[TonkaTuff]

Following this link...
Google scholar search

Will turn up loads of actual scientific information.

The size of the system has an insignificant effect on the ability to offset greenhouse gas production it is the net GHG production per kWh produced that represents the savings.

The financial aspect is a completely different scenario and varies from installation to installation and can only thus be assessed on a case by case basis.

BTW Shep there are a few solar calculators around here's a good article and calculator Solar panel article

[ball]

Try this.

http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID ... rm=KEYWORD

[Ben_Sierra]

ball wrote:

Try this.

http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID ... rm=KEYWORD

Looks just about perfect for the job, I'd say.

[shep]

ball wrote:

Try this.

http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID ... rm=KEYWORD

it has 7 bladdy wires
it wont be big enough. i need 150w and 9.4 amp 21.8 volt.

and i am not ringing fatboy, he might corrupt me.

[ball]

what about this one
http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID ... rm=KEYWORD

[shep]

thats the one. now i can find another 2 panels.
thanks mate. hay did ya spew in ya fish tank?

[ball]

shep wrote:

thats the one. now i can find another 2 panels.
thanks mate. hay did ya spew in ya fish tank?

nope it wasn't that bad

[MacDaddy]

shep wrote:

Yes but how do I run ny engel with them

You will need a regulator, so you can turn the voltage down to 13.8V, then see how much the Engel draws amps wise, you may be able to get away with one panel, if not, just link the two in parallel, stick on the regulator, then make up a connection the Engel can plug into, usually a cig lighter, female cig lighters can be bought at most auto stores, just make sure its fused, then plug in your fridge and your laughin !

So when its sunny, you can run your Engel for free

[MacDaddy]

Ben_Sierra wrote:

Rusho81 wrote:

MacBear wrote:

Rusho81 wrote:

v.w.dave wrote:

Talk to zooktastic, He is a sparky in training that build them. He built a set of them at his house that now he gets payed to use them.

It would have to be a big system if he's getting paid. Domestic installations are a waste of time and money. Green energy my ass!!! More greenhouse gases are produced to make solar panels than they will ever offset in their lifetime, which is about 15-20 years. Good for what shep wants but don't bother for your house. JMO though.

I am glad you said " JMO ", but still, your comments are a bit in the dark ages...
You obviously havnt seen the recent technology domestic installations...
I agree that solar cell manufacture does create greenhouse gases, but what you are talking about was 10 years ago, Solar Cells are now made cheaper, much more efficient, and with much less greenhouse gases now, the good that Solar Cells do now, far offsets any greenhouse gases created during their manufacture...

Even a basic Domestic Installation will feed back into the power grid at night, putting money into your pocket, a bigger setup will feed more into the power grid, and a big domestic installation, you will no longer need to use the power grid, and be totally self sufficient, and have so much extra power, you will get regular payments from the power company, which will quickly offset the setup/purchase cost !

If i could afford a Domestic Solar Setup, i would get one ASAP !
For Australia, with so much Sun, its the way of the future, and getting paid by the big power companies, would be very satisfying !

I see them everyday when I am installing the metering to the solar installation...the meter that is suppose to calculate your income from energy sold back to the grid. I think the only way to do this is to have a 10+kw system, the 1 & 2 kw ones that are getting flogged off to everyone just seem like a waste of time and money. Fair enough, these things are a good idea, save the planet, possibly lower your power bill if your one of the lucky ones, but at the end of the day from my point of view it doesn't seem like a long term fix to counteract peak demand(when there is no sun!!) from a distribution point of view. Wind power is the way I think, but that is a whole different debate

The problem with wind, and with solar, and most other renewables is that they just aren't reliable and consistant enough to provide base-load power on a large scale.

You need something that you know can provide consistent power, when you need it. At the moment the only reliable, emission free power source available is nuclear.

Of course, nuclear has its own environmental issues with proper waste disposal.

Unfortunately at the moment we still don't have a real solution to the problem...

Ahhh Yes we do, Solar and Wind can be used most effectively at certain times of the year, but, have you forgotten about Wave Generators !
Yep the latest reports about harnessing wave energy, buy securing generators to the seabed, and then running power cables to the land based power distribution, have been very effective, exceeding expectations !
There is enough energy in waves, to meet the global power requirments, 5 X over !!!

This link gives you some different ways to collect wave energy, to make power -
http://www.rise.org.au/info/Tech/wave/index.html

A wave generator has been built at Port Kembla NSW, it produces 0.5megawatts !

And Portugal has built one already, it has the capacity to generate 2.25megawatts, which is enough power for over 1000 homes !
http://www.abbaustralia.com.au/cawp/sei ... 7e43c.aspx

The ocean never stops moving, this is a very real solution/alternative, why the hell we dont have wave power generators now, is unbelievable !

[eldo]

hey shep when you wade through the shit in this thread there is not much info on your original question. I reckon you should just put them on eaby and make a wave generator, attach it to your boat and of course the fridge would have to be in the boat, fill it with gold cans and then put in a request for a new assistant and ship me up. What do ya reckon?

[royce]

I think you should send em down for me to test Shep

they sound like 100w panels, you could connect one direct to a battery and run the engel like that for near on forever and it would be fine, the small amount of time its putting out higher voltage wont worry a battery, jsut keep it topped up

1 reckon one on the boat and one on the sierra would go well jsut dont leave it hooked up to a battery with no load it will boil it

ey Rusho, besides being right about solar being a woftam for the environment, dont those new smart meters count all the solar power as outgoing and charged at a higher rate and then the house supply as all fed from the grid at normal power rates? I am sitting under a few panels right now and thats what the book that came with it showed but the fancy meter doesnt have any extra power inputs, any chance there is a manual for the meters you could 'lend' me

[Rusho]

royce wrote:

I think you should send em down for me to test Shep

they sound like 100w panels, you could connect one direct to a battery and run the engel like that for near on forever and it would be fine, the small amount of time its putting out higher voltage wont worry a battery, jsut keep it topped up

1 reckon one on the boat and one on the sierra would go well jsut dont leave it hooked up to a battery with no load it will boil it

ey Rusho, besides being right about solar being a woftam for the environment, dont those new smart meters count all the solar power as outgoing and charged at a higher rate and then the house supply as all fed from the grid at normal power rates? I am sitting under a few panels right now and thats what the book that came with it showed but the fancy meter doesnt have any extra power inputs, any chance there is a manual for the meters you could 'lend' me

The meters that are used for solar installations are a full digital set up, not like the old dial type setups. For the interim the dial does go backwards until the new meter is installed. Correct about the meter royce, 2 screens, one for kw hours produced, and one for kw hours consumed. Meters are completely sealed and you need a fancy little clip on programmer to alter anything There are plenty of ways around a meter royce, but none of which i'm willing to loose my job for

[TonkaTuff]

eldo wrote:

hey shep when you wade through the shit in this thread there is not much info on your original question.

Yeah true I apologise for being part of the Hijack of this thread, just gets under my skin when conjecture and opinion gets represented as fact to the detriment of everyone.

Happy to take the conversation on the merit, or not, of photovoltaics off-line or in another thread in the general chat.

So Shep good luck with those panels hope they do the job ya want and asked about and again sorry

[royce]

Rusho81 wrote:

royce wrote:

I think you should send em down for me to test Shep

they sound like 100w panels, you could connect one direct to a battery and run the engel like that for near on forever and it would be fine, the small amount of time its putting out higher voltage wont worry a battery, jsut keep it topped up

1 reckon one on the boat and one on the sierra would go well jsut dont leave it hooked up to a battery with no load it will boil it

ey Rusho, besides being right about solar being a woftam for the environment, dont those new smart meters count all the solar power as outgoing and charged at a higher rate and then the house supply as all fed from the grid at normal power rates? I am sitting under a few panels right now and thats what the book that came with it showed but the fancy meter doesnt have any extra power inputs, any chance there is a manual for the meters you could 'lend' me

The meters that are used for solar installations are a full digital set up, not like the old dial type setups. For the interim the dial does go backwards until the new meter is installed. Correct about the meter royce, 2 screens, one for kw hours produced, and one for kw hours consumed. Meters are completely sealed and you need a fancy little clip on programmer to alter anything There are plenty of ways around a meter royce, but none of which i'm willing to loose my job for

yeah thats whats been put in (you dont get out Pine Mountain way do you?) is there a manual to tell you what you are looking at when you press all the buttons? just for interest sake until it gets boring to look at after 10 mins

[eldo]

hey was watching pat calinen today on telly and he had some solar stuff, cant remember the brand shep but im sure it would be listed on his site, it was a sponsored segment.

[Rusho]

ey Royce, top right hand side of thr meter, there is a soft grey coloured button...press it and it will scroll through a menu you will only see for example 123456 this is power consumed and -123456 will be power generated. Unless he has 3 phase, different meter. Same principle but it will also tell you the current being used on each phase, and the voltage being supplied on each phase.

[royce]

would I be right in saying the single phase tells you the present current in and out as well?

[Rusho]

The meters have a line and load side, the current reading is only taken from the load side, so only current that is being consumed at that point in time will be displayed. Only the 3 phase meters have these features to help with load balancing etc.

[DMAC]

Rusho81 wrote:

The meters have a line and load side, the current reading is only taken from the load side, so only current that is being consumed at that point in time will be displayed. Only the 3 phase meters have these features to help with load balancing etc.

You forgot the neutral. A meter measures Power. Power = Voltage x Current. The voltage also makes the meter polarity dependant. Ie Power in registers power consumption. Power out registers power generation.

All depends on the design of the meter and what tarriff is used. Pretty sure you pay more for consumption than you recieve for any solar generation. Some old mechanical meters have a detent so the meter couldn't run backwards.

3 Phase is a totally different story as load is what balances the phases. For 3 phase generation sofisticated inverters are required for phase syncronisation ect.

[Rusho]

Had to bring all your big fancy EFM lingo into it didn't you? Good thing I'm only an aerial fencing apprentice I was talking about the display on poly meters to, they only display current used on that phase.

[DMAC]

Rusho81 wrote:

Had to bring all your big fancy EFM lingo into it didn't you? Good thing I'm only an aerial fencing apprentice

No I held back. Gave you some good info to hit your EFM up with though.

[shep]

I caught a big cobia today

[jdk81]

Did you get these working yet Shep?

[shep]

not yet, i am going to be spending a lot of time camping in june/july so it
will get a workout then.

[bron5on]

Been looking into this myself shep. Planning on getting a 80watt panel in conjunction with one of those intelligent regulators to keep a 100-120 amp hour agm battery charged. Should be enough to keep a 50ltr waeco, a couple of lights and charge my laptop for my 12 month trip coming up. A mate of mine uses a similar set up to run his 80ltr waeco for a couple of months straight. Works a treat. Panel will set me back around $400, fullriver 100 a/h agm is about $300 and the regulator is about $100 from ebay. Not as cheap as I probably could go but I want something semi reliable. What is the physical size of the panels you have? Not that it's an accurate guide but most 80 watt panels are around 1200mm long by 600mm wide. I'll be getting a foldable set up which is essentially 2x 40watt panels hinged together so it will be easier to transport. Been doing my head in with some of the research, i'm not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to electrics. Trying to decide between panels seems to be the hardest thing but I think most of them (ebay and jaycar options) seem to be of similar build and specifications. Hopefully it works!

[jdk81]

I can do the calcs etc and let you know exactly what you need, and what power output to expect from various set up arrangements.

Shep has 100W 18v panels.

Average power output will be 592Wh-day from one panel

Due to heat there will be considerable losses.
From experience in the installation I reviewed in sydney, expect an overal efficiency of about 65%
Converting 18V to 12V will inccur extra losses (approx 15%)


You may be able to modify the solar array (rewiring the circuits on the backing plate and breaking the circuit on the front (the grid mesh of aluminium) and then changing it to 12V).
The cells which have been removed from the series, can then be added parallel to maintain the 100W output.

It would be easier again to flog these off and buy 12V ones.

You would also probably want a charging unit and/or maximum power point tracker.

Calculations for power output.

Due to the latitude of dariwn, a horizontal mounted panel would be perfectly fine. The panels will produce 100W under 1000W/m^2 solar radiation @ 25 degrees C.
Generall in Darwin yearly average solar radiation on a horizontal plane is 21.3 MJ/m^2 this is 5.92 kWh/m^2-day (a plate at local latitude is 21.4MJ/m^2 not worth the effort of making the frame).
Peak sun hours is 5.92 hours (equivalent time at 1000W/m^2)
Power output (average) is 592Wh-day

sorry I have to go, my flight leaves soon.
I will provide more info when i get back

[steve]

so where's a good place to buy solar panels? surely not ebay or jaycar?

[royce]

Springers have all sorts of cool stuff

[shep]

what are you after steve? i know a fella that bought a shitload of ex telstra
panels at auction, he might want to sell a few.

[steve]

i want a solar panel that i can bolt to the top of the cruiser ute cab and connects to the second battery. So i assume i just need a panel and a regulator? No need for any fancy control stuff?