Need Solar Panel Guru.....?
I'm from Toledo, OH about 2 miles from the MI line. We are a foster family and have adopted 5 children. We just moved into a 5400+sq 2 story home. We have (3) 2.5-3 ton AC units to cool this huge house. We got the house cheap...$175k couldn't pass it up! Anyway...I was wondering how many solar panels it would take and of what wattage to power these Central Air Units and maybe the rest of the house. We have 13 people in our home......9 of which are children who leave the lights on and run hot water to beat the band. We have all brand new energy star appliances and front loader washer and dryer. Gas Range and Gas hot water tank. Was thinking of using metal window frames and buying solar cells and making my own panels. Just don't know how much to buy. We face south with no trees. Constant Sun. thanks for your help. An e-mail address to bounce questions off of would be helpful if you experienced. tx.
Basically, the answer to your question is forget it. Your approx 8 tons of AC will require about 28 KW of electricity just to run them. Add the rest of the house requirements and your talking a load of 50KW or more. Even if your state has a subsidy program, (and most of them are out of money now), it's a $200,000. system. Making your own panels would be a mistake. Reliability and survival are the key measures for a panel system and homemade panels are just not going to be reliable enough to survive the cold winters. In the end, it is always cheaper to buy good, conservatively rated commercial panels, especially in view of the fact that prices have been tumbling lately. Often, the mounting, interface and conversion costs are greater than the cost of the panels themselves. You might save some bucks by fabricating a mounting framework yourself and installing it, but such a system would not qualify for most state programs and.... you had better be an expert architect or engineer to put together something that will work well. The basic problem after all of this is that your maximum demand will be at night and the panels put out nothing at night. Better to forget about a 100% solution. You can install a modest 10 - 20KW system for perhaps $50,000 costs after rebates and subsidies and perhaps ... it might cover about 1/4 of your energy needs and might just, pay the investment back in 10 to 15 years. Get first rate equipment and professional installation, if you want the system to perform reliably. Solar voltaics make a lot of sense for Arizona and perhaps Florida. For anyone north of the Mason Dixon line however, fossil fuels are cheap, reliable and work far better.
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