I've long harboured plans for a house battery, ironic really when you think how many boaters live ( as I did) totally off grid. My plans were for a modest solar array ( 2kw) on the workshop roof feeding a Pylontech battery bank with an off grid inverter charger Mttp controller. However rules and regulations seem hell bent on preventing me doing at home what people do surrounded by water.
So I left the solar on the roof that will be used by a local company who will install the battery. I've sold what I have left from my aborted install. I did reinvest in an Ecoflow Delta 2.
I've been tracking this technology for a while. Like most things it has positives and negatives ( sorry). It's all in one design makes it portable between house and boat. Right now at home its running two fridges a freezer the pond pump and UV filter as well as the cctv cameras and has charged up two smaller battery banks. just off oneof my five panels. If needed it takes a charge from the low cost grid overnight. I think it's saving me about £2 a week so over £100 a year and we have used it on the boat.
On the boat it's like a silent generator. I have rigged a changeover on the 12v side so I can run lights pumps ( except the bath pump) internet and fridge off this unit easing the load on the now tired AGM's. To run the bath pump I simply plug the Ecoflow into the hookup and turn on the battery charger.... this maintains the batteries usually at float level passing what is needed to the bath pump. Obviously this is very 'lossy' inverting from the Ecoflow and transforming on the battery charger. When we have showered I tend to swap it to the 12v side from the 10 amp supply on the Ecoflow. This covers all evening stuff and if we need the TV again I plug it in to the hook up and it'll supply 12v and 230v simultaneously.
It's a 1024w battery with over 3000 cycles so I calculate about 80 Ah at 12v - we on an evening use about 40 ah. A decent hybrid between home and boat.
Only issue is it'll not charge off the boats inverter when the engine is running as it needs a pure sine wave charge source so I'll invest in a 500w pure sine wave inverter that'll charge the unit in about two and a half hours. I'll also get a land based second hand solar panel that I can charge the unit with on the mooring. Slightly counter intuitively I can charge with the genny in about an hour and a half and then use the stored power as needed rather than as the genny does running all the time regardless of load. (and after 8pm!)
I have an option of adding a lithium to my house batteries as the 12v canal group are doing they call it a hybrid setup - just issues around the smart bank that I have asked advice about from Mark the proprietor at Life batteries.
So it's been interesting. Hopefully at home by the end of next week we will finally have a solar battery albeit quite small but I've always wanted something to head off the standing load of about 200w and if the sun can do that and add some to the battery for the evening even better.
I'll report back on how it all performs as and when.
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