On 12/27/20 19:49, Michael Thomas wrote:
We can't get enough solar panels on the roof to charge a battery big enough to handle a multi-day outage, and the battery as quoted is only charged from the panels, not from the mains. It's easy enough to get a transfer switch though for the battery subpanel to hook the generator up to. If I really wanted to get fancy, I could supply the generator from our house propane tank, but it's not that hard to just use the normal 5 gallon type tanks.
Fair enough. Naturally, if you're looking at multi-day outages, then you'll likely reduce your load quite substantially for the period, allowing you to keep the battery running until the following morning when the sun comes up. But yes, in your situation, a multi-day outage would not be that different from an off-grid self-generation scenario; in which case, a generator is necessary to recharge batteries, particularly on cloudy days. Mark.