We finished the off-the-grid system in Maui in June of 2010 and it seems to be working wonderfully all summer.

All in all, we installed a 5.6 kW solar array, battery bank and inverter system on the island of Maui for an off grid facility. The system powers a main house, two guest houses and a pool house.

We had fun with this project as it is located in such a beautiful part of the world and the local Hawaiians where integrally involved in the installation work. Because the system is beyond the power lines we employed a large battery bank and backup generator fired by propane. This system design varies greatly from grid connected systems where batteries are seldom employed as the power grid serves as “financial” power storage.

Cloud cover and precipitation vary extremely from 12 to 360 inches per year depending upon the microclimate which made the system sizing a bit more challenging. To compensate for this variable we included a 30 kW generator and four inverter/battery chargers which can recharge the batteries in several hours time.

Here is our photo show of the final install, inverter and battery bank, etc… If you want captions, please click on the image below and then on the icon in the lower right w /the four-arrows for full-screen mode.

Dan Bradbord, SBS Solar Guru

dbrandborg@sbslink.com

Tags: energy conservation, maui, off the grid, Solar, solar array, solar PV