I just had a sudden bout of (dangerous?) inspiration...
I just realized I do have a bunch of small solar panels lying around from various projects and tests and mostly doing nothing. It dawned on me -belatedly- that I could put them to good use -possibly- with a small grid-tie inverter. I somehow previously had this notion that grid-tie inverters were these big affairs for large solar systems with complex disconnects but I was wrong. A quick look on Amazon revealed that there are some in the 1000+ W range that are quite inexpensive ($100-200). So, in principle, I could just quickly hook up a couple of 100W panels I have in storage and probably take care of all the parasitic losses in the house, which would make my Sustainable self happy. A back of the envelope calc suggests a couple of years for payback, which is pretty good.
However, oddly, on Amazon at least, most/all of that type of small units have very few / not encouraging reviews. Looks like this is a fairly new type of product with little/dubious history. Not great. All generic chinese stuff from little-known brands, it seems. Victron does not currently sell a small self-contained unit like that that I could find. So, do you know of any good small grid-tie inverter you'd recommend? (It would have to have an auto-disconnect per the NEC, I believe.)
(I should also look and figure out what would happen to my meter if I were to generate more than I use at any time. That could well be a problem.)
Also, all the ones I saw were MPPT types. Do they have any that you can use with just batteries as input, not solar panels? Cuz then I could use my existing MPPT chargers, a battery bank, and be golden, even at night.
I just realized I do have a bunch of small solar panels lying around from various projects and tests and mostly doing nothing. It dawned on me -belatedly- that I could put them to good use -possibly- with a small grid-tie inverter. I somehow previously had this notion that grid-tie inverters were these big affairs for large solar systems with complex disconnects but I was wrong. A quick look on Amazon revealed that there are some in the 1000+ W range that are quite inexpensive ($100-200). So, in principle, I could just quickly hook up a couple of 100W panels I have in storage and probably take care of all the parasitic losses in the house, which would make my Sustainable self happy. A back of the envelope calc suggests a couple of years for payback, which is pretty good.
However, oddly, on Amazon at least, most/all of that type of small units have very few / not encouraging reviews. Looks like this is a fairly new type of product with little/dubious history. Not great. All generic chinese stuff from little-known brands, it seems. Victron does not currently sell a small self-contained unit like that that I could find. So, do you know of any good small grid-tie inverter you'd recommend? (It would have to have an auto-disconnect per the NEC, I believe.)
(I should also look and figure out what would happen to my meter if I were to generate more than I use at any time. That could well be a problem.)
Also, all the ones I saw were MPPT types. Do they have any that you can use with just batteries as input, not solar panels? Cuz then I could use my existing MPPT chargers, a battery bank, and be golden, even at night.