There is an advantage for cabling and lower losses as you say, there really isn't a difference in battery size or price between A 100 AH 48v battery = a 200AH 24v battery = a 400AH 12v battery.
Your 12V battery will consist 8 X 100Ah batteries in series, 400Ah X 12V = 4800 Watt hours.
Your 24V battery will consist 8 X 100Ah batteries in 4 strings of 2 X series with the strings in parallel, 200Ah X 24V = 4800 Watt hours
Your 48V battery will consist 8 X 100Ah batteries in 2 strings of 4 X series with the strings in parallel, 100Ah X 48V = 4800 Watt hours.
Same watt hours and cost in each case.
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If you're just looking for some indepenance from the utility grid and some emergency power just add up the kWh of the things you would want to power. If you had to survive on it, I think you would be surprised about what you can do with 2-4Kwh/day. I converted an 8.8 CuFt chest freezer to funtcion as a fridge, it uses .5Kwh/day etc. There are lots of ways to reach your end goal (say refridgeration was it) without burning the power level of traditional home appliances. If you wanted to be able to run, say a circular saw, you would want to consider that in the design phase, which would mean you would have an oversized inverter but you would want to limit yourself to only using it for very short durations. Your goal is definately obtainable but it does cost a bit of money, I found alot of unexpected expenses while I was building mine. I had not factored in the core charge for my battery bank (had no turn in batteries) and I had not factored in that the racking cost as much as the panels, you could eleminate the majority of the racking cost for a survival type system. Disconnects/fusing etc also added up quick. You could probably do a pretty capable 2+Kwh/day system for around 4-4.5K without the racking. I spent a good portion of mine on the charge controller and inverter, the panels themselves are pretty cheap.Leave a comment:
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Makes Perfect Sense! Thanks for both of the above answers
I have been researching this for about 6 months pricing everything and obviously came to the conclusion to go completely off grid at once is impo$$ible 
. We just bought a house that we will probably die in...lol and Were have the Prepper / Independant bug in us. Were dropping in a bunker next spring as well as maintaing and aquaponics system here at our property. I feel that this will benefit is in the long haul. Hey, better put my money toward something worthwhile NOW while I have it...
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There are many 24v inverters out there.
When comparing power available from batteries don't necessarily look at AH
Instead look at available watt hours.
A 100 AH 48v battery = a 200AH 24v battery = a 400AH 12v battery.
The difference comes in in charging and discharging amps required and used. Sizes of cabling etcLeave a comment:
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Lots of 24v inverters out there. 48v too. Start thinking wattage... volts * amps = watts. Higher voltage is better as it will draw less amps for the same wattage. To quote someone wise on this forum... "12v is for toys" - don't go there.
As you are very new to this stuff, think very VERY hard before trying to do solar "off-grid". It will cost you dearly.... over and over again as you replace batteries. Do your research. It will save you tons of $$$.Leave a comment:
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Silly Question- 12V or 24V system
Good Morning All,
Let me start of by introducing my self. My name is Tim and run a Alarm and CCTV company in the Midwest. Indiana to be exact. Ive always been into low voltage. Recently have been pondering the Idea of setting up solar for my home.
I have talked myself into going into a 24v system. If anyone has any other opinions feel free to explain.
My question is particular to the power inverter. Is there a 24VDC INPUT to 120VAC power inverter?
If not how to i get my 24V back to 12V?
If so , Am I wrong to think im wasting energy by using a 24V inverter since my AH would be the same as 1 12v battery vs using 12v ah would be double. Either way makes 120VAC i feel like the latter (24V) is wasting AH.
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