zlacker

>>bookof+(OP)
So living on a narrowboat in the UK this is something I have experience with. We have a 335 W panel with an MPPT connected to a 200 Ah 12 V flooded lead acid battery. The battery in reality has a capacity of half that and in the 6 years of seasonality it has probably halved.

A few things :

* you don't need a fridge in winter so you can just turn it off. * charging battery banks / laptops in sunny periods results in the battery bank being useful in times when the weather isn't so kind. * no amount of solar is enough in the deep of winter. * any amount of solar is too much in the height of summer. * pubs are great for charging devices. * lead acid batteries last substantially longer if you only let them drop to half their true capacity and regularly charge them. Yes alternatives exist but there's something to be said for making what you have work for as long as possible.

>>marksb+ll
Sure, but the entire point of the article was to get rid of batteries so I don’t understand what point you are making. This guy was trying to live life with solar panels connected directly to his devices, no batteries at all.

>>cgh+Su
The problem with that is that you can have a brownout from a single cloud passing. I note that his "living farm" example is much larger - scale helps. The more you have a "microgrid" or even, you know, the real grid, the more things can balance out without so much need for batteries.

It is quite dramatic how much cheaper and longer lasting the panels are, though.