Comment by scarecrowbob
2 days ago
I am about 2 years in to my off-grid solar setup. The cost for the easement was looking to be about $25k, plus about 30k for the wire, transformer, et.
I live in middle of nowhere so I just built out a system myself. I am about 8k into it. It's not the biggest system (6kw inverter, 4kw panels, 15kwh storage) but it's fine for one old man living a 2kM in the high desert.
Just to clarify - you were looking at 50k+ for an on grid setup and solar + battery has cost you 8k so far?
Yes.
I live in a very rural spot with a difficult-to-deal-with Electric Association, with a Ute reservation on one side and unpowered parcels on other sides; I don't think that the easement is a typical issue.
And to be clear, I didn't count my labor in designing or implementing the system. I suspect that would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of another $10K if I had to get a hands-off, turn-key version of this same system.
And at some point I will likely double much of the capacity, at which point I will be able to run a mig welder at night if I want...