New house - options to become less reliable on the grid?

[GroundZero]

Is it worth discussing with a builder (if you were to be having a new house built), to see what options there are about solar or wind being used to directly power your house rather than feeding it in to the grid and being totally reliant on the grid and its prices?

I'm lead to believe that the issue regarding anything "off-grid" is to do with installation costs, maintenance and also energy storage when you are not using it.
But has anything developed over the past 5 years that now make this feasible?

[NMNeil]

Solar panels are cheap
https://store.santansolar.com/product-category/sol...
The MPPT charge controllers and inverters are now all in one units.
https://www.mppsolar.com/v3/110v-120v-low-voltage-...
Server rack LiFePo4 batteries are plug and play.
https://www.mobile-solarpower.com/server-rack-life...
Except for the server rack batteries this is how my system is set up, and I run my house, including two mini splits for heating and cooling.
It simply works for me.

[SturdyHSV]

NMNeil said:

Solar panels are cheap
https://store.santansolar.com/product-category/sol...
The MPPT charge controllers and inverters are now all in one units.
https://www.mppsolar.com/v3/110v-120v-low-voltage-...
Server rack LiFePo4 batteries are plug and play.
https://www.mobile-solarpower.com/server-rack-life...
Except for the server rack batteries this is how my system is set up, and I run my house, including two mini splits for heating and cooling.
It simply works for me.

How is the weather in New Mexico generally?

In the UK we get about 45 minutes of sunlight a year amongst the unrelenting grey drizzle so I'm not sure how well solar power would help

I jest of course, some years we have a few weeks of decent sun in the summer

[GroundZero]

NMNeil said:

Solar panels are cheap
https://store.santansolar.com/product-category/sol...
The MPPT charge controllers and inverters are now all in one units.
https://www.mppsolar.com/v3/110v-120v-low-voltage-...
Server rack LiFePo4 batteries are plug and play.
https://www.mobile-solarpower.com/server-rack-life...
Except for the server rack batteries this is how my system is set up, and I run my house, including two mini splits for heating and cooling.
It simply works for me.

If you don't mind me asking, how many batteries do you have and are you totally off-grid,?
If not, what would you say is the balance of battery and grid that your home uses?

[geeks]

You might get a better response dropping this into Homes, Gardens and DIY (or get a friendly neighbourhood mod to move it there, surprised it hasn't been moved already to be honest)

[NMNeil]

GroundZero said:

If you don't mind me asking, how many batteries do you have and are you totally off-grid,?
If not, what would you say is the balance of battery and grid that your home uses?

I built the battery banks myself.
Sixteen 200A LiFePo4 cells in series with a smart BMS, and I built four of these battery banks giving me around 38KwH of usable capacity.
The house runs mostly off the panels (6Kw) during the day, and the batteries in the evening.
Most nights when I turn in the batteries are at around 80% capacity, and have fully recharged by 11am the next day. Even if we get a few cloudy days it's fully recharged by 1 or 2pm.
I have the BMS set at a very conservative level, and the cells should easily last around 20 years or more.
I'm sort of off grid because due to concerns by the wife, we still have the utility power to the house, but it's been turned off. We figure if everything stays as it is we can tell the power company thanks but no thanks early next year.