What SOLAR PANEL kit do I need?
There are so many solar panels and kits it is very confusing. I need to know what exactly I would need if I had an underground home with no electricity. I want to be totally off the grid with solar power. Someone please explain to me in simple terms what exactly I need. Maybe give me a link to the right kit for me.
Also are they easy to install? Are there instructions that I need to download?
Thank you
You need a lot of money.
It's difficult to even fit enough panels on a normal roof to supply the average usage of an American home.
You need to figure out your daily usage in watts. The average home needs anywhere between 2500 and 6000 watts at peak times of the day.
You would need a significant battery bank as well, so that you had enough power through the night.
A standard panel is around 2' x 4 ' and produces between 60 and 240 watts in bright sun, (depending on the quality of the cells, which increases cost per panel)
There's also the issue of how much weight your structure can handle. You might need to put some of them on a stand in the yard. Or specially design your home to support the weight.
Most roofs are designed to handle the load of a few feet of snow.
Ok so lets add that up. If you were very conservative and kept it under 3000 watts at any given time, leaving enough to charge those batteries as well, AND you bought the highest grade panels, 3000/240 = 13 panels. That's 104 square feet of panels.
Now hopefully you live in a warm climate like southern California, and plan to use a wood/pellet stove for heat. What about hot water? What about cooking appliances? An electric range needs about 3600 watts at 240 volts to operate the oven, and each burner is between 1200 and 1800 watts depending on how large it is. A standard microwave is around 1200 watts. Some more. A vacuum is 1460 watts. A blow dryer is 1500 watts, a Clothes dryer is as much as 6000 watts.
You have to really consider how much power you actually need at any given moment. And then how much reserve power you will need. You might also want a back up generator for cloudy days...
You might do well to include some wind power to supplement your panels.
But for starters, figure out how much power you currently use.
A quick, but inaccurate measure would be to look at your bill and divide the total electric KWH by the days of the month and then by 12 hours. And then multiply by 1000 to get average watts per hour during the day.
Then figure out how much money you want to spend...
If you do it yourself you won't get the tax credit (if that's still actively available) For that you have to get an engineered system made of UL approved parts and installed with permits and inspections.
In most places you're required to do most of that anyways... although many people get away without the hassle.
There's a lot of dangers to consider though, Know what your roof can support. Some panels weight as much as 60 lbs each. Know how to size your wire. Know how to handle batteries and where you can safely store them (not inside, they release toxic fumes)
Many solar distributors have estimating programs that will give you an idea of average sun production for your yard, and what the optimum orientation for the panels are.
My dad uses motors to tilt his along with the sun on his peak. I don't know how effective that is at making it worth while.
He also buys low cost panels that aren't UL approved. Right now he gets an average of 1500 watts during the day with about 11 panels. But he's just inverting it into his house power with a grid tie.
You would need a special kind of inverter, and a charging monitor to keep your batteries safe.
I would also consider a meter that tells you how much charge you have and how much power production you have available to use, you wouldn't want to overload the system.
Personally I want to get property with flowing water on or next to it, that I can place wheels into.
I've seen quite a few designs for home made wind generators, and I want to work with hydrogen as a storage medium.
I could use the green energy to perform electrolysis and design a generator that runs on hydrogen, (of those PEM fuel cells seem to be the most efficient although they're really expensive right now...)
If I could make enough hydrogen, I could also use it for heat, hot water, and cooking.
Home Solar Power Kits
[simpleaffiliate source="amazon" results="10"]home solar power kit[/simpleaffiliate]
[simpleaffiliate source="clickbank" results="5"]home solar power kit[/simpleaffiliate]
No comments:
Post a Comment