we have a 10kwh solar system with battery backup.
To have enough battery for 3-10 days would depend upon how much power you use.
We have a typical household that is all electric except heat which is wood.
No way we could have enough battery for 3 days much less 10.
Our bank of 8 6volt lead acid batteries (small backup) will last over night IF we watch our usage. Nothing but essential stuff, water pump, lift pump in septic, fridge and freezers.
But the next day if the sun comes out we are charged back up in about 2-3 hours and we can run on solar till night fall again when the backup is used.

We do make power on cloudy days. Not as much but we still can charge the batteries up if need be.

Biggest worry is snow covering panels. The vast majority of the time after it snows the sun will come out so I broom off the snow on about 2/3 of the panels and the sun will melt them clean in even temps in the teens.
Snow is the reason one would want thier panels to be tilted at least 45 degrees, so the snow will slide off the panels as it melts underneath on the black panels.

our power bill for the entire year is about $750. Again all electric house, well pump for water, water softener, iron filter, 3 freezers, 900sqft workshop with electric hydroponic in floor system. So lots of electrical stuff.

Thats nice, sounds like a nice setup and points to how awesome they can be. My F150 has a 100 kWh battery, part of the reason we got it. Just nuts. Nice build out tho, do you ever have to limit what you do?

And clear cut our forest to make room for solar panels.

Nothing but a wet dream at this point.

I think passive solar heat is grossly underused. Winter sunshine coming in the windows is hard to beat.

depends on where you are in the country.

here in PA, we get about 34 minutes of winter sunshine per year...

Dang, that's depressing.

Here is another thing. One would have to put up those millions of acres of solar panels as far south in the US as possible to get the best possible sun light yield possible. How would Californistan folks feel about having their state mostly covered in those black panels ? What will those huge areas of black stuff do to the temperatures ?? So many things that as usual folks do not think about till the crap hits the spinning thing. Like purposefully introducing a animal species from another continent to cure one problem and then it causes a dozen others that were not foreseen. They complain now about condors eating lead. Putting up thousands of wind generators that grind those birds up though is fine with them. There are already a bunch of tree huggers out there with initiatives to stop the building of wind farms as they are detrimental to bird populations. Lets just be honest and admit that we as of yet do not have a viable alternative to fossil fuel. Maybe if we get nuclear fusion figured out in 30 year or so. ( remember, nuclear fusion is just 30years in the future and has been there for over 60 years )
We are not going to be able to fill our energy needs with wind and solar power. Ever.

we are not off grid, so the only time we limit our usage is when the grid is down.

100KWh battery is much bigger than what we have.

If solar is to work the best way is to have individual solar setups at the residential level.
It eliminates grid losses and the whole acres and acres of solar farms.

The whole issue with any of this whether its solar wind and even EV's is storing electricity. Lithium batteries are a problem due to the minerals they require, Lithium, Cobalt and Nickel. Until there is a battery that can store large amounts of power that is made strictly from plentiful materials all these alternative power generation plans are too unreliable for constant power generation. EV's will never eliminate ICE because there isn't enough materials around to make enough lithium batteries, besides that the power to charge them is more often than not isn't "green" and there isn't enough electrical generating capacity to charge them if we went to all EV's.

this is all a line of bs to get more power....ya'll will see the results today.

Wind and solar are OK as a supplemental source of power. However, I have seen statistics that claimed in the last 20 years they have contributed to the national power grid about 2% in power generated. At this time we couldn't come close to surviving without fossil fuels.

Yor are correct. But I know a guy that the power company was going to charge him 80k to run the powerlines to where he was building his house. So he spent 100k and went solar instead. Worked very well for him and that was over ten years ago when prices on solar were much higher.

In some applications it makes since.

My hang up is battery life and cost. One day I will put in a small system to play with and use to learn more first hand. Maybe grid tied to off set my electric bill, or a small off grid system for an out building otlr at the cabin.

Another problem with solar and to some extent wind energy is that it gets produced when its not needed. When the sun is shining no one has their lights on. But when folks get home in the evening , turn on the stove , TV, lights etc. The wind dies down and the sun turns in for the day. Try running the whole country on batterie power .... want a bridge ??

off grid is a different thing , 99% of people are talking about grid tie , and no batteries.

for the way people complain every time a wind farm goes in , we only need to increase our wind by 1000 times to meet todays demand , if we go electric cars we need more yet but also don't get rid of the natural gas power stations , we will need those at night and on calm days.

the charge stations for cars are on par with everyone in the neighborhood adding a walk in freezer the size of their garage to the power grid

a small charger is 30amp 240ac if you want to charge in a few hours you need an 80 amp 240ac

Just over an hour north of me they clear cut a bunch of land to install about 10 wind turbines. So they have destroyed a little over a 100 acres of Habitat, Not to mention any potential future timber harvests in the name of GREEN energy and saving the planet. Seems a bit backwards to me. Now they want to install a bunch of them off shore just about 3ish miles out.

When I was a Kid we had hydro Dams, they worked very well. Very low maintenance but, they were removed in the late 80's. Because...Salmon.

I agree, every house roof should have solar, including every business roof. I am against having solar farms or even plots of land for solar panels. Maybe I would feel different once every house had solar panels on the roof, not sure. Wind should be banned, that is the ultimate destroyer of everything good.

Honestly the reason I got the truck was for my families benefit, the ecological factors were at the bottom of the list. I think any notion of full replacement is silly, and not practical or even recommended. I would recommend solar to everybody just to offset electricity costs and not be a slave to the utility. At the end of the day, any notion that EVs or solar is going green doesnt really matter. Barring some unfortunate nuclear spillage, the only real thing that would reduce any or all of the effects of any part of climate change is the mass reduction of the human race. Anything less I think is too small to make any dent, or even noticeable change. Just my opinion though.

another thing that the eco-Nazis never mention is the amount of herbicide required to keep the weeds from interfering with the massive solar farms that they are proposing. In much of the country (the arid southwest likely the exception); herbicide use to maintain these solar farms would be incredibly high.

And what doe the electrical companies do during the day when their product isn't needed?

The base demand is met with ( show reacting ) power stations burning coal , nuclear .. whatever. They run flat out 24/7 as you can't regulate them during the timeframe of hours. The peak is met with things like gas turbines etc. Things that you can just turn on and off when needed.

Yep, that question was aimed at Matt in regard to his...every house and business should have solar.