Going green is the best of the environment and if you are planning to go green, then we all know Sun is the non-renewable energy and we could use this energy for people's survival. We have a few articles at PeoplesBLOG related to the Environment and going green, have a check of them.
Using the Electricity from Solar energy is one of the best combinations, because there is not much waste out of this energy usage for everyday house work.
In this article we are going to see how people can set up the Solar panels at home, what all stuff is needed for the setup and usage. Let's see in detail.
What are Solar Panels in the market?
- A Solar panel is the one which is designed to absorb the sun's rays as a source of energy for generating electricity or heating.
- There are three types of Solar panels,
- Polycrystalline panels
- Monocrystalline panels
- Thin-film panels
- Monocrystalline panels are having the highest efficiency.
Where can people get them?
- Get from the Best manufactures in the World, here are the few SunPower, Momentum Solar, Blue Raven Solar, Palmetto, ADT Solar and Trinity Solar
Where and How to install Solar Panels?
- Generally installed on rooftops at the Homes (where direct sunlight comes up). Make sure Solar panels are in contact with Bright sunlight throughout the day, without any obstruction.
- There are different types of panel mounts, for home best ones would be either Pole mounts or the Flush mounts (Generally i prefer Flush mounts).
So far you have an understanding of how solar panels are sitting on your home, there is some more equipment needed for you to store and use this generated electricity from solar panels.
Other Equipment needed?
- Charge Controller
- Power Inverter
- Battery
Charge Controller: The purpose of the charge controller is to regulate the amount of voltage flowing from your solar panel system to your battery.
Power Inverter: The purpose of the power inverter is to convert the direct current (DC) to the alternating current (AC, 120V/240V).
Battery: To store the electricity and can be further used by the appliances at home.
All this equipment should be connected and here comes a question of what configuration of these solar panels and equipment is needed? For this
- Calculate how much Watts will be consumed at your home on a daily basis or weekly basis by the home appliances.
- By theis Watts value, you can decide on the needed Solar panels and the equipment configurations.
- Let’s say for example you are consuming 250 KiloWatts to 300 KiloWatts for the entire home, then you need below solar panels and equipment.
- 7-8 Solar panels, each producing 330 watts. Consider having 10 solar panels so that you can have 300 KW to 400 KW (It would be occupy roughly 250 square feet of area)
- Charge Controller is based on amps, So you calculate like this, if Solar panels are producing 1 KW and if Battery is of 24V then the controller size is 1000/24 = 41.67 amps.
- Power Inverter is all about handling the generated power and converting, if you have 4 KW of solar panels, then 3kW Inverter would work.
And here are the setup steps followed
- Initially Install the Solar panels on the rooftop. We would need to do some wiring
- Universal connectors like MC4 are used to connect to Solar panels.
- We can do two types of connections, Series connection or Parallel Connection.
- Series connection is like, Positive of one panel is connected to Negative of other.
- Parallel connection is like Positive to Positive and Negative to Negative.
- Solar panels which are connected in parallel operate independently of one another and this is the best option for mixed-light conditions. If shade covers one or two of your panels, the remaining panels in the array will continue to generate power as expected.
- Then connect this system (Solar Panels with Charge Controller) to the Power inverter (Positive of panel to Positive of the inverter, Negative to the Negative).
- Then connect the Power inverter to the Battery (Positive of panel to Positive of the inverter, Negative to the Negative)
Once all the connections are done, you can switch on the Power inverted and you are ready to store the electricity into the Battery.
Now you can use the electricity stored in the Battery to the appliances at home.
In case you are not aware about the terminology of the electricals, you can always get a general electrician and do the work, but in either can from this article you will have a picture of how the system can be set up and used.
To conclude, here’s the guide which will help people to understand how the Solar panel setup can be done and how it can be used. Thanks for reading the article, Do read PeoplesBLOG articles for other interesting stuff.
