PROVIDING RELIABLE, HIGH QUALITY, OFF GRID POWER SYSTEMS FOR REMOTE PROPERTIES THROUGHOUT YORKSHIRE
We have a wealth of experience ready to share with you.
Welcome to Off Grid Power Systems
There are several reasons why you may wish to have an off grid power supply. You might want to live a more independent lifestyle. You might be trying to lessen your impact on the environment by producing all your own energy. Perhaps you have an unreliable grid connection and require an independent uninterruptable power supply. Or maybe your converting a remote barn and the cost of getting electricity to the site is prohibitive. We have been living off grid for over 5 years and for us it was a mixture of the above reasons.
What sets us apart from other companies, is that we live off grid, we have lots of experience designing, building and installing bespoke reliable off grid power systems.
What We Do
We design, build and install high quality off grid power solutions using the best components available.
Technology
We design systems with lithium batteries that you can monitor and control all from an app.
How do off grid systems work?
Utilising Solar PV panels and Lithium Batteries, we generate and then store energy for later use.
What we do.
We design, build and install high quality off grid power solutions using the best components available. Our systems often power remote houses, but we have designed systems for motorhomes, shepherds huts, remote cabins and allotments, plus agriculture and telecoms, anywhere you need reliable grid free electricity.
No woolly jumpers.
Off grid power systems were once the prevail of specialists in thick woolly jumpers with extreme facial hair and unkempt appearance, real keano’s. They were happy understanding the system technicalities and enjoying checking the specific gravity of the batteries on a very regular basis. Pulling out the multimeter and putting on the rubber apron and long gloves was a joy.
Personally we don’t enjoy that stuff. We like it to be simple, so we design systems with lithium batteries that you can monitor and control from an app. No rubber gloves, no specific gravity - honest. Another benefit of this is that we continually monitor your system, ensuring reliability and longevity.
Get us involved.
If your building or converting from scratch, talk to us at an early stage. Too often we see incorrectly specified equipment or appliances. With off grid, the most important aspect is to reduce your energy consumption. Less is definitely more. Insulate the building to a very high standard, make it airtight and select good glazing. You might think why? It’s simple - the less energy you use and loose, the less energy you need to generate and store. This will reduce the cost of your off grid power system.
Whilst we can provide power systems to deliver energy to power electric ovens, ceramic hobs and heat pumps, its better that alternatives are chosen at the start of the project and this will reduce your overall expenditure. Efficient as heat pumps are, in cold weather they use a huge amount of electricity, this is when your generating very little from your solar panels . The result is high generator usage, its not necessary, specify gas, oil or biomass heating. At home we have a hybrid system where we use a heat pump early and late in the heating season and biomass pellet boiler in the coldest part. This allows us to use every bit of that free surplus electricity, and know that we can switch over as the days become shorter.
Call us for an informal chat about energy consumption, on your project. It’s the start of your off grid journey.
How do off grid system work.
We generate, and then store energy for later use.
Technology has really moved forward in recent years, making off grid lifestyle much more viable. Solar panels have vastly improved in efficiency whilst dropping in cost. Lithium batteries have significantly changed the way we store energy, with often 90-95% depth of discharge and long life expectancy, typically 6000 cycles. A typical system will comprise of a large solar array, charge controllers to fill the batteries. A battery bank and an inverter charger to convert the battery power to 230v AC and also to take power from a generator to charge the batteries. Plus a control and monitoring system to keep things safely under control, and you up to date.
Solar PV panels in recent years have reduced in cost considerably. Where possible we design systems with over sized arrays. You will see that we install more solar than some other installers. This is because solar is relatively cheap, and very reliable. More solar means less winter generator runtime, saving money and helping the environment too.
All off grid power systems require some form of back up energy supply, usually a generator. They come in all shapes and sizes, diesel driven generators are very common, but an LPG powered generator, might be more useful if your using LPG for heating. They have the benefit of not having to be regularly topped up with fuel as they draw gas from the large on site gas tank.
Sizing the generator is very important, too small and it will charge very slowly and the power output will be unstable. Too big and you might find its running outside of its best efficiency range. We don’t usually supply generators as part of our package, but we will help you to select one that suitable for your system. We try to avoid secondhand generators, unless its very low hours and excellent condition with manufacturer support.
FAQs
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It really depends on the size of the project, a five bedroom house power system will cost considerably more than a small holiday cabin. How much power you can generate, the amount of battery storage you require, and how much power you want to use at any moment in time. All have an influence on the cost of the system. Often we find that we can provide an off grid power system for less than the cost of getting grid power over fields on poles. Of course there are other benefits of no standing charges and not paying a monthly direct debit for your energy.
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Our systems come with remote monitoring as standard. We monitor your system constantly. For the first three months we provide handholding and will have very regular contact with you offering advice and prompting you into good habits about energy and system use. The systems come with complete 12 months warranty, we offer a range of maintenance packages to suit everyone.
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Everyone lifestyle is different, we use different amount of power. Systems are sized to your power requirements. We've been living off grid for over 5 years now and we have found that our lifestyle uses on average 10 - 12 kWh daily. This is low consumption is very suitable for off grid power living. Winters shorter and colder days will use more power than summer. It easily possible to size systems for more consumption. We can help you work out how much power you need.
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Depending on the system size a full installation usually takes a week or so. We carry out as much preparatory work as possible, often building the system up on a board and testing it in our workshop, before bringing it to site. Recently we removed a low spec faulty Chinese system from a large house and installed a Victron 10Kv system in a single day, minimum disruption for the customer.
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From March through October you will have surplus power, we often use this to heat hot water. In the summer you could power a hot tub or charge an electric car for free. But both of these use a significant amount of power, and in the winter you need to minimize your consumption. Charging an electric car in the winter will increase your generator run time and it’s not recommended.
Get in touch.
If you have any questions or comments, please contact us via email or phone, or send us a message using the contact form.
Telephone: 07500 932951
Email: info@offgridpowersystems.co.uk