Solar Power anyone?

My girlfriend says I need a productive hobby/obsession... I was thinking alternative energy. Since I live in Florida, the Sunshine State I figured Solar Power was the energy to start with, but I an totally ignorant about the subject... or even where or with what to start.

Anyone?

May I suggest you look at the US-Website otherpower.com for a start.

In Germany we have the believe that solar is only economical for heating up water, not to generate electricity.
The reason being the high cost of electric solar panels and the little energy they yield. They need abt 25 years to payback, while they get smashed by hail every 5 to 20 years depending on location.

An alternative to the alternative is the (solar-driven) growth of plants that are then fired up in a power plant. This works quite well and as oil and gas prices rise, this approach becomes economical and creates local jobs, too.

Thanks!

I'd have to create the vegtable driven power plant though... and doesn't that still polute? Although, I guess a local farm and power plant is better that solar panels made in China... I did see somewhere an American company that was prototyping a panel that condensed about 7 panels into one and made it a lot cheaper. If I was at work I would fish the link. My connection here is almost painful to surf. :candle: Candlepower is about right...

The best place to get up to speed on solar power is to start reading Home Power magazine. Solar is actually quite simple, but like flashlights, it can get complicated and fun when people try to improve their basic system.

In my house, I run 120AC, 240AC, 6VDC, 12VDC and 24VDC, all from sets of solar panels, some wired in parallel for 24VDC and some for 12DC. Everything goes into a 12VDC battery bank. Since I'm way off grid, all my power comes from the sun or wind, because I've wired a wind generator into the system. I don't lose power during storms, I make it.

I've never heard of hail damage to solar panels. Usually, they are designed to handle anything the weather can throw at them.

But it's a great hobby, and you can start out small, maybe with a stand-alone system or one tied directly to the grid. Solar is modular, so you can start out with a panel or two.

Here are the parts for solar electric:

Solar panels: Usually set up to produce 17VDC so they can fill 12VDC batteries. Larager panels, 75 watts and up, are more economical to produce.

You can either run solar power into batteries, run it directly into the grid or use a hybrid system with both batteries and a grid intertie. You may or may not want to use a tracker, which turns the panels to face the sun during the day. These can be passive (use no power) or active (run by electricity).

Batteries: Deep cycle, usually 6VDC lead acid because they are most cost effective. You wire these in series/parallel for 12VDC or 24VDC or 48VDC. The higher voltages are becoming more popular because higher voltages can be sent farther down wires with less power loss and can use smaller, cheaper wires.

Controller: Prevents the solar panels from overcharging your batteries. The best controllers can accept high voltage from the solar panels (so you can place the panels far away and still deliver power to the batteries through small, cheap wires with little power loss) and step it down for the batteries.

Circuit disconnect: This is just a big circuit breaker. I can also be used as a DC breaker box.

System monitor: Basically a volt meter for the batteries and an ammeter to monitor the power your are using. Some have many other functions.

Inverter: Turns the DC into AC. If you have a straight grid system (no batteries) this is the only major component you'll need. Solar panels hook to the inverter and inverter is wired into your home breaker box and the computers in the inverter handle everything else. With a battery or battery hybrid system, you wire the batteries to the inverter and the inverter to the home breaker box. Get a pure sine wave inverter (not a modified sine wave inverter) because the electricity quality is much, much better.

Solar PV (photovoltaic, which makes electricity) can pay for itself very quickly, depending on your state and incentives available. There is a 30 percent tax credit (not deduction, but money back) of 30 percent up to $2,000 on systems installed this year and next. If you are in a net metering state, the PUD will have to buy power you put onto the grid, usually at the same price they charge you.

Efficiency: The real trick is to get energy efficient first. For reading, I use an LED light. It burns about 0.2 amps at 12V, vs 7 amps for a 75 watt incandescent that puts the same amount of light on the page. One hour of sunlight on my solar panels any time during the year -- just one hour -- will power my LED for 4 hours every night for a year.

Get rid of phantom power, which is the power appliances use when they are turned off. If I watch TV for 4 hours and turn it off for the other 20 hours, my old-technology set will use almost twice as much power during the 20 hours it was turned off as it did during the 4 hours it was turned on.

Use a tankless propane hot water heater and you'll save about $200 to $300 a year and never run out of hot water. Then tie the propane heater to a solar hot water heating system and you'll save even more.

If you really get into this, you can end up with a zero net energy house, meaning you produce as much power as you use.

Good luck. Solar is a great hobby that can pay for itself.

Josey

Wow, excellent post, Josey. I'm moving in a couple months and the location would be great for a small PV panel just to run my battery charger. I was looking into a 10 watt panel and a deep cycle battery to run my little Accumanager 20 (12V). Am I correct in my assumption that I would need no controller in a small setup like that?

Since the small panels are a little different animals than the big setups, are you aware of any that may have a controller built in? Is that possible? Or necessary?

TIA

Sub:

It depends on the size of the battery. A 10W panel may not be able to overcharge a deep-cycle battery. But I would put one on anyway because it's cheap insurance. You can get a very small, one-phase charge controller that would prevent the battery from rising to too high a voltage. Morningstar and BZ products both make good ones that should cost $20 or less, if I remember.

Josey

Thank you Josey -- that's just what I needed. Posts saved to HDD.

As a primer please goto Darrell's solar page. Yup our Darrell.

http://www.darelldd.com/ev/
Click on solar in the left pane.

http://www.homepower.com/
http://www.homepower.com/files/beginner/SolarElectricSystemCosts.pdf
http://www.homepower.com/files/beginner/SolarElectricSystemCosts.pdf
http://www.homepower.com/files/beginner/SolarHotWaterBasics.pdf

My system:
I have 5.2 kw of solar panels, 5kw inverter, 24kwh battery bank, grid connected and a electric car.

I have not had an electric bill for the house or bought gasoline to haul my butt around for four years.

=D~~ Kilted

I'm looking at setting up a small system. Buy a smallish panel for around $250, another $50 for a charge controller and then a 12v battery. I want to come off the battery to some automotive 12v jacks where I can plug in my cell phone charger, AA/AAA battery chargers and such. If I can get enough out of it my little linksys router will run from 12v as well as my mini-itx based "server".
Basically replacing my old UPS for the computer equipment with a 12v system. Then I can branch out from there.

I'm also somewhat in the process of setting up a small scale off grid system although I worked backwards instead of from the ground up like most people do. I started by getting some low voltage wiring around my bedroom.

Anyway, I currently have a 12ah gel cell from a junked electric scooter I found on the street (used to have two in parallel for 24ah but I accidently broke the tabs off one of the batteries :scowl: ) I mounted an ATO (automotive) fuse block on a sheet of plywood and used it for circuit protection and also as well as a distribution block. From there, I just ran some 14 gauge low voltage lighting cable (Zip Cord) around the room to different spots. I have an old car radio hooked up for music on one circuit, two lighter sockets from a Chrysler minivan for powering 12 volt devices on another, and a 300 watt inverter to run two compact fluorescent lamps, my laptop, and a 13" TV.

I keep the battery charged from wall power right now with a jury rigged transformer/rectifier but it isn't the best way to charge gel cells; I have to monitor the voltage and unplug it when the battery is full otherwise I'll overcharge it (already did that once when I left the "charger" plugged in; not good for gel cells) Bascially, it's just a crude "UPS" right now but it give you an idea of how to prepare for the system.

Eventually, I plan to have two 40 watt panels up and I already have a spot on the plywood to mount a charge controller and some meters.


Just this past spring, a friend of mine at Mt Sac (my community college) started a renewable energy club and we helped a Professor, who was one of our members, create an interesting system. He shares a remote cabin with some friends located in the Santa Anita Canyon just north of Arcadia. We created a system to power the cabin that used a 20 watt solar panel to keep a 50ah deep cycle battery topped off, but the majority of charging was via a generator we made by attaching a DC motor to a trainer stand that his friends or himself could attach a mountain bike to and pedal. The system powers 12 volt fluorescent lamps and some cigar lighter sockets that are used for chargeing cellphones and a laptop.

yuandrew, I'm looking at doing the same type of deal, start with 12v devices and work up to solar charging. I'm looking to use a small wall transformer to start with so I figured I would just feed it into the solar charge controller and let it handle the battery charging. Then when I do get the solar panel I can use the charge controllers low voltage drop out to trigger a relay to switch input from solar to transformer and a second relay to switch power on to the transformer so the line voltage is backup to the solar.
Start now, whenever you buy anything look for its input, for example I just bought my linksys router at the end of last year and one of the reasons I choose it over other brands is it ran from 12v. I have an AA/AAA NiCad/NiMH battery charger that I found which has an external power supply and car adapter so I have those parts ready.

I have a Netgear router myself and it uses 12 volts with the tip of the connector positive. Same thing with my old 900mhz cordless phone and answering machine. It should be easy to hack up and old wall wart with a similar connector and attach a lighter plug from Radioshack

Being that 12 volts is also a standard automotive voltage, PepBoys and Autozone should be helpful for some components such as the fuse blocks, cigerett lighter sockets, and crimp connectors I use for hookups. For wiring, I bought some low voltage landscape lighting cable from Home Depot; you can get it from 16 gauge down to 12 gauge. I mentioned I'm using cigerette lighter sockets but they are probably good for up to 15 amps. A person I know from church who's into ham radio (K6OI) told me he's using Anderson Powerpole connectors in his hamshack and they'll work up to 30 amps. I'll leave it up to you to decide what connectors you want and where.

Radioshack is also helpful if you can find one that still stocks electronic components; I have one near my house that does. If you look at their adaptaplug selection, they may have a universal DC-DC adaptor with a cigerette lighter plug and adjustible voltage output plus interchangeable tips that will fit into the wallwart socket on stuff you're powering. Another thing that may be of interest is their iGo auto/air universal power adaptor. My Professor bought one for his Powerbook that he is using up at his cabin; we decided to go the dc-dc converter route since we figured it was more efficient than an inverter converting to 120 volts ac then back down to low voltage dc. The iGo has interchangeable connectors and can do almost any laptop. iGo also makes smaller adaptors for portable dvd players, iPods, and phones.

Lighting can be the same if you have an inverter like I have in my setup, just find some good quality CFLs like Sylvania or Philips for your lamps. Otherwise, you can go with DC lighting like we did for the cabin; WalMart has some 12vdc 15 watt CFLs in their RV products section that we used for the cabin. Just make sure you don't accidently put them in a 120volt socket; no problem if you're in the mountains with only DC power but easy to do at home.
You can also try RV fluorescents as well; they should be brighter and more fool proof. Lowes and HomeDepot also has some inexpenisve 12" 8AA battery powered fluorescent closet lights that may also have wall wart jacks on the side; those will do in a pinch as well.

For battery charging, you'll also want a power supply that can deliver at least an amp with a voltage of at least 14 volts; most 12 volt wall warts are unregulated and should easily give out around 16 volts open circuit but it will go down slightly under load. You can pick up a Morningstar Sunsaver charge controller for around $50 if you look around. Select your battery according to your needs and add a little extra capicity so you'll have enough to go through the night with whatever you're running left on. I've heard a good rule of thumb is to have enough battery power for at least three days without charging.

I'll leave finding a solar panel up to you but feel free to search around the net.

Oh, and don't forget to fuse your circuits. I know it's easily overlooked by most people but even my 12ah battery packs some punch when shorted. An ATO style fuse block should work and also be helpful as a distribution block; I have a four gang one.
Just to let you know; my friend had some off road lights on his truck with a 14 gauge wire running directly from the battery up to a switch in the cab before heading up to the roof. I told him he should put a fuse right where it hooks to the battery but he didn't. Needless to say we had an electrical fire start when the connection on the back of the switch came loose and shorted on something under the dash. We happened to be driving around at that time when we heard a crackeling sound and smoke started pouring out from under the dash. We stopped and got the fire out but the wires were melted from from the point where it grounded all the way back to the battery.

Check out

http://www.wind-sun.com/smf/index.php

There are a couple of other CPF'ers oer there pretty regularly

I only have 480w of solar panels, stacked 2.5kw inverters (5k total), 24kwh (AGM) battery bank, grid tied. Mine started out as a large UPS and keeps getting bigger and bigger.

I have some info and links on my solar site as well
http://www.uwgb.edu/nevermab/solar.htm

Fieldlines is Otherpower's forum. I used to lurk there, good people.


:buddies:

Check out

http://www.wind-sun.com/smf/index.php

There are a couple of other CPF'ers oer there pretty regularly

I only have 480w of solar panels, stacked 2.5kw inverters (5k total), 24kwh (AGM) battery bank, grid tied. Mine started out as a large UPS and keeps getting bigger and bigger.

I have some info and links on my solar site as well
http://www.uwgb.edu/nevermab/solar.htm

Click to expand...

Thank's for the links Brock, some are pretty helpful.

Looks like both of us started on a similar route; a DIY UPS

:wow: Thanks! This is what I hoped for... I'm at home on a cell air card so I'll have to wait till later tonight when I get to work to check these links out.

I started pricing panels and can't seem to find any for less than $5.33/watt. I read $4/watt is a good price. I think I may start off with one room. I'd like to power this blue argon beast... I think the PS says 1200 watts. :candle: :sweat: Heck, just the laser'd be a good start. :lolsign:

Thanks again ya'll. :bow: I need a productive obsession.

Solar panels (Google it). I'd be looking on how to harness the lightning in Florida.

Example: http://www.rain.org/~philfear/how2solar.html

allthatwhichis said:

My girlfriend says I need a productive hobby/obsession... I was thinking alternative energy. Since I live in Florida, the Sunshine State I figured Solar Power was the energy to start with, but I an totally ignorant about the subject... or even where or with what to start.

Anyone?

Click to expand...

cyberhobo said:

Solar panels (Google it). I'd be looking on how to harness the lightning in Florida.

Click to expand...

:duck:
Have you been playin with the paint chips too? I don't think they make goggles for lightning either... :huh2: