Solar System

As you've likely seen from other content, the farm utilizes an extensive solar array and battery system with a backup generator. The system includes 15.6 KW solar array (36 panels), 26.6 kWh battery backup, and two 12k inverters all housed in a self contained, temperature controlled enclosure. If you'd like more information about the design or our experience, feel free to reach out, and I'll share additional details. Ravolt, LLC designed/sold the system as a turnkey product, and I had a great experience with them. Since installation, it has performed very well, but we haven't truly tested it yet.

A few things I like the most about this solar package include:

The engineering team did a fantastic job of spending time to learn my forecasted household requirements and package a design which they thought would work best for our needs. Depending on the assumptions we used, there is a case that I may require more storage; we spent a lot of time evaluating those risks so I could prepare the best business case to suit my needs.
The turnkey approach made it so my sole responsibilities were to get the land cleared and coordinate for the backup propane tank to be ready on site.
Throughout the entire design and install process, their team was always accessible to answer any questions I had, and there were a few times when I had lots and lots.
The system is low maintenance and continuously operates, thus far, without an degraded performance.
The system automatically conducts a weekly 15 minute generator test to ensure continued performance.
The few times I've had to reach back for assistance, they remained accessible, even via text message for instantaneous responses when necessary. Of course, I don't scream emergency if there isn't one, but there were a few times when I had some urgent requests, and they were johnny on the spot to respond. Can't ask for better support than that - the true test of a company's performance, by the way.
The cell phone app provides real time constant visibility of the charging and battery status. Yep, it is addictive, but it is also tremendously informative to help the user understand the correlation between heavy demand for particular motors (i.e. well pump or pumphouse heater), the drain over a course of the night, when the sun activates the array in the morning, evening and during degraded weather conditions, and how quickly the system recovers to 100% battery strength.

Our decision to go solar wasn't easy and was primarily based on the cost/availability of landlines from the road to our build site and my perceived instability of our grid. We may need to expand the solar system at some point, but I'm now 100% confident I made the right decision with this solar system for our needs.

As an aside, there is no question that the system is expensive. However, once you consider the tax benefit, financing over a period of time, and the offset if there is no corresponding monthly bill from the power company, the net cost of the system is much lower than I initially anticipated. There is a solid business case once you break down the numbers, and that case well offsets the initial sticker shock.