Living/Learning Center D350 Solar Energy Project
System Setup
The system has seven components:
- The solar panel
- The charge controller - this unit regulates the flow of electricity from
the solar panel. It prevents the battery from overcharging, regulates the
charging voltage, and prevents the battery from discharging at night when
the solar panel isn't using electricity.
- The battery itself is a 35 amp hour, 12 volt sealed gel
lead acid battery. A gel battery was necessary as the battery is stored in
my room - other types
of batteries can emit hydrogen gas while charging and need to be vented -
something I couldn't accomodate in the winter. A 35 amp hour battery at 12
volts can produce around 420W of power when fully charged - considering the
panel will recieve at most 5-6 hours of sunlight each day (at least in the
forseable future), the battery will have more than enough capacity, even
if I upgrade the system. It also allows me to have enough battery power to
reduce the amount I discharge the battery everyday, which will prolong the
battery's life.
- There are two things that connect to the battery. One of them is the voltmeter.
The voltmeter allows one to view the voltage of the battery and thus determine
how charged/discharged it is.
- The DC fuse provides protection in the event there was
ever a short in the wiring or a device connected to the DC outlet. It will
cut off the flow of electricity before a fire results.
- The DC outlet is the same type of outlet that is found
in the cigarette lighter in a car. Since it uses the same form factor, it
makes finding devices to hook directly up to DV power relatively easy. Additionally,
the inverter connects to the DC outlet.
- The inverter, the only device not pictured in the diagram
above, takes the DC energy from the battery and converts it into AC energy,
used by any device that is plugged into an AC outlet. The inverter I have
is rated at 150W, which is more than enough for my needs. However, I'm going
to try and minimize the use of the inverter, running directly off DC as much
as possible. The reason is that conversion from DC to AC results in a loss
of energy and most devices simply reconvert the AC back into DC (which uses
energy yet again). In order to have the maximum amount of power to use, I
purchased a DC adaptor for
my laptop and my cell phone and I already had one for my iPod.
Last modified October 16 2005 01:39 AM
