So what are you doing now in terms of renewables? Anything?
Or were the renewables strictly to run the server?
Or were the renewables strictly to run the server?
I now have another house elsewhere with 4kW of solar on the roof. I would add more, but for two reasons:
1) There might be enough space up on the roof for another 2-3kW, but it's close.
2) The local laws governing grid-tie are such that I can't just add more panels. I can put up another separate system, but with a separate meter. I'm concerned that two separate systems on the same grid point trying to sync to the grid may have problems where they interfere with each other. I have read about such problems.
Fortunately the solution would appear to be use of a GPS central time clock that is fed to the 2x PV arrays individualy... if you run your own local time server you can 'skew' the clock signals to each array to get them in sync with each other and then in to a dummy load of spare lead-acids or a capacitor bank (if you want to get fancy and don't mind the 'large gray box' emitting smoke and launching itself off the wall from time to time).
Then you sync your 'mini-grid' to their slightly larger mini-grid.
Oh and when synching - never forget the old-school 4-light-bulb trick as a visual confirmation that things are synched correctly before tying in to the grid. Oh and fuses, large ones. With spares.
If you can find a friendly H.V. engineer or Linesman they might be able to tell you what clock source 'their grid' uses (GPS, Network time etc etc) which makes synching to the local-ish grid a whole lot easier if you have the exact same setup. I think the main thing is to make sure you have the dummy-load ready to feed/smooth what can be at times be a large inrush/outrush till the load equalizes.
Obviously, always seek out advice from someone that knows what they are talking about and has knolwedge of local laws, quirks of the grid etc.
I'm somewhat skeptical that GPS synchronization is the real answer here. The problem is synchronizing the phase of the PV system to the grid so they can work together to power the load, allowing excess PV power to be sold back into the grid when not needed locally. To synchronize, one needs to control the phase of the PV system so it always slightly leads the phase of the grid. Determining the phase of the grid is the challenge. With two or more locally grid-tied PV systems, you cannot know the phase of the grid with much certainty because each PV's take on the grid phase is the aggregate of the actual grid phase and the phase of the other PV systems. Positive feedback and phase oscillation are likely.
Using GPS to synchronize with the grid assumes that the grid's phase is stable, but my observations over the past few years have revealed that today's grid has much less short-term stability than the grid of old. I'm assuming that the lower phase stability today is caused by the recent massive adoption of grid-tied PV arrays. So instead of using GPS time to guess the current grid phase, you really need to know what it is (locally). Aside from placing grid phase monitors on nearby houses, I don't know how to do this.