I’ve done 5 solar systems now mostly myself. Started with a 600w on my camper then a 1.8kw off grid 12v with battery bank for our cabin finally a 7kw hybrid on/off grid with battery bank and wind on our house then helped friends with another 2 cabins. Unless you are in a few very select areas in the US (mostly high SW plateau) and have great un-obstructed sun exposure solar alone isn’t a good stand alone option. And we’ve seen nothing to say that the CT can be used as a battery bank, 220 inverter but that’s hardly the same as a battery bank. And even if you were banking on the truck as a battery bank what happens when the truck battery gets low? And it’s middle of winter? Gray and overcast for 2-3 weeks? Snow on the panels? Then what?
If for his cabin charging the truck wasn’t in the equation you could do a pretty awesome 12v DC solar system for $3-5k. If you wanted to do a system large enough to run a small AC unit as well and traditional 110 AC outlets $6-8k. If you add charging the truck and do it your self with a 6kw system your looking at $6k for the panels, $20k+ for mounting racks, wiring, conduit, breakers, , hardware +- a tracker, $500-$1k charge controller(s), $2k for an inverter, $10k for hydro electric or $10-15k+ for a wind turbine, and $20k (AGM) to $40k (Li) for a 40kwh (equivalent) battery bank. And all those figures are without paying anyone for labor.
A few things most people don’t realize about solar: first, most systems are grid tied so if the grid goes down you solar doesn't work, it’s not as easy as a transfer switch. Also for off grid functionality Even under direct sun solar (or wind) does not produce a consistent enough amp to start up any appliance or run much load so you need a battery bank large enough to support whatever you want to run/charge, basically the batteries run the electric system and the solar charges the batteries.
The more I think about it if it were me going off grid in the near future to retire to a cabin in the woods it makes way more sense to spend $10-15k up front and go on sportsman’s guide or CTD and get a cabin tent, cot, outdoor kitchen, wood stove, camp shower, water filter/system, and get a 9k generator, beater 3/4 ton truck and ATV. Then build the cabin with a super nice 12v DC system or AC system if need to run A/C and large freezer capacity, that way would be out <$20k for power system, truck, camp, ATV vs $100k+ for a CT and system to charge it.
finally
@larryboy. Last November we had a 7.1 earthquake and I lost power for 2 days. Like I said I have a 7kw solar hybrid system. My battery bank is on a 2nd breaker panel that only runs the necessities: water pumps for heat, well pump, and our kitchen. Heat, water heater, stove, oven are all NG and gas didn’t go down. My battery bank is a 15kw AGM and I have it set to 80% it was cloudy/stormy and gray and with my 7kw system I made <2kw/day and on day 2 Battery was down to 20% and couldn’t overcome the load required to run the heat water pumps so had to start my 9k 220 generator (my back up to solar at the time) to recharge the batteries. Luckily shorty after we got power back. After that I also installed a wind turbine as it is almost always breezy at my house. So basically whatever size solar you think you need add another 50% and whatever size battery you think you need at least double it.