DIY Solar Panel Kits

Here is a 100-Watt Solar Panel Kit ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882260013&cm_re=solar_power-_-82-260-013-_-Product ),
my MAIN QUESTION is, what does it mean to say that this is a 100 watt solar panel?
Does it mean that it can store 100 watts an hour/minute/second in a battery?
Can it store enough power into a battery to power a window A/C which requires 1900/1880 Watts to Condition Air?

a 100 watt solar panel will make 100 watts for every second that it has perfect angle and sunlight. On the average, there are only 5 hours of equivalent perfect sunlight per day. That means your 100 watt panel will make 500 watt-hours or .5 kw-hrs per day.

Your AC needs 1900 watts per hour and say it runs 24 hours per day, that means it needs 45,600 watt hours or 45.6 kw-hours. You would need 45.6/.5 91.2 of them panels to make it work. In the summer you might need 70 and in the winter 110 of them. Plus you’d need batteries, lots of batteries so that the panels would make energy when the sun shines and return it when the sun goes down you’d need to store 45.6 kw-hr of energy. Thats about 4000 amp hours at 12 volts Large batteries are about 100 amp hours, so you’d need 40 batteries.

price, cost, solar panel kit
I am building a house, I would like to put solar panels on the roof so I could cut bills in half.

$3804.17

I have a resistor kit but I’m having trouble using it. My voltage appears to always be 7 whether I use a 1 Ohm resistor or a 100 Ohm resistor. When I try to read the Amperage it is always 0. What am I doing wrong?

Best way is to read the specs.

Are you measuring the amperage across the resistor? That’s why you’re getting zero. You need to hook the meter in series with the resistor. (Panel to meter, meter to resistor, resistor to panel.)

Keep reducing the resistance until the voltage drops below about 5 volts. That’s when you’re trying to draw more than the maximum amps.

Be careful. Unless this is a tiny panel, you’re going to be creating an extreme amount of heat in that resistor. Your resistor probably won’t be able to handle it, and you’ll have a scalding hot component even if it can.

1 ohm at 7 volts is 7 amps. (V=IR)
7 amps at 7 volts is 49 watts. (P=IV).

You can start putting 1 ohm resistors in parallel, effectively lowering the resistance of the load until the voltage drops, but don’t be surprised if one of them fractures from the heat.

I have been doing some research on solar panel and wind turbine systems. The pricing is crazy. For a 10Kw solar grid tie kit system is between $35,000 and $40,000. If you install batteries add $3,000-$5,000. 10Kw will only power a small to medium home without electric heat. Using my electric usage and info from my local electric company payback is 60 years for solar and 361 years for wind. This is unexceptionable. The manufactures of the solar and wind are gouging the consumers. They are using the excuse of supply and demand for the high cost. When demand goes up so will mass production and the price will go down. This is true, but they are making a huge profit on what they are making now. Some items are in the 3000% markup range. Are the power companies keeping the price up so their profits don’t suffer? My local electric supplier has an "ENERGY PARK" that you can go see solar and wind power in action and check out real time data online. They have a 4Kw solar array installed and claim it cost $30,378 installed and a 2.5Kw wind turbine that cost about $20,000 installed. I think they are giving false numbers to consumers so you won’t go green. I was able to find a 3.5Kw kit online for $9,000. This doesn’t include any type of mounting materials. You can add $800-$1,200 for these materials. An installer will will charge you $2,000-$4,000 to install it. For the sake of argument lets say this will cost you $15,000 to install but still way out of line for you and me to install. That is a far cry from the $30,000 the power company claims. The power companies don’t want you to make your own electric. They are keeping the cost high so they will still make money off you. A 210w panel sells for around $600. They probably manufacture it for under $50. The cost needs to be $100-$150 to the consumer to make it affordable to the average home owner. 50 210w panels make a 10Kw system. That would be $5,000 not $40,000. The manufactures are raping us and the power companies are helping them to keep prices high. When will we get the technology at a proper cost? Let me know what you think.
In response to the first 5 answers, Yes, if demand increases so will mass production and thus supply will increase and this will drive the price down. I looked into panels from China. From what I was able to find panels sell for $0.17-$0.45 per watt. In the U.S. they sell for $3.00-$5.00 per watt. Manufactures in the U.S. have lobbied for a higher tariff on solar products that makes them impractical to import on mass. These companies want to keep the price high so their profits stay high, and the power companies do not want you to produce all your own power. That would put them out of business.
In response to Steve R, You need to do more research before you post another retarded comment like that. Air "DOES" have mass (just not very dense). When air is in motion it is called "WIND". This motion creates energy. Have you ever heard of a "tornado"? Get your facts together next time.

Cut the incentives, import tarriffs, and special grind tie rates. That will make prices truly competitive for those that want to participate in home green energy, and not put any cost on those that do not want to.

The important thing is the incentives, which artificially raise the prices of equipment.

okay, so I have an 11 year old daughter who is doing a solar panel project. I was wondering if someone here has a link where I could purchase a solar panel kit that comes with directions.
Thank you

P.S. I just need a link please!

Edmund Scientific has stuff along that line:
http://scientificsonline.com/category.asp_Q_c_E_421196

some material that says the inverter ties into the meter and power flows from there to the distribution panel: http://www.altestore.com/store/Kits-and-Package-Deals/Grid-Tied-Systems/Alt-E-Designed-Grid-Tie-Packages/AltE-Grid-Tied-Package-System-A-1kw/p6629/

While other material indicates that the inverter is before the panel and after the meter: http://homepower.com/basics/solar/#SolarElectricSystemComponents

Is one or the other "correct"? If both are used when is one preferred over the other or what are the advantages of one installation over the other? I am presently asking about the different approaches rather than a practical application.
Thanks for your answer Brian. Then how do you explain the first cite with its nice pictures showing a different configuration?

The inverter output is tied to your breaker panel. The breaker panel is fed from the meter. You always tie in at the breaker panel so you have a safe method to shut it off and so you have the breaker over-current protection.

I just got my first solar-panel starter kit, and I want to use it for my light, so I have to have a battery for it.
The panels are 12 volt, 65 watt.
What kind of battery/batteries, and how many lights can I have on it?
My mistake, it is 60 watt, not 65, and there are 4 panels, I do not know if they are 60 what each, or total.
IGNORE EVERYTHING BEFORE THIS…..
Ok. here are the facts.
4 15 watt solar panels, for a total of 60 watts.
1 200 watt inverter.
1 regulator/controller
I also have 1 75 watt inverter, and 1 800 watt inverter that did not come with the kit.
The only things on them will be lights, and 1 outlet when the power is out, the outlet will be on the main line when we do have power, the lights will be on solar all the time.
What kind of batteries can I use, and how many lights can I have on it?
What kind of batteries do I need, how many, and how many lights can I have on it?
I am also open to ideas on how to hook everything up. I think I know how to do it, but others have already done this sort of stuff, so it would be smart to get ideas from them.

First off, for solar applications it is imperative to use deep cycle batteries (ie. batteries that offer a regulated power output over a relatively long time without needing a charge cycle often, typically used in marine, RV and solar/wind/hydro models) Deep cycle batteries, unlike starter batteries (which are usually found in automobiles) can be run down to 50% of capacity and charged back up with little to no degradation of internal chemicals (mainly lead).

Next, with the panels you would be using you can accrue 60 total watts of power per hour of sunlight you obtain. So as you can see we are in a bit of a guesstimation game in which you need to hypothesize how much sun you expect. For this model we will use a even 5 hours daily. Obviously, in practical application it will be a lot less neat but….
So if you get 5 hours of sunlight at 60watts/hr than on a day to day basis you have a total of 300watt/hrs per day to play with. Now due to efficiency recommendations of 50% discharge of deep cycle batteries you would want to have approximately a 12 V 600 watt battery (or 2 X 300 watt, etc.)

Now if you wanted to power your lighting system solely off the 300watt/hrs generated by your solar panels and you have to power the lighting for 8 hours (whatever the amount of darkness is) then you take your 300watt/hrs divided by total time needed to run the system (8 hours for this hypothetical) equals 37.5 watts of power available for each of those 8 hours. I would recommend running no more than 30 watt lighting on your current inverter setup.

Hope this was helpful,

Shawn

My Grandfather just purchased a cheap solar panel kit for his ranch that could not muster enough power to run his mini fridge.

He has two 6 volt batteries running positive to negative and would like to add more batteries. Probably 12volt. How would he go about hooking up the other batteries and what kind of wire or coil should he use.

Also, I saw on youtube a guy recommending a lead-acid battery from walmart for under $20. I was just going to go to ecology and just pick up some used batteries but I may be wrong.

Any help for a first timer might help me and my gramps out will be appreciated.

Thank you

If he is going to be running off batteries at night, he would be better off with "traction" batteries.
Traction batteries are true deep cycle and can better withstand deep discharge. Golf cart batteries at Sam’s Club (the other half of Walmart) are "traction batteries."

If your grandfather needs safe refrigeration, a mini fridge won’t do it. A 110 fridge takes too much power to run off solar panels and most won’t hold their cold very well if unplugged for long.

I run a fridge off grid with hybrid deep cycle marine starting batteries. It’s an Engel 40. The price has gone up over $100 since I bought mine. It’s a real fridge with a compressor and freon 134a. But it runs on 12v dc or 110vac and only uses 36 watts running because of a special compressor design. It will freeze food if you turn the dial down to 2 out of 5. It can also deep freeze.

I use mine to keep eggs, milk, cheese and fruit juice.

Your grandfather would need 400 amp-hours name plate rating of batteries at 12v to run the Engel, and probably 100 real watts of panels to recharge his battery bank. The Harbor Freight 45 watt panel set only puts out 30 watts on a clear cool day. That won’t do it.

OK - I want to put my green house on 100% solar - what do I need to know about solar panels and what do I look for?

Then I was curious about my home - if I wanted to offset some costs what do I look for. I see lots of kits just don’t know which to get.

Lastly - storage can you store solar energy in a battery of some sort.

There are lots of books you can get at the library for free or at amazon.com that go into the detail you need to be self-sufficient in greenhouse growing with only solar heat or electric for a source.

The problems arise in the winter. Often the sun is out with any intensity for only around 5 hours in dec-jan. The electricity production or generation of solar heat are very low during these months. Also the glass used in a greenhouse is very low in insulative properties so it loses more heat than it gains especially during the long nights.

What you need is some extras. Maybe a wood fired heater in the greenhouse, or a windmill if you have any windpower in the winter in your region.

You may also want to consider slide on insulating coverings. These would be either foam panels or fiberfill batts that you can slide over your glass at night to help retain heat much better.

There is a magazine I’ve been getting for 30 years that is now online and gives many many stories of self sufficiency in energy (and food, home and work for that matter). They have many articles in their archives for making greenhouses and solar panels and solar heated water.
Solar heated water is the most cost effective and best use of the sun’s energy in comparison to solar electric panels. In a greenhouse you are worried about heat more than electricity. A 3000 btu heater in solar might only cost $200. To make enough electricity to run a 3000 btu heater in electric might cost $2,000 and be more complicated and need batteries and so forth.

With solar heat you can just heat up a big tank of water during the day, with some black painted glass covered panels and blow the stored heat over some large rocks or bubble thru some water and let the stored mass give off it’s heat during the night. (You still need to cover the greenhouse with some roll-on roll-off insulation panels.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy.aspx

I live in a 2 bedroom bungalow in the east midlands and I am considering having solar panels & new tank fitted to heat water etc. My other rooms are lounge/kit/Bathroom/hall/conservatory, has anyone out there had this sort of work done in a similar building if so how much are we looking at approx please, all answers gladly received.

Consider a building power meter first to work out your daily/yearly electrical consumption.
Try to be energy efficient as possible.
Then size a solar project noting your roof aspect, pitch and area.
The price of solar panels has come down in the last year.
Use a calculator to work out your return on investment.