Planning a Suitable Site For Your Solar Power System

It can be helpful to draw up a rough sketch of the site. It doesn’t have to be accurate, but it can be a useful tool to have, both during the site survey and afterwards when you are designing your system.

Include all properties and trees that are close to your site – not just those on your land – and make a note of which way is north.

Positioning the Solar Array

Your next task is to identify the best location to position your solar array.

Solar arrays need to be mounted at an angle, facing into the sunshine. The optimum angle varies throughout the year, but the best compromise is to install the solar arrays at an angle equal to the angle of the sun in the sky during March and September.

I’ll explain how you can calculate that later, but for now you’re looking at an optimum angle of between 40 deg and 64 deg from vertical in the United States, 33 deg and 40 deg from vertical in the United Kingdom and between 20 and 40 deg from vertical in Canada.

If the solar array is going to be installed in a building, then the solar array itself is quite often installed on the roof on the building.

This is an effective solution where the roof is south facing or where the roof is flat and angled mountings can be used to mount the solar array.

Other alternatives are to site solar panels on a wall. This can work well with longer, slimmer panels that can be mounted at an angle without protruding too far out from the wall itself.

Alternatively, solar panels can be ground mounted or mounted on a pole.

When considering a position for your solar array, you need to consider how easy it is going to be to be able to clean the DIY solar panels. Solar panels don’t need to be spotless, but dirt and grime will certainly reduce the efficiency of your home solar power systems over time, so whilst you are looking at mounting solutions, it is definitely worth considering how you can access your panels to give them a quick wash every few months. Learn how to build a solar panel today!

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What You Will Need for Installing Your Home Solar Power Systems

Here you will learn the essential things you need for installing your home solar power systems successfully.

Inevitably a ladder is required if you are planning to mount the solar array on a roof. A camera can also be extremely useful for photographing the site.

I also find it useful to find some large, old cardboard boxes, open them out and, with knife and tape, cut them into the rough size of your proposed solar array. This can help you when finding a location for your solar array. It is far easier to envisage what the installation will look like and it can help highlight any installation issues that you would otherwise have missed.

If you’ve never done a solar site survey before, it does help if you visit the site on a sunny day. Once you have some more experience with doing solar site surveys you’ll find it doesn’t actually make much difference whether you do your site survey on a sunny day or an overcast day: part of the site survey is to manually plot the sun’s position across the sky, so sunny whether actually makes little difference to the quality of the survey.

When you first arrive on the site, the first thing to check is that the layout of the site gives it access to sunlight.

We’ll use a more scientific approach for checking for shade later, but a quick look first often highlights problems without needing to carry out a more in-depth survey.

Look from east, through south and to the west to ensure there are no obvious obstructions that can block the sunshine.

(Incidentally, this assumes you are in the Northern Hemisphere. If you are in the Southern Hemisphere, you need to check east, through north to west. From the equator, the sun passes overhead and so only the east and west are important).

Look around the site and see if there are better places than others for positioning an array. If you are considering mounting your solar array on a roof, remember that the world looks a very different place from a roof-top, and obstructions that are a problem standing on the ground look very different when you are at roof height.

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Running Your Solar Power Systems

Most home solar power systems run at fairly low voltages – 12 volt or 24 volt is common. Unless you are planning a pure grid tie installation, you may wish to consider running at least some of your devices directly from your DC supply rather than running everything through an inverter (which adds an additional element of inefficiency to the system).

Thanks to the caravanning and boating communities, lots of equipment is available to run from a 12 volt or 24 volt is common. Unless you are planning a pure grid tie installation, you may wish to consider running at least some of your devices directly from your DC supply rather than running everything through an inverter (which adds an additional element of inefficiency to the system).

Thanks to the caravanning and boating communities, lots of equipment is available to run from a 12 volt or 24 volt supply: light bulbs, fridges, ovens, kettles, toasters, coffee machines, hairdryers, vacuum cleaners, televisions, radios, small washing machines and laptop computers are all available to run on 12 volt or 24 volt supplies. You can also charge up most portable items such as MP3 players and mobile phones from a 12 volt supply.

In Conclusion

• There are various components that make up a solar power system.
• Multiple solar panels can be joined together to create a more powerful solar array - Learn how to build a solar panel.
• Solar electricity is stored in batteries, to provide an energy store and provide a more constant power source.
• A controller manages the batteries, to provide an energy store and provide a more constant power source.
• A controller manages the batteries, ensuring the battery pack does not get over charged by the solar array and does not get over discharged by the devices taking current from the batteries.
• An inverter takes the low voltage DC current from the batteries and converts it into a high voltage AC current that is suitable for running devices that require mains power.
• Generally, it is more efficient to use the electricity as a DC supply than a high voltage AC supply.

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Managing Solar Power System With a Controller

Unless you are going for a grid tie system, your solar power system is going to require a controller in order to manage the flow of electricity (the current) into and out of the battery.

Batteries must not be overcharged by the solar array as this will damage, and eventually destroy the battery pack. Likewise, batteries must not be allowed to discharge completely as this will quite rapidly destroy the battery pack.

There are a few instances where home solar power systems do not require a controller. An example of this is small ‘battery top-up’ solar panel that is used to keep a car battery in peak condition when the car is not being used. These solar panels are too small to damage the battery when the battery is fully charged.

In the majority of instances, however, a solar power system will require a controller in order to manage the charge and discharge of the battery and keep the battery pack in good condition.

The electricity generated by a solar power system is a low voltage direct current (DC). Mains electricity is a high voltage alternating current (AC).

If you are planning to run mains-powered equipment from your solar power system, you will need an inverter to convert the current from DC to AC and step the voltage up to mains voltage levels.

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Solar Panels and Lead Acid Batteries

Solar panels rarely, if ever, power electrical equipment directly. This is because the amount of power the solar photovoltaic panel collects varies depending on the strength of sunlight it can collect. This makes the power source too variable for most electrical equipment to cope with.

In a grid tie system, the inverter handles this variability – so if demand outstrips supply you will get power from both the grid and your solar system. For an off-grid or a grid fallback system, however, you will rely on batteries for storing the energy.

Solar panels generate their maximum power when the sun is shining at its brightest – not necessarily when it is needed. Batteries are used to store the energy and to provide a constant power source for electrical equipment.

‘Deep cycle’ lead acid batteries are used to store the energy. These are similar to car batteries but have a different internal design which allows them to be heavily discharged and recharged several hundreds of times over.

Most lead acid batteries are 6v or 12v batteries, and like solar panels these can be connected together to form a larger battery pack. Like solar panels, battery packs can be connected in series to increase the capacity and the voltage of the power store, or in parallel to increase the capacity whilst keeping the voltage the same.

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Using Solar Power to manage power bills effectively

What are home solar power systems? We all know about the importance to wean ourselves off of foreign oil. We all also know about the increasing costs of electricity. There is more of a need now than ever to switch to renewable energy resources. Simply put, a home solar power system generates electricity by harnessing the power of the sun to power up home appliances, lighting and other electrical appliances in the home.

Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind energy are becoming extremely affordable. Do it yourself solar kits costing less than 200 can provide you with all the material to build your own solar panel. Solar energy does not need to cost $27,000. The cost of materials can be further subsidized through tax credits and rebates saving you money while ensuring stable electricity prices. You can combat rising electricity prices while making an impact on the environment.

Solar panels take energy from the sun, the most abundant source of energy known to man. Solar energy is no longer for just the wealthy or corporations. Affordable solar kits are showing up everywhere including your local hardware store. These diy solar panels include solar cells, tabbing wire, and flux pens all designed to efficiently convert sunlight into electricity.

For under $200 you can purchase a solar kit that contains all the materials to create your own solar panel. Once you master the basics of solar system assembly you can move on to bigger and bigger systems until you can power your entire home using solar. Once you get to higher scale systems, you can tap into government and state tax incentives and rebates further driving down the cost of solar.

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Learn How to Build a Solar Panel at Home

Learning how to build a solar panel at home starts with having a comprehensive manual, which teaches you how to choose a good solar energy system, the component required and the installing method.

A comprehensive manual is a manual that is written from a unique perspective that is well balanced of both practical and theory and can be capable of teaching you how to build one from pictorial and diagrammatic examples.

The accurate knowledge of the components required for building solar panels and the place to buy them at a cheaper rate is the first step to building one.

The components required are:

1. Solar panels
2. Inverter
3. Charge controller
4. Net metering
5. Circuit breaker

Having a good idea of these component mentioned above and their cost save you from paying much to the hands of experts who capitalizes on peoples ignorant.

The most important question begging for an answer is how one can installs these components for an effective performance.

You can install the panels in two ways, it could be self-installed or commercial installed. Self-installed means that you will follow a laid down instructions either pictorial or diagrammatic to do it yourself, an analytical method of installing it your self is shown below.

The arrangement of the inverter, solar panel in series with the sun energy and your home makes it possible for the panel to trap most of the rays from the sun and easily convert it to DC current without much energy loss in the process.

Commercial built method involves the engaging of the services of the experts who has much experience in building one. However, it is very expensive to make one using this method but with proper market research and collecting several quotes from the experts you can settle for a good deal. There are many advantages in using the services of experts, such as getting government rebate, a minimum of 20 years warranty and short time of installation.

In summary, building a solar panel at home is a wise decision of cutting cost and saving the environment from further degradation. You can achieve this by buying a recommended manual, which really has helped many in building a cheap DIY solar panel at home.

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