Renogy DIY Solar & Battery System: CleanTechnica Tested

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Renogy established itself because the go-to provider for small scale DIY photo voltaic methods years in the past and has helped many owners, RV builders, and off-grid fanatics construct photo voltaic methods utilizing their high quality, time-tested elements.

The corporate has its personal line of photo voltaic panels, photo voltaic cost controllers, batteries, switches, fuses, inverters, simple to DC chargers, and nearly the whole lot in between. When Renogy reached out to us about assessment a few of its elements as a system, we gladly dove into the small print to piece collectively a system of our personal design.

We determined to place collectively a system with 2 of Renogy’s 100 amp-hour iron phosphate batteries, powered by a couple of Renogy 100 watt, 12 volt solar panels, a 2,000 watt pure sine wave inverter / AC charger, with considered one of Renogy’s 50 amp DC chargers to maintain the whole lot taking part in properly and charged up. It’s a system that would simply energy an off-grid residence, a totally electrical van life system, or perhaps a full dimension RV. The fantastic thing about Renogy’s elements is that they mean you can, with minimal fuss, scale the system up or down relying in your want. We designed this technique to fulfill the wants of a variety of purposes.

Need to cost your batteries from a excessive output alternator? No downside. Need to add extra photo voltaic to the system? Certain! Need to quadruple the battery storage capability? Yeah, they will try this. Must maintain your home battery and starter battery separate? That’s inbuilt.

Design

As with every component-based system, we needed to map out the system, together with the smallest particulars like fuses, wire gauge, switches, energy flows, and charging inputs. We discovered tons of sources on-line, and particularly on YouTube, the place a variety of consultants within the house stroll you thru a system construct for almost any software you might think about. This one from the YouTube channel Metropolis Prepping was particularly useful and established the inspiration for our system design.

From that start line, we drew up a system design for our particular construct and created a part listing. Renogy despatched over the large constructing blocks from its catalog and we ordered the remainder of the elements from Amazon and our native ironmongery store, Lowes.

Methods like this are usually put in right into a automobile or residence, however that may make it laborious to see how the elements are related collectively into a whole system. To work round that, we opted to put in all the elements in a “system on a pallet” format to make it simpler to indicate how all of them play collectively.

Vitality Storage

The core of Renogy’s power methods are its batteries. Renogy despatched us two of its 100 amp-hour, Bluetooth-connected, self-heating iron phosphate batteries. These are among the hottest batteries utilized in van-lifer energy methods within the US and all over the world. Lithium batteries have rapidly taken over from older AGM and lead acid batteries as a consequence of their longevity and excessive energy density.

These two batteries retailer the facility generated from the photo voltaic panels and the automobile’s onboard energy system, pushing it again out by means of the inverter and DC circuits when the time comes to make use of the facility. In our system-on-a-pallet configuration, the batteries will reside in a nook of the pallet, however they’d usually be stashed away at the back of a trunk, underneath a seat, or within the backside of a cupboard.

Renogy’s batteries function ethernet hyperlink connections and an uplink to permit a number of elements to speak to one another. These particular batteries even have Bluetooth baked-in, enabling them to speak on to considered one of Renogy’s head models wirelessly. It provides an essential layer of perception into the system with out the necessity to add shunts or aftermarket energy move screens to the system.

Energy Technology

For our system, we opted to energy it with a couple of of Renogy’s 100 watt monocrystalline photo voltaic panels. I had really bought two of those earlier than we even labored with Renogy to put in on the roof of my Tesla and was keen to place the brand new panels to the take a look at. The power to scale the system up from 100 watts to 660 watts of photo voltaic at 50 amps of energy supplies a lot of flexibility when designing and putting in a system. This opens up a variety of prospects whether or not you’re constructing a automotive tenting setup, an RV energy system, and even an off-grid tiny residence.

Photo voltaic panels are horny, and ideally we’d like to energy not solely our automotive tenting setup, however to truly use photo voltaic to recharge the automotive when highway tripping. With a system of this dimension and in a automotive camper the scale of our Tesla Mannequin Y, it’s actually not sensible with out dedicating and unreasonable quantity of floor space to the photo voltaic system.

We’re not planning to go that loopy with this construct, however we’ll attempt to pack two, three, or 4 photo voltaic panels onto the roof within the last design. Renogy supplied a 50 amp DC-to-DC charger for the system which might usually be wired up on to a combustion automobile’s alternator, in addition to offering a DC enter from the photo voltaic panels to the batteries. In our set up, it serves as a photo voltaic cost controller.

Set up

With all of the elements in hand, we started assembling the elements in the most effective structure on the pallet. We put all of the fuses, disconnects, distribution blocks, and connections the place we thought they need to be and began wiring it up. To deal with the facility of the first elements, the wiring was essentially very thick. This elevated the associated fee and made the meeting a bit more difficult.

Particular instruments are required to chop thick wire and to crimp the terminals on every finish. We discovered it finest to put out the elements the place they’d in all probability find yourself, however to not fasten them down till they had been wired up. This allowed me to effective tune the place of every part because the stiff wiring was added, and made for a a lot simpler set up.

It took a couple of afternoons of labor, however earlier than too lengthy, it was time to get the system out into the solar to energy it on for the primary time.

Energy Consumption

All that energy doesn’t do any good until you have got a approach to make use of it. Renogy’s 2,000 watt pure sine wave inverter has change into one of many foundational elements for a lot of a DIY construct and we had been excited to attempt one out for ourselves. Automotive inverters flip energy from the DC saved in batteries or from an alternator to AC, which is utilized by most family home equipment.

The inverter is what permits energy to be pulled out of the system, and usually supplies a normal AC out. On this case, Renogy’s 2,000 watt inverter supplies uncooked AC stubs so that you can wire your system from. As a result of it’s the public dealing with a part of the system, the inverter usually lives close to the purpose of energy consumption.

Keep tuned for half 2 of this assessment to see energy being produced by the system being put to make use of as we dive deep into Renogy’s connectivity and energy administration options.

DIY System or Transportable Energy Station?

Evaluating a component-based DIY battery methods like this to an all-in-one transportable energy station is the apparent choice, so let’s dig into how the 2 examine. A component-based system is best suited to everlasting installations and full-time cell residing the place the elements might be put in out of the best way and left to do their job. The modular nature provides extra flexibility when it comes to scaling up or down battery capability, customizing elements, and tailoring the answer to the particular wants of the applying.

Portable power stations, then again, supply portability and an all-in-one resolution that’s merely simpler to make use of for a wider vary of purposes proper out of the gate. As a result of they’re all-in-one options, they aren’t going to be as properly suited to a everlasting set up and never as customizable as a component-based resolution like this one from Renogy.

The power to tailor the answer to your wants is useful in van-life kind conditions the place the every day energy consumption varies closely from individual to individual. The power so as to add or take away battery capability, add AC and DC circuits as wanted, and construct the proper built-in options units these builds aside.

Having stated that, the power to buy and set up a complete battery, inverter, AC charger, and photo voltaic cost controller with a single buy within the type of a conveyable energy station is unquestionably simpler for people who find themselves much less technically inclined. Both approach, it’s nice to have the choice to customized construct and design a system completely tailor-made to your wants with particular person elements like those supplied by Renogy.

Disclaimer: Renogy supplied the writer with the elements