Check out this video as we revisit an existing customer 16 months later and evaluate the system performance. Self-build project, …
Off-grid solar power systems for homes the grid doesn't reach
What an off-grid solar power system actually is
An off-grid solar system runs your property with no connection to the national grid at all. Not a solar array that tops up your mains supply — a complete off-grid power system that is your mains supply.
Three things make that work. Solar panels generate through the day. A battery bank stores what you don’t use, so the house runs through the night and through a run of dull weather. An inverter/charger turns stored DC into the 230V AC your sockets, pumps and appliances expect, and brings a generator in automatically on the rare occasions the battery needs help in midwinter.
Get the sizing right and the generator barely runs. Get it wrong and you live with the noise, the fuel bills, and a house that can’t take a shower and a kettle at the same time.
We design off-grid solar power systems for barns and cottage conversions, new builds on plots with no supply, smallholdings with outbuildings, and properties already off-grid running an ageing system that never quite worked.
Systems typically start from £25,000
We start from the loads, not the roof
Every appliance, its power draw, and when it runs. That list sets the inverter size, and the inverter size sets the minimum battery. Sizing an off-grid solar system from the roof area instead of the loads is how people end up running a generator half the day.
Then the yield, for your postcode
Array size comes from PVGIS irradiance data for your postcode, roof pitch and orientation — not a rule of thumb. December is the month that decides the design, not June. That is the difference between a system that carries you through winter and one that doesn’t.
Then the generator's job
On a correctly sized off-grid power system the generator is backup, not a partner. It should be an unusual sound, not a daily one. We integrate it properly so it starts and stops on its own, charges hard when it does run, and otherwise stays quiet.
What it costs, and why we say so
Most of the homes we power land between £25,000 and £45,000 for a complete system — panels, battery, inverter, generator integration, installation, commissioning and monitoring. A two-bedroom cottage with gas hot water sits at the bottom end; a five-bedroom house with an electric shower and a workshop sits at the top.
We publish that range because it saves everybody time. An off-grid system that genuinely runs a house is not a £6,000 job. And if a mains connection is available at modest cost, take the connection — a £4,500 connection is cheaper than a diesel generator and always will be. Off-grid makes sense when the connection is absurd, impossible, or genuinely not wanted.
Off Grid Engineering Blog.
Viridian solar glass roof, BYD Battery storage, and Victron Energy complete off-grid solution Self-build project, Shropshire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC0NfHvEy50 Jim Watt from …
