Solar Upgrades...., and a blown up generator! Options

[Caveman]

Signed a contract to upgrade our solar last Saturday, and our old Generac Guardian 16kw gave up and ate its rotor and stator, so it was replaced by another Guardian 14kw
genset on Tuesday. Guardian Gensets are designed as back-up generators for homes when the power grid fails. For non-grid homes (like mine), they back up the solar
power during the night (and low sun days) - that is, when the batteries are drawn down to a certain voltage, the system turns on the generator to bring them back up full.
This should not happen very often, but as my current system is now under-sized, it runs every day. A few years ago, something went wrong with the old genset (a rat made
a nest in the generation unit), and I had it repaired then. It blew a board, and the contacts on the rotor were greased up with rat fat, which caused arcing. This probably led
to the current failure. The new genset is critter-proofed by fine (1/8") screening from the factory. The old one was protected by 1/4" screening (obviously not fine enough).

On to the Solar Upgrade:
The upgrades - 3900kw of SunPower E-20 solar panels on a Wattsun Tracker, upgrading Outback inverters to 48v from 24, adding 12 more Trojan L16RE-2v batteries (old
ones are less than 4 months old), 1000w Bergey wind turbine on a 60' supported tower.

Ideally, an off-grid home should be equipped with 150w of solar per battery. We don't come any where close to that currently. Plus our current panels are old, and not at
peak efficiency (we are getting around 700w out of 1025w, on a very good day). Things you learn as you go along.... Neither my wife nor I are minimalists either, and we
have 3 parrots that need to be kept warm. Plus, our horse waterer has a bowl and pipe heater to keep it from freezing. Add a refrigerator, well pump, pressure pump,
microwave, TV, phones, satellite dvr receiver, dvd player, etc., and you will see that our requirements far exceed what we have now. We have things on timers to reduce
load, but it doesn't reduce it enough. Hence the upgrades to the system. Plus we have added an outbuilding that must be heated (kept at 55F until it is in use), and a
sunroom (where the birds are kept) heated by a pellet stove and kept at 65F during the night. Our upgraded system will better handle the load, plus added insulation to the
sunroom floor framing this spring will help. Until then - no lights on during the day, TV use kept to a minimum, power the well pump only when the generator is on, etc., etc.,
etc. At least I am here full time now, so when something goes wrong, fails, or starts to fail, I usually catch it quickly and can try to remedy it before it causes a big hit to the
bank. However, The genset failed catastrophically, so there was no way to have caught it early - there was no sign other than the occasional blown fuse - when replaced, the
genset acted normally, and all readings were good with no alarms. Even had it looked at twice, and the techs could not find any problems. Then, no start and a VERY strong
burnt windings odor. ARRRRGGGH. Even caused a 120v feedback alarm on the B/U inverter. Fortunately, that was cleared with a complete system reset. It was a very bad
day - but STILL way better than Peyton's! I actually felt sorry for him.

[Caveman]

Very similar. Ours right now is a 24v system with 12 Trojan L16RE-2V batteries (1110aH at the 20 hour rate), 8 panels totaling 1025 watts, on a pole mounted stationary
rack, with an Outback power system. That gives us 85.41w of solar per battery. Not nearly enough, when you consider that the minimum should be 150w per battery. The
upgrades will give us approx 206w of solar per battery, plus 1000w of wind power. That should do. Remember, though - that is a perfect world scenario. The reality is much
different, wind is not constant, nor is the sunshine. We will be closer to the 150w on average but this should knock our generator usage down to once a week or less.

Most of the larger homes in the urban/suburban neighborhoods have roof mounted systems with grid tie, and no batteries, for reducing their electric bill. Some of the wiser
souls have added batteries for UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) purposes. And some are like me - they are not on the grid because they found it cost prohibitive to have
trenches dug, lines laid, and tap fees to be paid. We were looking at $30K just to have lines extended to our property. Note that this did not include having it run to the
build site, equipment, the actual cables, tap fees, and HOA tap fees (More than $30K in addition!). Top that off with the fact that we would not actually own the equipment,
but instead would be LEASING it! Yes, those boxes and meters on your houses do not belong to you, and you pay to have them installed (on new construction), then pay for
the privilege to use them, and also pay for the power used! You do own the breaker box, but only if you had a contractor install it - if the power company does that, you
only lease it (most are installed by contractors).

Yes the system is expensive - but there is no utility bill, no meter to be read (by sometimes unscrupulous companies), no averaging, no penalties for overuse, underuse, etc.,
and the total amount we have paid still is less than having utility power run. Plus, the power company has paid use for the right to use our excess, should they ever choose
to run lines to connect to it - which they will not. They still want us to pay for those lines, plus equipment and tap fees just for the privilege of selling them power. Crooks,
they are.