First of all, regardless if you only opt-in for Home Backup Power, or Solar Powered entirely, On-grid or even completely off-grid, you need to have some key figures about your daily usage of electricity.
A good way to start is to check your monthly or quarterly bill from your local electricity supplier, where it's written what you have consumed.
Then you divide the amount of KW/h per Month or Quarter into the given days for this period and you will add 20% on top of that for peak hours.
If you more interested into Emergency Backup Power to gap Power Outages, which likely gonna increase in near future, then another way is, to define your critical appliances and devices and sum up them into an Spreadsheet and doing the math, what they consume
per hour, you define your daily usage, and how long you would be able to power them. Without Sun. Without Power from Grid.
Imagine, your wife and your daughter use the Hairdryer with 2300W every morning each 15 Minutes, you already burned 1.15 KW/h of your Energy. A Normal Fridge will consume also around 0.8 KW/h per Day. So you used already 2 KW/h without Cooking, Washing, Heating or Showering. And it's worth to remember, that most Water Systems in a House needs a Water Pump to let the water run out of the Tap.
A simple Check List to start looks like:
I want:
- to be independent as much as possible
- to feed into the Grid and get some cash back
- to go Off-grid
- to have a backup power to bridge Power Outages
as part of your decision making to pave the road.
Solar on the Roof doesn’t prevent you from Power Outages
If you have only a Solar PV on the roof, and an inverter, you will lose your electricity by any power outage of your local supplier too. Unless
you have a Battery Storage combined with your Inverter. For Example, Bluetti AC/EP Series you can combine with existing Systems like Fronius
or other popular Brands, even if your Setup is already 10 Years or older.
How to harvest your Energy ?
I want:
- Energy from Solar and Electricity from the Grid combined
- as much from various Sources like Solar, Wind, Water Turbines
- Energy from the Grid only and use it as Backup
- to be completely Off-Grid
Based on this, you can plan you next step, and yes, in many places in Switzerland, Europe or Elsewhere you can go nowadays Off-grid with Solar only and Battery Storage. Affordable. Or based on area and regulations, with additional Wind Turbines and the new Generation of Turbines doesn’t sound loud, don’t kill birds, and harvest much energy with low level winds (Worth to argue with your local regulations). Please also check out our Application Classification on the Menu, there you will find suitable modules for you decision.
How I calculate everything ?
For Solar Mounting Systems on Roofs, Walls, Car ports, you have to consider the load of Snow in Winter and Wind Power. But hey there are online calculators. We made a list for you below. You can go, based on your ambitions as a DIYer, or with professional teams.
First of all, all nowadays available Mounting Kits for Solar on the Roof, fulfill all the Norms and Regulations, regardless its ASCE 7-10/ASCE 7-16, IM 1991, NBCC 2015, AS / NZS 1170, IS 875 (Wind), NSCP 2015 (Wind), und CTE DB SE-AE (Wind). Secondly, you can consult your local Solar PV Installation Team for more Details.
We can support you for consulting, or refer you to a local partner if you wish.
Whats the average Size for an Household?
As we know from other Parts in Life, Size matters. And this question is also individually, depends how many Persons in your Household, daily habits and so one. For 4 Person Family Household we suggest
to have 10-15 KWh Battery Storage and at least the 5-7.5 KW PV on your Roof. Or in short: You can double the the Battery Storage Capacity in KWh based on the amount of the KW mounted as Photovoltaic on your Roof, Garden or Terrasse. This works well up to 35 KW/h Battery Storage where you feed with one Inverter all the electric circuits in hour House/Office/Workshop. Further more, you can also run Powerstations, Inverter and Battery Expansion Module in Parallel, where you serve different electric circuits into your House/Office/Workshop. In this case, you Feed them also from different Solar Panel Arrays.
How to get some Money out of it ?
There are 3 ways to receive Money back from your Installation:
- On-grid Feeding, in most areas the Feed-in tariff are in the same amount as their Selling Price Rate Tariffs (what consumers pay to the electrical power supplier, and increasing)
- Off-grid Feed your Neighbour. You can feed your Neighbour, in case of Emergency/Power Outtage only or permanently. Check out our Program here
- Subsidy money from your local Goverment or State Department, check the List here
Online Calculators (Multi-language)
Wind & Snow Load
Unit Conversions from PA to KG/m2/m3
How much Sun Energy you can harvest at your location with Standard Systems (and be sure, there is always a way for more)
How to Save Energy?
If you have the option, it makes sense to establish a second Power Circuit in your House and also change a few common Devices and Appliance to a 12V or 24V System. We all know, that all the Big Brands like Bosch, Electrolux, vZUG to name a few, offers Dryers, Tumbler, Heater, Washer, Water Boiler, Fridges up to 190L and Freezers up to 80L for RV's, Camper or Off-Grid Cabines, which consumes a fraction of the Power as in 230V Environment in a 12V System Circuit. Which means, your Fridges can run with Bluettti AC200Max only 67 days or 177 Days with one additional Battery Expansion Module. Fancy, isn't ?
And be sure, the founders and leaders of iQcom in Switzerland, Poland, Armenia runs their Family-Houses entirely off-Grid. In a 230V Power Circuit and some devices like Freezer, Fridge and Washing Maschine, in a 12V Circuit. And since then, we were never offline again. But if you size up to 15KWh Battery Storage or more, you manage also pure 220/230V Nets entirely for 3-4 Days without Sun or Wind. We don't say it's necessary, but it's worth to consider. We publish regulary some fancy ideas in our Blog.
We support you
iQcom supports your Family, Business or Team and we also published some helpful resources for your first planing steps, what you need to consider.
All our Solutions are Plug & Play, except those for industrial scale. Ideally for DIYer's but if you need professional support from A-Z, a dedicated team supports you from the idea, calculation and design. For mounting up to professional acceptance and going on-grid, off-grid, we referring you to a local partner and contractor