On Grid Versus Off Grid Power Consumption

Electricity Use On-Grid Versus Off- Grid

The vast majority of people live in dwellings that are connected to the grid. And all these folks have been well trained to use their electricity wisely. Especially once the smart meters made a huge difference. Electricity cost in the Off-Peak hours is vastly less expensive than at Mid-Peak and On-Peak. So what do we do? We do our laundry, the dyer the dishwasher and all the power hungry tasks at night or on the weekend. However, some small mistakes still happen. Putting your washing machine on a timer to wash just before Mid-Peak starts, still leaves the water heater to heat up the water. So do yourself a favour and set the timer an hour earlier.

Now for us “Off Gridders” the picture is exactly the opposite. We go easy on the electricity usage in the evening and night, because we want to deplete our stored power as little as possible to keep our batteries as healthy as possible. Still in the morning we go easy on the use until at least part of our solar array is getting good sunshine. Once the charging rate surpasses the usage rate and the battery voltage starts rising we can slowly consider ramping up the usage. Then comes the time where our system have gone through the entire charge cycle and the storage is back to 100%. At that stage the dishwasher, vacuum cleaner, and some other power hogs are activated. Of course, we shall not exceed the capabilities of our inverter. The reason for this is, once the storage is at 100% the charge controller is rejecting the energy for lack of storage capacity.

One little hint: Please make sure your heavy loads are balanced between L1 and L2 at your breaker panel.