WorldFun Posted January 25, 2011 Report Share Posted January 25, 2011 solar panels used for water heating is probably more useful & viable unless there really is not other electricity sources & thus being able to charge at least the phone would be nice? anyway ryder tell us how it all panns out & what major appliance(s) are being run by the sun currently? cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bangkoktraveler Posted January 25, 2011 Report Share Posted January 25, 2011 For a interesting science project, it is cool. But you are not going to help anything larger. Max output is 0.5v. So figure you will get .025 avg during about 8 hours of peek daylight. To run an energy star fridge you are going to need 543,000 watts per year. So just to run that one item is going to take your roof, your neighbors roof and a good part of the yard covered. Also, you will have to have some impressive batteries to power it at night. Also, you all know the cloud cover during the rainy season? Take that power output to about .01 or less v per hour. Having a battery back up system eliminates the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozpharlap Posted January 25, 2011 Report Share Posted January 25, 2011 How do they rate in contrast to the commercial product Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shygye Posted January 26, 2011 Report Share Posted January 26, 2011 Link Over 1000 watts falls on a square meter of ground if the sky is clear and the sun is directly overhead. If all of this light could be converted to usable energy, just over 1 horsepower would be produced. However, these two sentences neglect the most serious limitations of solar power. Lighting conditions at a location at any given time are far from ideal. The sky can be overcast and the sun can be at much lower angles in the sky. These situations can easily reduce the light intensity by a factor of 2 or 3. The next stumbling block is solar energy conversion efficiency. The most efficient solar cells ever made convert around 30% of light energy into usable electrical energy. These are only made in small sizes at great costs in laboratories. Cells that can be produced in large quantities are of much lower efficiencies, usually around 15%. It may seem that these efficiencies limit the potential of solar cells for power production. However, the efficiencies are actually quite high when compared with other methods of solar energy conversion. Plants, which are a common fuel source, convert sunlight to chemical energy through photosynthesis with an efficiency of about 1-3%. The conversion of this chemical energy to usable energy (via burning) is only around 30% (due to carnot limitations). The combined efficiency is much lower than that of solar power, which means a much greater are would be required to grow all of our fuel than would be required by a photovoltaic collector with the same output. If all of the energy consumed in the U.S. was supplied by solar collection systems with roughly 15% efficiency, about 2% of the land area would be used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryder Posted January 26, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2011 Well see now there's the thing. As you draw more current the available voltage does drop, but not in proportion so there is a sweet spot for maximum power available from the cell. Efficiency is low but very useable. Now I don't see people likely running their whole houses, aircon and what not from such a system anytime soon but charging batteries to run smaller low power devices is very feasible. In South Africa we have a number of remote radio sites powered by solar, same in Morocco. These are base stations for en-route aircraft coverage so lowish power and intermittent service but worky worky. That's exactly what you can do, I love how the idiots who haven't a clue about solar capabilities or what they are being used for come and slobber around threads like this. Educating these fools is a wonderful thing (when they listen that is) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryder Posted January 26, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2011 solar panels used for water heating is probably more useful & viable unless there really is not other electricity sources & thus being able to charge at least the phone would be nice? anyway ryder tell us how it all panns out & what major appliance(s) are being run by the sun currently? cheers Define major appliance? Using a battery bank of deep-cell battery's all wired up correctly and being charged by the suns rays should enlighten you a bit In a country like Thailand, that should be obvious that during the day there's enough sunlight (compared to the relative gloom in the northern hemisphere). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryder Posted January 26, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2011 Another Mini project That I carried out was the Solartron. This is basically a Solar Generator. I'm sure the naysayers and cretins are wondering what that is. This is only a 75 Ampere Hour battery but it kicks out plenty of power, even when being drained by the inverter... Here's the buzz: rVI0dqWEsPk http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc174/Ulysses3100/Solartron/P1000516.jpg Early verion, without DC outputs: http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc174/Ulysses3100/Solartron/P1010298.jpg http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc174/Ulysses3100/Solartron/Solartron.jpg http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc174/Ulysses3100/Solartron/SolartronComplete-1.jpg It's important that your battery is a not maintainance-free one, so that you can top off the battery with distilled water when necessary. http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc174/Ulysses3100/Solartron/P1050133.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bangkoktraveler Posted January 26, 2011 Report Share Posted January 26, 2011 [color:red]Ryder, I got to admit, you really are the wiz![/color]Proud to read your comments.. Talked to one guy about solar hot water yesterday. He claimed it would cost thosands. Then I talked to him about the water that comes out of a black garden house laid outside - and immediately he lit up as if struck by lightning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shygye Posted January 27, 2011 Report Share Posted January 27, 2011 High Eff. Frig Since the main reason for this project was energy conservation I should fill you in on the performance of this chest refrigerator. I plugged my energy metre into this unit for a few days and found that it used about 200wh a day on average. That's only 2 cents a day of electricity and a huge drop from my former energy sucking model that used 5-6 kwh a day. The most efficient refrigerators you can buy new today use around 1 kwh a day and this design uses only one fifth of that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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