're dead set on DIY. More people benefiting from the setup dilutes the cost per person.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 11 points 16 hours ago (7 children)

I recently got a solar system and came to the conclusion that if you can sell power back to the grid (not everyone can) for some reasonable percentage of what it costs to buy it, then it will always be worth it to be connected (assuming you already are).

Quite simply, if you have enough solar capacity to get you through the winter (no house is going to have months of battery storage), then you will always be creating far more than you need in the summer. Selling this excess will easily cover any costs associated to being on the grid.

Also at current prices batteries are good for backup power only, it's always cheaper to sell excess power to the grid in the day and buy it back at night than it is to have battery capacity to get through the night. I worked out it would take 40 years for our battery to pay for itself (assuming the battery kept a constant battery capacity for 40 years...) but less than 10 years for the rest of the system to pay for itself.

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[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 hours ago

You can plug your system into a free platform like opensolar, which allows you to play with the design to see what the effect of upgrades would be during the course of the year.

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