While this isn’t really a DIY project, I figured I could get some good advice here.
Aspects of solar can be DIY. An off grid system, feel free to build it yourself from start to finish. Nobody cares.
Grid tied? That depends on the electrician you find. Someone needs to sign off that it meets code, and the range of electrician comfort with people doing their own work varies, a
lot. Some refuse to let you do anything, some basically glance at the result, pull a few conduits to make sure it's secure, and if it looks good, will sign off. You want the second, obviously, but you should also be building to or above code standards in case there's a problem. Insurance companies don't like DIY builds burning down homes.
At that point, I’d like to go as completely solar and off grid (for electricity) as possible.
Why?
Are you going to be within $10k-$20k worth of connection fees to the power grid?
What's your opinion on generator maintenance?
If the answer is the depressingly common, "Well, you know, free energy from the sun, and all that, and it's criminal what the power companies are doing..." nonsense, stop right now. Off grid power is stunningly expensive, and rather environmentally unfriendly. See the other thread Daley linked for a much longer set of thoughts on that, but it's not cheap, and it's not clean. And it's a seriously inefficient use of panels compared to grid tied solar, because when the battery bank is full, the panels just sit there getting hot (not producing anything).
I’m looking for any resources Moustachians might recommend to get up to speed on the technical details.
I work full time in an off grid office (off grid power systems, I do have internet out there, though I learned that half the internet gets really, really upset because there are two completely different definitions of "off grid" in use), and I know my way around off grid power fairly well. Start reading, assume most of what you read is crap designed to sell you something (or written by someone in the comfort of their grid tied home), try it, learn, iterate.
I don’t plan to install or design a system myself, but I want to be an educated consumer when the time comes.
Ah. So. Please don't build an off grid power system, if that's how you're going into it. An off grid power system is a way to turn a large pile of cash into a small pile of power. Having someone else do the design/install/etc, is a great way to turn a really gigantic pile of cash into an even tinier bit of power.
Does the thought of being the engineer and operator of your own power plant excite you, or terrify you? If it doesn't excite you, off grid power is probably not for you, because that's literally what you're doing. Sure, there's automation that deals with a lot of it, but I'm operating my office as much as I'm operating the computers in it. My office is a non-trivially complex machine that serves to keep all the other machines running, but I tend to geek out over power systems, batteries, etc. It's absolutely not a set up and forget type system, and since I don't have things like automated generator start, I get to do the spitballing on if it's a good day to light the generator or if I can ride through another day with weak solar, should I heat on propane or electric, how many computers can I actually run today, etc.
Has anyone a recommendation for books, websites, etc.?
I blog about solar stuff halfway often, though I've certainly not written any books on it (yet).
My initial thought is a couple of Tesla walls, and then panels to keep them charged, but I really don’t know what I’d need. Can anyone make recommendations so I can get educated? Thanks in advance!!!
Ah, so the PowerWalls are cute toys, and almost entirely useless for any sort of project, because you can't get them on any sort of schedule (Preorder and get lucky), and they're not rated for sustained off grid use. Or they are. Or they're not. And nobody can figure out details. They're also AC coupled, which is a poor way to build an off grid power system for a variety of reasons, mostly related to microinverters only being cheap because they're designed for grid tie operation.
A lot of it comes down to how big a house you want to power, and how you've designed it. I suggest buying a subscription to Home Power Magazine with the digital back issue option, and start reading backwards (the stuff from the 80s is historically fascinating but not at all useful in today's environments). If you design a house from scratch to run off grid, the power system requirements can be quite small. If you design it like a normal house, the system requirements (and expense) are much higher.
So... figure out what you want to do, and why, and then decide if you're willing to spend a ton of money to build an expensive, environmentally unfriendly way to generate some power.
===========
I plan to eventually build a power system for my house that's grid tied, but with significant grid down capabilities. Partially because I think this may be useful in my lifetime, partly because I think it's an interesting project. I expect it to never "pay off" in terms of power production, simply because the moment you say "battery," it doesn't. But it would let me ride through outages quite nicely.
Grid tie stuff is interesting, but is a unique blend of hostile to the power grid. I expect the requirements on that to get a lot tighter in the coming years as power companies have to deal with the fact that enough uncontrolled renewables on the grid are a great way to destabilize the grid, and having people using the grid as their free, ideal battery, without paying for it, is not a long term viable option.