I wanted to have a fully solar-powered setup, or at least as much as practical, and this here is a record of everything I've done so far.

I started off with the cheapest things I could find: A camping setup. I got a bluetti Elite 30, plus a 100 watt portable solar panel.

The elite 30 has a maximum solar input of 200 watts, so it isn't all that useful and the battery doesn't hold much power either.

Nevertheless I setup the panel on my balcony and hooked it up to the Elite 30. It's a straightforward MC4 adapter cable that comes with the unit, and the weather strip under my door is squishy enough that the cable can go right through, even if the door is closed.

In full sun I get about 80% off the rated output: 80 watts. Tilting the panel directly towards the sun gets closer to 100%, but the goal is to set-and-forget.

This is only realistially enough power to run my laptop off of, and even then only when the sun is out, but it proved the concept.

I got a 200 Watt panel next and wired it in parallel with the 100 Watt one. You just a MC4 Y-cable and plug both panels into it, matching the red/black colours.

Now my total output is 300 watts, which is more than the Elite 30 can accept, but I figured it would simply clip and discard the excess. Turns out that the second panel isn't as efficient as the first so I never actually get anywhere near its full rating. In full sun, I get just about 190 Watts coming out of the two, more than enough for a laptop, and in fact enough to run my desktop (without the graphics card running hot while gaming).

On mornings or cloudy days I barely get 20 Watts, almost nothing, but in the afternoon when the sun finally his my balcony it's at 190 Watts.

If I restrict myselff to my laptop, I actually am fully solar powered - the excess energy charges the Elite 30 battery, and the laptop will draw from that while the sun is out. During the morning or cloudy days, it'll draw a trickle from the battery since the ultraviolet that goes through the clouds is almost enough to power the laptop.

Now that I've proven I can almost power my office, I obviously have to scale it up!

I got an Elite 100, which has a maximum solar input of 1000 Watts and can store 1 KWh of power. This increases my power ceiling 5x. The smaller Elite 30 I put aside as a UPS for a raspberry pi server that I had in the corner.

Next, I grabbed a 400 Watt panel, and wired it again with the other two. Total output: 700 Watts. Realistically, I only get 50% of that, but 350 watts is more than enough to power my desktop and dual monitors, and the leftover charges the battery for when I want to play games at higher power.

I'm still not 100% energy independent in my office, but I can see the goal approaching. One more 400 watt panel might do it..

I'll just keep expanding until I hit my kilowatt input limit, and then I'll have to figure out what to do from there. Realistically, it's very hard to actually hit that limit, I'd have to massively overprovision panels far beyond what any apartment balcony can support (not enough space).

I think the next step is probably to buy a house, as unrealistic as that seems, and put more panels on the roof.