Renewable Energy Systems (Solar)

Hi all. I just found out that this new sub forum was made recently and I am happy to see it and I thought I'd make a thread on renewable energy that people have been asking to get.

I will go into some basic details for renewable energy and some of the stuff that you need for a off the grid system and these can be changed into grid tie in systems with the hardware.


----- Solar -----
- Solar Panel(s) or stuff to build your own (building your own you have to know how to do it right)
- Inverter(s)
- Charge controller(s)
- DC Beaker Panel
- DC Rail(s)
- AGM battery bank.
- Right gauge of wire



- Solar Panel or build it your self kits -
You will need solar panels that will charge your battery bank. Depending if your doing a 6v, 12v 24v and even 48v systems all the stuff ie panels, charge controller , battery bank all must be the same voltage. Depending on your amps and watt needs you will have to fine tune if you produce more amps or more watts.

If you chose to go the route of building your own you will need to find the right kind of cells that you can use. Some people go for the bigger cells and some go for a smaller cells ie 6"x6" or even 2"x2" cells. From my research I found that 2"x2" cells are the best because they are smaller and you can wire them in series or parallel and I will get to this in a bit. Along with the cells you need a 20w or 25w soldering iron because to much heat will damage the cells, bus wire, tabbing wire, at least a 60 alloy/40 tin solder mix. You will also need around 1/4 inch thick glass that can stand up to high winds, rust resistance metal frame. If you want your home made panels to last a long time you should invest into a PV Solar cells EVA Encapsulant, Junction potting Solar Cell Encapsulation kit. They aren't super cheap but this will make your panels have a longer live over the cheap way of making them because the PV Solar cells EVA Encapsulant, Junction potting Solar Cell Encapsulation seals the cells and such thus preventing water getting to them. Last but not least you will need to buy and use blocking diodes for your panels and this will prevent the power in your battery bank leaking back to your panels.


- AGM battery bank. -
Now its the battery bank time. The reason why I said AGM (Absorbed Glass Matt) is because they have a longer life span and I've read that they can be ran indoors because it doesn't off gas like other kinds of batteries. Depending on how much you can afford to spare for the battery bank since its costly you can go with a single 6v system and upgrade from there or go for a system that you want to go. Most systems for basic setups are 12v because you can get a 12v battery. I have come across 2 different 12v AGM batteries. 1 has a rating of 1.4kwh at 120 amp hour to a 2.8kwh at 220 to even 240 amp hour. Because you shouldn't drain the batteries below 80% having more batteries in your bank will increase the kwh and amp hour that you can use in your bank. Don't forget you can always add onto your battery bank.


- Charge controller(s) -
Now its time to talk charging. You must get a charge controller because over charging your battery bank is very bad. Depending on the voltage you want your system to be your charge controller has to handle that kind of battery bank. Also when buying a charge controller you need to look at how many watts and amps it can handle because this will determine what amps and watts your solar panels wired up in series and parallel can put out for it to handle.


- Right gauge of wire -
I don't know much about this but all I know is that you need to get the right kind that can handle a higher amp,watts,volts going though it when your panels and such are far from the panels.


- Inverter(s) -
This is where you get your DC power into AC power. Get one or ones that is just high enough for what you need to power with it. Also make sure it can handle the right kind of amps going through it to and your using the "true" running power it produces and not the start up it gives.


- DC Beaker Panel -
Just like a AC breaker box in your house a DC breaker box is important to go to because that will help protect your stuff from power surges. Also going with a DC breaker box and rails is that you don't have to figure out what you need for ac way because you run a wire from the panel to the inverter to give you ac.


- DC Rail(s) -
Almost like your ac rails for your house but the difference is that I was told they use car fuses for them and the rails have a amp rating to and if it gets over loaded or w/e it will blow the fuse that you install into the rail.



So that is the basic run down. Now it will run you around $500 to around $700 for a very basic system if you chose to build your own solar panels and the biggest cost of that is the battery because they can go for $300 to $700 if you go with a 12v 1.4kw/120amph battery or a 2.8kw/240amph battery.

If you chose to build your own to can build a 10w to 16w panel or more then 1 depending the prices for stuff where you live.


I know that the start up cost is alot but where I live I pay $0.09 per kw and for the 1kw we have to pay around $0.10 per kw. Now you may still think that's now worth it but when you set your panels up in the right series and parallel you can produce more watts and amps when you hook them up right and that meens each panel helps give each panel a little boost.

A 10w to 16w panel system producing around 5 hours of top power production you can produce around 1.5kw to around 2.4kw every 30 days and in the summers some people can get up to around 7 hours of top production and if you get that for even 1 month you can produce up to 2.1kw to around 3,360w every 30 days.

So those numbers you could get $0.15 to even around $0.336 every 30 days.

Here's some more number crunching. If you were to buy a 100w panel and it cost around $300 to $400 you could have bought do it your self kits and build a 120w to a 256w panel setup for the same price.

The other advantage with building your own panels you can buy it in parts and some of it you won't have to re-buy for a few panels and add more to your system.




----- Series -----
When you wire devices in series the volts increase but the amps stay the same.

----- Parallel -----
When you wire devices in parallel the Amps per hour produced from the panels is increased and the Amp Hours in the battery bank is increased but the volts say the same.

Oh ... OK, I think I see that ... thanks. cn