General solar Info

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  • November 28, 2011 at 12:00 AM #62978
    Alex
    Participant

    I am trying to figure out how many panels I might need to power a setup i am trying to design. Things I plan to run on solar are,

    -Refrigerator ( 900 watts a day )

    – 2 or 3 light bulbs at night

    -Small Laptop

    -12 volt DC pressure pump

    I am still researching solar so I know I may be asking the wrong questions, but with the average electrical requirements of these couple of items, how many watts would I need in solar energy?

    November 28, 2011 at 12:00 AM #65717
    gordo
    Participant

    fridge???? what kind of fridge and how many amps? the lightest load fridge i know of is a bar size running 1.5 amps this will drain a 1000 watt 24volt(4 battery) system almost daily. the lowest amp regular size fridge you can find will be 5.5 to 6.5 amp.

    depending on your solar / pv budget you would need another 600-1000 watts of pv and probably 8 batterys instead of 4.

    is a propane fridge out of the questions in the short term?

    are you planning on full sinewave inverter/and charge controler set up or something less?

    where are you located. how many days do you want your system to be abile to work with out sun? do you have plans for hydro or wind to suppliment the pv?

    gordo

    December 1, 2011 at 12:00 AM #65736
    elnav
    Member

    The rule of thumb used to be have 3X the stored capacity as your daily 24 hour requirements. We are currently into day 6 of cloudy weather. Climate change is playing hob with predictions based on historical trends.

    I would suggest having a 1.5 – 2 kW genset to power a battery charger for when your battery capacity is exhaused. Keep in mind that discharging a battery very deeply causes permanent damage if left uncharged for even a day.

    Get a power meter either AC or DC and measure your power consumption.

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