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Solar Power for Backup when the power is out?DIY-Computer-Repair can help!With the push for 'green' going on lately have you considered using 'Solar Power' for your backup power supply?If you wanted to have a true uninterruptible power supply it has to last more than ten minutes to a couple of hours why would you not? Batteries only last so long. And wind power is only good when the wind blows constantly. No the only true free (well almost) power is the Sun. But unless you live in Antarctica for eight months and the Artic for the other four months you typically only get 12 hours of sun light. So how would you have true uninterruptible power with solar? One way would be to have a solar panel (array) that would supply your power during daylight and charge some batteries for use after dark. This is the typical setup for a true solar power source. Ah but you say how much? Well it ain't cheap! If you are only concerned with emergency contingencies such as a power outage during the day, or your car breaks down on the road in the middle of no where, or you are a camper then there are portable solar power arrays that are light, produce adequate power, and cost effective. What if you want to put a solar array on the roof of your house and sell the excessive daylight power to the power company. You sitting down? Remove sharp objects from your hands - $40,000. Ya, forty K bucks! Whoa! Where I live and with the roof area on my house I can produce 8 Kilowatts a day! Ya, twice what I use a day during the summer (Air Conditioners draw a lot of power!) so instead of it costing me say $45 a day to cool this house I could be getting paid by the electrical company and have the house cool. But the 40 K has me stumped at this time. I can see the advantage but the outlay is worth a quarter of the cost of the house, when it was NEW! Back to the emergency or portable power supply. You can buy one that is on a back pack with a Battery and Battery Charger that will store the power until you need it to charge or operate a low wattage device such as cell phone, mp3 player, but not your laptop. If you need more power then you will need a bigger solar panel. And if you need the power at night then you will need a battery to store the power you collect in the day time. Some of the bigger solar panels produce enough power to convert it to AC (you would use an 'inverter' to change the DC to AC, cheaper to run than a gas powered generator and usable in some areas where the gas generator isn't allowed. These are the solar power arrays I have found that make sense -
So lets have a look at them - Solar Battery Charger puts out Watts 22.5 @ 1.5A, with the Charge Controller will trickle charge a battery. The Amorphous 12Volt Solar Panel puts out 7 Amps at 15 watts. This is for heavier applications such as keeping your car/rv/golf cart battery charged. Will run small low wattage devices and requires a 'Charge Controller'. With an 'inverter' two of these panels will keep a couple of 15 Watt appliance happy with power all day. The Voltaic Solar Charging Backpack puts out 1 watt at 100mA, very low trickle charge. Will charge a small battery or power small devices, not good for a laptop. Both the Solar Battery Charger and Amorphous Solar panels will supply enough power for small appliances such as trickle charging a 12V battery, a laptop, a CB radio. If you need more power you can add more panels to get more power. At $150 - $200 for the panel and charge controllers the cost for a modest array to power more devices or higher consuming devices such as a small refrigerator. I don't see any use for the back pack solar other than charging your cell phone or mp3 player. Might be good for those that go on long weekend hikes to the wilderness to keep their cell phones charged. There are larger solar panels available but those would not be portable, they require a solid frame and may not travel very well if exposed. I checked on two different products produced in here in Arizona that are useable on a Recreational Vehicle but the cost is high and only one didn't require storage when the RV was in motion. So if you want to power more than a small low wattage device you have to add more solar arrays. If you have one array that delivers a certain wattage per hour just divide the total wattage by the solar panel's wattage and that will give the number of panels you will need in your Solar Array to power the device all day. You could also do the same with your battery back up system, most batteries are rated in
One solar panel that supplies 15 watts with a max amperage of 7 amps will give you 2.14 volts.
To achieve 12 Volts continuously you would need six panels 2.14 x 6 = 12.84 Volts. Or a panel that supplies more wattage, which in turn makes the panel larger. Or
To achieve 300 Watts from this type of panel you would have to have 13 panels, how ever if you have three batteries and two panels you could have power in the day along with trickle charge the batteries during the day and have plenty of power at night. Solar panels are increasing in efficiency continuously and the future is bright for solar energy production.
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