School me on Solar Generators

Parker Schreiber

Parker Schreiber

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My home power has been quite reliable, but when I lose power, it means I lose both heat (oil furnace) and water (well).

I’m thinking a smallish (2000 watt) solar generator might be a good thing to have. I know myself well enough to know not to trust myself with the car and feeding of a gas powered one.

Does anyone have one of these things and are they worth the money?
 
Putting those two words together was a genius marketing gimmick. The solar panel is too small to effectively recharge the battery in a timely manner, even less so in a NE winter with our limited insolation.

Any sort of generator is going to need a hefty peak output to start up a forced hot air furnace, and even more so for a well pump, plus the latter likely needs 240VAC.

Parker Schreiber said:
when I lose power, it means I lose both heat (oil furnace) and water (well).
I’m thinking a smallish (2000 watt) solar generator might be a good thing to have. I know myself well enough to know not to trust myself with the car and feeding of a gas powered one.
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2000W is likely insufficient by half.

My first step would be to check the voltage and starting amps needed for your furnace, and for your well pump. If you're going to set things up so the generator can only start and run one or other, the bigger of the two would determine the peak output required.

If you already keep propane tanks around (e.g. for BBQ), you can get a propane-fueled inverter generator, slightly easier to maintain than a gasoline engine.
 
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I agree with Kevin, 2k watts will not be enough. Solar in the winter likely won’t keep up either.

My old oil furnace used a dedicated 20amp circuit and had a big startup wattage. Well pumps are sometimes 240v or at least my old one was. Before you buy anything find out what those numbers are. Also check everything else you plan to cover with a generator during an outage.

I was able to convert to gas and got rid of my 240v needs entirely except for my central air.
 
As has been pointed out the term is a gimick. With a 4kw gen you get continuous 4k ( or near enough) power. With a battery box you get 4k and as soon as that’s used up it’s gone. Which even if you buy one with a 240v output is going to be pretty quick.

To get one large enough to do what you want you’re probably looking at Maybe 10-15 k. And unless you are installing a large solar array to charge it’s going to run out in a day. Better off going with a 4kW Honda or a dual fuel inverter gen or if you have the 10 -15k installing a general with ATS

All that being said if you’ve got all your other bases covered they are an awesome luxury to have for 240V output I’d go with parallel Apollos or the latest Ecoflow product.
 
I agree with the Propane fired Generator. What we did was buy a 10K dual fuel unit. This gives us 50amps to the panel. The whole house can be run with limitations.
We have the 8.3 gal. tank filled with non-ethanol gasoline and have the propane tanks attached to be turned on as needed.
Thirty gallons of gasoline on the floor and 270 lbs. of propane in (2) 100lbs. tanks a 30 and (2) 20lbs tanks.
 
DC -> AC circuitry is really poorly suited to high inductive loads. Startup power consumption can be momentarily 10x running power. Generators and the power grid have a spinning flywheel that provide extra inertia to provide this extra power. Your battery bank has no such extra reserves, so every time your motor starts you're going to be losing voltage, increasing heat, and reducing the lifespan of your equipment. Unless ofc you have enough power to satisfy startup.
 
Yep, solar gen would be good for fridge or freezers / lights etc, but not a furnace.
My Generac LP powered 3850 watt struggles hard to start my oil furnace, but it does it, then runs fine.
Not an electrician but I'd say you need 4K watts.
 
I have a Jackery 2000 with 4-200Watt solar panels. There is a picture of it somewhere in the prep of the day thread.
I cannot run my new gas dryer on it. I wish I never got rid of my old dryer with a standing pilot!
It will run everything else.
As Kevin said it is hard to keep it charged up in the winter.
The most input I ever got from the 4 panes in the summer was 790 watts.
That said in June of last year it kept 3 refrigerators, one freezer, a sump pump and a 3000w ac going for three days.
I also have a 500 watt one that i use mostly when I travel in my 4runner to keep my portable fridge freezer going.
As Kevin said it is not an end all solution to run like a whole house generator but for me it will run everything but my clothes dryer quietly.
 
One other thing to note.
If you intend to get one make sure the make you get allows you to replace the battery.
Jackery requires you to send the whole unit to them.
 
jakeroub said:
Is a “solar generator” really just a solar panel + inverter with a new, cool, trendy name?
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Inverter + battery. I hate the phrase. That battery can be charged by solar, or wind, or a squirrel on a wheel. What they call a "solar generator" doesn't generate a damn thing.
 
So my company is based around generators - mostly marine applicaitons, but we also power firetrucks, emergency shelters, .gov etc up to about 75KW.
If it was my house (and you have the coin) - there's no beating a duel fuel Onan (cheaper side) or Kohler. Our entire office building can be powered by our rooftop 30kw that can run Nat gas/Propane or Diesel. Something that fancy is expensive, but you can get a duel fuel setup with ATS for $10-20k depending how fancy you want the unit. If you want diesel as your primary fuel source, Kohler and Onan both offer 100gal tanks for the generator to mount on.
 
If you want solar generator check out Bluetti. They are as far as I know the only one to use lithium iron phosphate batteries. Which means you can recharge the batteries up to 3500 times.

Jackery and other models used standard lithium batteries which can only be recharged 500 times.

I used Bluetti for my concession stand and with the solar panels on a sunny day I almost never use any of the battery.
 
x2 on the Lithium Ion Phosphate batteries.
I have acquired 3 now as money permits, they are hella expensive but supposed to be the latest greatest. Super lightweight too comparably speaking.
I did the "seperate" route and not the solar generator route with this too.
Solar panes = Harbor Freight and Lowes. I think I have about 6, some 100w, some 250w
Inverter = Renogy 2500w
3 Chinese no-name LiPo4 batteries off Amazon

I should probably test this system out as WW3 is upon us today.......
 
lancecolonel said:
Care to expand on this? Talking about well pump? Interested to know more…..
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Hand well pump thread
I hooked my lever vane pump up in parallel using ball valves, so can use either the AC electric pump, or the hand pump.
Another method is 12 volt pumps, pump up to a high tank and use gravity, or pressurize a bladder tank.
Lots of info on this at van, camper solar conversions, off grid. DIY solar electric battery pressurized hot water, 1 or 2 gallon.
 
My work owns a rental building. Each unit is 3 floors maybe 1600-2000 sq ft. We have each unit hooked up to a few ecoflows and get about 22-23 hours of backup power. This includes running the heat which uses almost nothing.
 
Greg7580 said:
If you want solar generator check out Bluetti. They are as far as I know the only one to use lithium iron phosphate batteries. Which means you can recharge the batteries up to 3500 times.

Jackery and other models used standard lithium batteries which can only be recharged 500 times.

I used Bluetti for my concession stand and with the solar panels on a sunny day I almost never use any of the battery.
Click to expand...

Ecoflow also has LiFePO4 batteries. So far this seems to be one of the best Amazon Black Friday deals:

Ecoflow Delta 2
 
A current generation EG4 solution, a few thousand dollars in good quality batteries, a few thousand dollars in cabling and a small solar panel setup in a maintainable slice of land is what you are needing. The marketing term sells you a toy which can keep your cellphone and tablet charger after hour number 2 of an outage. At best.
 
Blackmore said:
Found this guy in my research. Looks interesting. The Amazons has a 48v battery for $800 which is $400 cheaper than his linked one.

You can charge off normal 110v and add panels later if you like.
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Unfortunately, for my well pump 4000 watts appears to be the minimum, and even that may be marginal.
 
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