know a thing or two about living on 12 volts!! I have a total of 655 watts of solar panels and a wind generator on top of that. On a sunny day, those solar panels will put 250 amps of power back into my 560 amp battery bank. Using that old formula, amps x volts = watts, 250 amps * 12 volts = 3000 watts.

Almost everything on the boat runs on 12 volts. Of course the LED lights, all the radios, GPS, radar, all the water pumps, the water maker, the refrigeration and even my desktop computer. Yes, even the desktop computer. Many people don't realize that the first place the power for that desktop computer goes is to the power supply which converts it to 12 volts DC and some other voltages used by the computer. With the advent of computers being used in automobiles, 12 volt power supplies for computers are now common. The interesting thing about AC power supplies is that they are only about 35% efficient. The other 65% of the power they use is lost in heat. The regulated 12 volt power supply is 98% efficient. There is virtually no heat and no loss of power. My desktop computers runs at idle at about 2 amps or 24 watts. That's less than half of what Mrs. R's laptop uses!!!

Now there are some things that require 120 volts of AC current. 12 volts won't run the microwave oven! Add a DC to AC inverter, and presto, your battery bank can provide the AC required for the microwave, power tools and anything else you need to run on AC for short periods of time. Another thing 12 volt won't run is the small air conditioning unit we have on the boat. There are 12 volt systems, but you're going to need a big battery bank to run that AC unit overnight in the tropics! For that, having a nice little 2000 watt Honda portable generator will run your 5000BTU window air conditioner for 9 hours on a gallon of fuel!

If I were ever to move back to land, I would build a house in the wilderness and never even consider getting "hooked up to the grid"! Solar panels, a very big battery bank, an inverter and a backup generator and I would never notice I wasn't connect to the utility company. And I'd be saving a ton of money on top of it!!!

Thanks Gerrit and reflections. I dreamed of life on a sailboat in my youth. Ended up studying agriculture and getting a little farm. I still like to sail though.

I have a few buddies that use solar PV and the grid. Their panels go through an inverter and load into the grid. It spins their meter backwards. They get credit for their power production if it exceeds their usage. That saves the cost of batteries (which have some environmental consequences).

Without the grid option, keeping everything DC make sense, and reflections' system sounds well designed and functional. We don't have pv at the house, but do have solar hot water which we use in winter to heat the house with a radiant floor.

... a hotspot, a laptop, and a phone and a foldable solar panel with the batteries on the dashbord of the truck made it possible. First steps in resiliency when the shit hits the fan or the going gets tough, the tough go solar and trucking on.

Thanks for the info in this article. Decentralized Solar Panel power with your own batteries, preferably not on a roof but accessible for cleaning etc. on the ground ... well if you have the ground to put them on, that is.