HOW MANY SOALR PANELS DO YOU NEED?
What can you run with those? How long does it last? Those are some great questions.
Going back to my last post, the electrical loads in your house are critical to the success of your system design. I have 6 panels for a total of around 800 watts of DC power and they run a refrigerator, lights, water pump, ceiling fans, phone and small electronics charging. The appliance that uses the most power is an extractor fan in my kitchen so we uses it sparingly.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SUN ISN'T SHINING?
That happens more often than you would like. At night somebody in another part of the world is making power, so you need to be able to draw from some source of power. A battery bank will be that source. During the daytime the power that was discharged at night will be topped off again, it's awesome! Even when it's cloudy you still make some energy, especially if your solar array is sized adequately for the region in which you live in. Batteries do require regular maintenance, whereas the solar panels only need a good clean every once in while.
There has to be some kind of control between the panels, to prevent overcharging of the batteries. This piece of gear is called a charge controller. It measures the batteries voltage and temperature and adjusts the amount of power flowing into them. As they start to get closer to a full state of charge it tapers the input and "float" charges to keep them topped off. I have a nice one that actually tells me how much power my panels are producing and tells me the voltage. It also tells me how many amp hours of charge has gone into the batteries so I can can record daily what I'm making from the sun, cool huh?
DC POWER ONLY?
An inverter is a vital piece of hardware that is needed to convert the DC power from the batteries into regular household power. They can be very basic or super advanced but the main thing is you will be find a lot more options for appliances that use regular 110 household power compared to only being able to use stuff that can only be powered by 12 volts DC like back in the good old days of off grid.
These are the basics of making electricity and thriving when you are not connected to the power grid
Thanks for reading and stay tuned!