Before an off-grid review can start, someone has to write down what the property actually uses. Not a preferred kit, not a panel count, and not a round number copied from a neighbour. The useful document is a load inventory: each appliance or circuit, how many of them, what the paperwork says they draw while running, whether a starting figure exists, how long they run, and at what time of day.
An off-grid system is not connected to utility power lines. There is no distributor covering a missed pump start after sunset, and a monthly bill, if you even have an old one, does not show which loads overlapped. We help organise load, storage and site information for an off-grid solar assessment. That work begins with your list, including the lines you cannot yet complete.
If the site still has a dependable grid connection and you only want selected circuits during an outage, stop here. That is backup for a grid-connected property, not an independent supply. Keep this inventory for a property that has to stand on its own.
Write Loads Before Anyone Talks Equipment
An off-grid solar appliance load list is a record of electricity use at the site, not a catalogue of products. Quantity belongs on every line. Two refrigerators, two well pumps, or a pair of chest freezers are separate claims on power and on stored energy. Writing “kitchen” or “house” as one row hides the coincidence that actually matters.
Take running power from a nameplate, manual or other documentation you can read without opening equipment. If the figure is missing, leave it blank and say so. A designer can investigate a gap. A guessed wattage presented as fact becomes a guessed system scope.
Hours without time of day are only half a record. A water pump at noon and the same pump at 9pm are different problems for generation and for storage. Lights, communications and refrigeration that continue after dark draw on energy that had to be stored earlier. Occasional workshop tools may barely move daily energy use and still dominate a short afternoon. Write the clock pattern the household actually keeps, not a smoothed average that never happens on site.
Do not convert the list into equipment. Storage duration, array size, generator integration and mounting details are later engineering questions. Your job is to make the demand visible enough that those questions have something real to work on.
Capture Quantity, Running Power, Hours and Timing
Power demand and energy use are different quantities to include in an assessment. Power is the instantaneous draw while something is on, the figure that must be within what conversion equipment can deliver at that moment. Energy is that draw over time, the figure that storage has to cover when the roof is not producing. A modest load that never switches off can use more energy in a day than a large tool used for twenty minutes. The tool can still be the item that the system cannot start.
For each line record:
the appliance or circuit, in ordinary household language how many units running power from documentation, or “not stated” any documented starting or surge information, or “not stated” typical hours of use on a normal occupied day whether those hours fall in daylight, evening or overnight whether the use is daily, a few times a week, or seasonal
Off grid daily energy consumption is the sum of the energy lines across a day you would actually live. It is not a single monthly total divided by thirty, and it is not a peso figure from an old utility bill. Frequency and duration still matter the way they do on a grid-served appliance calculator: name the device and how often it runs. Compressor loads such as refrigerators and air conditioners can use more energy in hotter months even when the clock hours look unchanged. If March to June occupancy or cooling use is different, put that on the line rather than burying it in an annual blend.
Where usage is irregular, write the irregularity. “Washing machine, two hours, twice a week, late morning” is usable. “Laundry, about 300 watts” is not, unless 300 watts is on the machine and the hours are still missing.
Keep Starting Surge Off the Running-Power Line
Motors and compressors often ask for a short, higher demand as they start. Pumps, refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners and some power tools are the usual cases. That starting demand is a power problem for a solar and storage setup, not an extra few watt-hours on the daily total. Unused energy can still sit in a battery while a pump fails to start because the instantaneous limit was hit.
Copy a starting or surge figure only when the manufacturer states it. If the label is silent, write that it is unknown. Do not apply a homemade multiplier, and do not open enclosures or take electrical measurements yourself. Those checks belong to a qualified person. Marking “surge not documented” tells the assessment where to look. Inventing a surge hides the risk.
Air conditioners add a second timing issue beyond surge. Some units need a pause after a supply interruption before they should restart, so a brief dip is not the same event as a planned evening run. You do not need to diagnose the machine. Note that it is a compressor load, when it usually runs, and whether it is essential. Leave protection settings and restart behaviour to the technical review.
Treat surge as its own column so it cannot be mistaken for running watts or for daily energy. The three numbers answer three different questions, and only the ones you can evidence should look finished.
Split Daily Energy From What Runs at Once
A list that only totals kilowatt-hours will understate the worst hour. Simultaneous use is the subset that might be on together: kettle and microwave while the refrigerator compressor is already running; pump, lights and communications after dark; cooling and entertainment in the late afternoon. You do not need a laboratory log. You need the household’s real overlap written next to the items that share it.
That overlap is why power and energy both have to stay on the page. Daily energy consumption tells the assessment how much must be generated and stored over the day. Simultaneous power tells it what must be delivered in a single moment. Collapsing both into one “house load” figure makes a tidy spreadsheet and a misleading brief.
If some loads are mutually exclusive, say so. A workshop welder that never runs while the guest-room air conditioner is on is a different coincidence from two air conditioners that do. Do not assume the designer will infer house rules you have not written down.
Continuous loads deserve a flag of their own. Refrigeration, some communications equipment, a well pump on a float switch, and security lighting do not wait for a convenient solar window. Occasional loads can often be moved. Mixing them in one unsorted column makes every item look like a 24-hour claim.
Mark What Can Wait, Who Is Home, and What Supply Exists
After the raw list exists, mark each line essential or deferrable. Essential means the property is not workable if that load is unavailable for the period you care about. Deferrable means you can shorten it, move it, or leave it off when generation is poor. These are operating choices. Laundry can often wait. A chest freezer of food, a medical device, or the pump that keeps water in the tank usually cannot. Marking everything essential does not create more supply. It only conceals which uses you are willing to manage.
Occupancy then changes the totals. A family home, a caretaker on site, a weekend house, and a property empty for weeks are four different energy stories. Record who is present, on which days, and in which months. Guests in April, irrigation in the dry season, and school-holiday cooling are conditions on the list, not afterthoughts in a later call. If the occupied day and the empty day do not look alike, submit both rather than one fictional typical day.
Also record what supply already exists. No connection, a line you do not intend to rely on, a portable generator, a fixed generator, or leftover grid-tied hardware are different starting points. Note that a generator is there if it is there, what you already use it for, and whether you want it to remain part of the picture. Do not sketch how it should be wired or how many hours of autonomy it “should” provide. Autonomy, generator integration and site constraints need a qualified design review.
Site limits travel with the same brief even though they are not appliance lines: access for delivery, space for equipment, likely cable routes, roof or ground mounting area. A complete load list on a property that cannot receive equipment is still an incomplete packet. Write the constraints you know.
Leave Unknowns Visible and State the No-Sun Need
Every honest list has holes. Nameplates painted over, hours that vary with guests, a future workshop not yet equipped, a surge figure the manufacturer never printed. Label those holes. “Unknown, needs a qualified check” is a valid cell. Filling it with a round number is not, unless that number is documented.
The no-sun requirement belongs in the same honest column. How many nights, or how many poor-sun days, do you want the essential subset to continue without generation? That is a need you bring to the review. It is not a result the spreadsheet can certify, and it is not a runtime this page can promise. Nameplate energy on a battery is not the same as usable energy. Usable energy is not the same as hours a particular set of appliances will run once reserves, limits and losses are applied. Do not turn the list into a storage size. Bring the essential subset, the occupancy pattern, and the duration you want discussed.
If you already own inverter or battery hardware, bring the model details as facts about existing equipment. A shared brand name does not establish a supported pairing. A system choice needs the load requirements and the exact equipment specifications together.
The practical answer is straightforward. Before an off-grid feasibility review, the assessment needs the appliances and quantities, documented running power where it exists, starting information present or marked unknown, hours and time of day without smoothed-away peaks, continuous versus occasional use, essential versus deferrable use, real overlap, occupancy through the year, existing generator or absence of grid, and a no-sun duration stated as a requirement. A tidy fiction is worse than an incomplete page.
Bring that packet, gaps included, to an off-grid feasibility assessment. We use it to organise load, storage and site information for a qualified review of feasibility, autonomy, generator questions and the actual site. The list does not replace that review, and it does not produce a panel count, a battery count or a guaranteed number of nights. Finish what you can finish, mark what you cannot, and send it with occupancy and the no-sun need attached.