Post #9668

One of our group members lives up north where they don't get enough solar in the winter. His utility company offers "super off peak" rates from midnight until 7am each day. Since he's got enough battery to go >24hours, he can charge his batteries until 7am and then coast on batteries the rest of the day. The only catch is that his inverters are the off grid variety and don't have a way to program them to charge from grid at a specific time. So if we install a pool pump timer that is capable of running 40amps @ 240v in front of his inverters, he can program the timer to turn on during super off peak. And the inverter will charge from the grid whenever the timer is on. If he gets some sunshine during the day, that just means he'll buy that much less power the next night. In the summer he can program the inverter to charge to 50% or 75% during this super off peak at night and finish topping off the batteries when the sun comes up. This can cut his power bill by 1/2 in winter.