THE COMPLETE SOLAR POWER GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS: Going Of Grid with 12v Solar in Your home RV Cabins and Vans by Rick Steve

Author:Rick, Steve [Rick, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2021-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

Solar sizing

It is important to understand how to size a solar power system to get the most out of it.

The main aim of any photovoltaic solar system is to offset all or a portion of your energy consumption with free solar power. The proportion of your energy requirements that a solar system can meet will be determined by a variety of variables, including your house's (or other location's) power usage, the efficiency of the system you install, and the location of your residence. The ideal location for solar panels would be someplace with chilly temperatures to keep the panels cool while still receiving enough sunshine to produce a lot of free electricity.

how to properly design a solar power system

Photovoltaic Solar Panel

Sizing a solar system may be difficult, particularly if you are putting a system in a new house, RV, or mountain chalet, or if you do not know your home's energy requirements. How can you know how many solar panels or how much solar energy you need in such cases?

If you know your energy use habits or have access to your energy bills, you may "guesstimate" your yearly energy consumption. Having a fairly accurate estimate of your energy usage will assist you in designing the appropriate size of the solar system.

Let's pretend we want to build a solar photovoltaic system for an off-grid garden summer home (or shed) with battery backup for nighttime illumination. How would we size a solar power system for such use?

How to Size a Solar Power System

Most individuals start by making a list of all the electrical appliances and gadgets that will be utilized in their specific house or location, as well as an estimate of how long each appliance or device will be switched-ON on consuming energy each day.

After that, multiply the power consumption (in watts) of each gadget by the number of hours it is turned on to get the daily electricity consumption in watt-hours, as indicated.

Watt-Hours/Day of the Appliance Watt-hours per day

Two Incandescent Lights 60W is 120W x 4 = 480 Whr

Outside Fluorescent Lighting

20W x 6 = 120 Whr

Ceiling Fan 50W x 4 is 200 Whr

Colour LCD TV 70W x4 is 280 Wh

Portable laptop

50Wx 6 is 300 Whr

Router Wi-Fi 10Wx 6 is 60 Whrs

1440 Whrs in total

The overall energy usage is therefore projected to be about 1440 watt-hours or 1.44 kilowatt-hours per day. However, it is preferable to put a little more on top, say 10% to 25%, to allow for system losses or the usage of an additional electronic device. The revised projected value is 1440 watt-hours x 1.25 (plus 25%) = 1800 watt-hours or 1.8 kWh.

Number of Sun Hours in a Day

Because solar energy is generated by incidence sunlight on PV panels rather than heat, it is essential to determine how many hours of direct sunlight the panel or panels will be exposed to throughout the day. The quantity of energy that can be obtained from solar power at an off-grid site is determined by its location and the time of year.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.