The managers of remote J Bar L Ranch, in Centennial Valley, Montana, US, see themselves as stewards of their land.

Placing the health and happiness of animals, people and the environment first, their focus is on preserving, restoring and sharing the natural beauty of the land in their care.

They’re progressive ranchers: they raise cattle on the herbage which occurs naturally in the valley without the use of antibiotics, or growth hormones, while co-existing with wildlife and working to regenerate the soil and landscape. And they like to share the ranch’s big sky landscape with others – offering generous off-grid accommodation for family vacations, or for group events.

Apart from the outdoor activities which the location has to offer – hiking, birding and wildlife watching, nearby fishing access and horseback riding outfitters – there are special retreats and clinics available to visitors; tutor led safe spaces to learn arts, crafts, personal growth and practical skills in a setting which allows participants to be present.

Time spent with family, friends and shared interests groups, far from urban hurry, provides an opportunity to reconnect with nature, with each other, and also with ourselves. For those staying longer, the accommodation at J Bar L Ranch comprises secluded traditional historic cabins and houses which have been renovated, refurbished – or in one case, even relocated – to provide a vacation home built with heart from natural materials; offering views you won’t believe; and yet still equipped with pampering modern conveniences.

The ranch is twenty miles from the nearest adopted road. Grid electricity serves about half of the ranch buildings – but when it fails, it’s last in line for reconnection. Happily these days the ranch’s two main guest locations, as well as, the seasonal staff complex enjoy uninterrupted power – even when the grid fails – thanks to a major investment in solar based autonomous power.

Guests won’t even know their paradise home is off-grid and powered by the sun …because that’s just how solar installer Harvest Solar MT, planned it!

Some solar energy provision had been present at the guest cabins for many years, but periodic renewals and upgrades led to a variety of equipment add-ons which were hard to manage. Failures occurred, generators whined.

Meg Zaranek manages the ranch’s guest program:

“In the past, the generator would kick on a lot, even during the day when the sun was out. With the new systems we definitely don’t think about our power usage, and we no longer have to listen to a generator.” she says. “A few weeks ago, the power company contacted us to tell us we’d be without power for part of the day because of grid maintenance – and we said ‘Ok fine, that’s not going to affect us, because we’ve got out own back up power system.”

The systems were designed by the Harvest Solar team, headed by Kyle Macvean. Kyle says: “In the past, the caretakers would get calls that the power had gone down and they’d lost internet connection so they were bouncing around each location trying to get the generator started – or a lot of times they would just have to leave the generator running the entire time the guests were there just because they were busy and didn’t have time to fix the power system. That resulted in a lot of wasted fuel and extra generator maintenance, and it’s expensive to get a generator guy out there. “The new system has already saved the ranch a lot of time and money. As ranchers they still get on their horses every day and go out on the plain – so having reliable power has freed up time. Same for the caretakers and the maintenance foreman – allowing them to focus on other projects, which are many!”

How much power? Working out the system size…

Harvest Solar MT, based in Bozeman, Montana, designed three systems as upgrades for three off-grid solar power systems to provide power to the staff residence ranch house, and some vacation cabins for summer occupation. “We always try to design a worst-case scenario so we looked at the maximum guest capacity for each cabin and time of use for each site, plus average hours of sunlight in this location throughout the year.

“For guests who don’t understand that they’re off-grid, we wanted to take pressure off the caretakers such that no matter what the use was, the system can handle it. In the worst-case scenario, the generator will start automatically to supply temporary power to peak loads, so the system will restore itself quickly in the event of heavy use.”

The principle devices installed were:

2 x MultiPlus-II 48/5000 inverter/chargers in split-phase configuration
1 x MPPT RS 450/200 solar charge controller
2 x Lynx Distributor 1000
1 x Lynx Shunt 1000
1 x Cerbo GX
1 x GXTouch 50 touchscreen user interface display
4-8 Pylontech US5000 48v LiFePO4 Batteries
1-2 Pylontech Energy Storage Cabinets
11.5kWp bifacial solar panel array to maximise the power harvest – especially in the winter

“We reviewed all the major loads (well pump, septic, microwaves, refrigerators, hair dryers, toasters. We wanted to make sure that any type of guest that was staying there could operate and cook in a kitchen without necessarily knowing that they were on an off-grid power system. Smart, uninterrupted, secure power was the goal.”

Winter freeze

J Bar L Ranch, largely shuts down in the winter months. All livestock and employees move out of the valley to another ranch location.

“This factored into our design as well – allowing for more battery storage to get them through the dark, snowy winter months without having to rely on the generator. Each system is fully winter-ready, having an insulated room with a space heater. We’ve been monitoring the min and max battery temperature from VRM and last winter, it got really, really cold over a two week period – enough for us to want to come back and install some very simple heater pads that turn off and on based on battery temperature, ensuring the Pylontech lithium batteries stay at around 40 degrees Fahrenheit (5C). Having historical data on VRM was super handy to show the customer.”

The other two off-grid systems will not be used at all in the winter. “In the past, they would have had to unplug and remove the batteries for the winter because they couldn’t support the standby loads. Now the caretakers can just leave the systems up and running, and this saves them a lot of work. They just literally turn the lights off, and then in the springtime, when they’re ready to receive guests they turn them back on! The batteries are full, and the system’s ready to get back to work.

We use Victron…

“A huge thing I appreciate with Victron – because we try to be as knowledgeable as we can on everything that we’re installing and recommending and we don’t want to sell anyone something they don’t need – we can monitor the system even after it’s installed, saying: ‘Hey, let’s see how this goes.’ If other things are needed, we have real performance data that we can base our decision on …instead of just spending money that’s not necessary.”

“It’s really hard for an installer to communicate everything that the system operator needs to know;” says Kyle, “but with the VRM it’s a lot easier. ”

As an example, the Ranch had a lightning strike at the main staff housing complex. Luckily, everything that we installed was fine – but they had a Starlink, and a bunch of electronics in the home that got fried. Looking at VRM, I could see the power usage really well on each inverter, so we were able to isolate a lot of components and see if they’d been affected or not – which is really, really handy.

The ranch is a three-and-a-half hour drive from us on a good day – if it’s snowing it could be five hours – but because they have reliable internet connection with VRM, for us as an installer we’re able to see that information. It’s a much better alternative when you’re looking at seven hours of road time for the round trip.“ Never-the-less, Harvest Solar make an annual visit to check the things which may not show up on VRM – such as panel-mounts and wiring, and to make sure no critters have taken up residence in the devices. They also make a ‘How-To’ guide for the owner’s use, as well as labelling system components …making it easier for anyone unfamiliar with the system to find their way around.

Node-RED

Kyle says that having the support of Intelligent Controls as their distribution partner is another huge advantage. If there’s something that he or his tech team can’t figure out, it’s really easy to get a hold of extra troubleshooting or programming support.

“There’s so much you can do with Victron’s communication software (Venus OS) and we’re constantly learning;” he says, “We’ve written additional code that we’ve been able to imprint inside the VRM for different types of scenarios.

For example, we have a customer with a three-wire start generator. Most generators are two wire start, and that’s how the Cerbo GX is set up. Intelligent Controls wrote a little bit of code in Node-RED and sent it through the VRM portal to allow us to control that generator with the Cerbo. That’s not stuff we really deal with every day. So being able to have expert support to come up with the right solution to a problem is huge.”

Home on the Range

The J Bar L cattle ranch employs multiple families across its livestock and guest operations, many of whom live on site with young children. Meg says: “Taking care of animals, seeing wildlife everyday, there are endless opportunities for discovery and unplanned teaching moments. There’s been human impact in the valley, obviously – we’re here. But as a ranch, we are constantly trying to learn how sustainable livestock practices can benefit the land rather than a traditional extraction model.”

Giving back is the model on which the ranch is run for visitors, too. J Bar L Ranch describe their location as the ultimate opportunity to get lost in the sweeping views and natural quiet of the Centennial Valley and reconnect with friends and family …and you know it must be true when they tell you that: ‘because of our extraordinarily remote location, you will be unable to use your phone to navigate to the ranch!’

They highly recommend a 4-wheel drive vehicle with all-terrain tires to best access all of the roads in the Centennial Valley.

You can experience the big sky vacation with heart by visiting the J Bar L ranch accommodation booking page.