Questions about solar paneling. | 27 comments (27 topical, 0 hidden)
depends where you live too. (none / 0)
depends where you live. further up north solar paneling is less efficient and you have to place it south facing. what kind of solar panels are you using, some solar panels only work for 6 hours at peak efficiency and need to be angled correctly. some only work for like an hour at peak and need constant adjustments to be maximally efficient.

as for the cloud thing it again depends on the type of solar panel and which wavelength of light it requires. as for the moon light as far as i know moonlight amounts to negligible amounts of energy from solar panels, just like star light doesn't do much.

also how much does energy cost in your area and how expensive were the solar panels. there are some supposedly cheap solar panels that work decently well and are very very cheap, cost recovered within a year sometimes less. tho i've personally never tried it. if you want the most clean energy you should use a combination of wind and solar.

in canada the government has a guide for some of these. maybe you can find some answers there.

http://canmetenergy-canmete nergie.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/en g/renewables/canren.html

i tried to get a solar and wind set up for my house but in calgary they have stupid ass bi law's that prevented me. but currently that's going to the courts so i still have my systems in my basement waiting for the decision of the court so i can install them. but in my case it's not economically viable i worked out it for me (living up north) it would take some 8-10 years for me to recover the cost. BUT i didn't do it to save money exactly heheh.

now as for the earth's orbit thing i'm not exactly sure what you're talking about, are you talking about the yearly angles to the sun?

epoch     J2000
aphelion     152,097,701 km ,1.0167103335 AU
perihelion     147,098,074 km , 0.9832898912 AU
semimajor     149,597,887.5 km , 1.0000001124 AU
eccentricity     0.016710219
inclination     Reference (0) , 7.25° to Sun's equator
asc_node     348.73936°
arg_peri     114.20783°
period     365.256366 days, 1.0000175 yr
avg_speed     29.783 km/s , 107,218 km/h

those are some of the stats for our orbit. if you're in the northern hemisphere then as you reach the winter solstice the sun moves southward away from it's east - west pattern. in the summer it can move north of it's east west pattern. further up north you get much much longer days in the summer and very short days in winter. where i live in peak summer sunrise happens around 5:30'ish sunset happens at like 10:45pm. but in winter sunrise happens at 7:45am and sunset is like at 4:45'ishpm. depending on what kind of solar panel you have the angles will account for more. some photovoltaic panels can handle a wider angle of light and some (the really efficient ones) have a smaller window for angles. which is why they're usually mounted on something that can tilt as the day goes by.

by kingbane on 07/09/2009 10:42:43 PM EST

Thank You!! (none / 0)
Well how much my energy costs depends on how you calculate it.  I spent 11.74 cents per Kilo Watt Hour last month on the cost of energy, but they tagged on $7.73 for being a customer and $2.41. The average for the year is supposed to be 9.7 cents per KWH.  Though, I've only started keeping personal track of cost of KWH this last month.

 By adding together the minutes of sunlight for the first and last days for each month and dividing by 2 and got.
January-   611.5min  or 10hr 11.5min
February-  659min    or 10hr 59min
March-     720min    or 12hr
April-     784.5min  or 13hr 4.5min
May-       838min    or 13hr 58min
June-      864min    or 14hr 24min
July-      849.5min  or 14hr 9.5min
August-    803.5min  or 13hr 23.5min
September- 742min    or 12hr 22min
October-   678 min   or 11hr 12min
November-  622.5 min or 10hr 22.5min
December-  596 min   or 9r 56min
I took these numbers multiplied them by the number of days in the month and added them all together to get 702027 minutes a year or 11700 hr and 27 minutes a year.
(I know I'll have to do the solstice months differently, but I'm not high enough to deal with that right now.)
And I was really trying to figure out if there is a way to find out what the change in daylight will be yearly between days on the same date.  I suppose I was probably going about it the long way in finding it by earths position & angle to the sun.  Though if this could be done, I'd really like to know the formula.  Also, I'll admit those stats did baffle me a little, but I'll start studying right after I can sneak out to toke up again.

If you could give me any information on where you think the best places to find parts online would be and why they work better with one another it'd really mean a lot.

I'm checking this place out for the cells.
http://sunelec.com/index.ph p?main_page=index&cPath =32
I know some places that have tin wire, and I'm upgrading my soldering iron.  I'm still really not sure what kind of Power Inverter I would need for my grid.  And I'm still considering different types of casing.  But if you could point a direction to find these answers I would certainly follow.

by EuphoriagenicCause on 07/10/2009 01:05:51 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Equation with Theoretical Numbers (none / 0)
If I get 2 KiloWattHours (KWH) per hour then in North Little Rock (where I live) I  get 11,700 of sun a year so I would get 23,400 KWH of energy minus obstructions.  The price for electricity is around 10 cents per KWH(A little over 11 right now, but the average is SUPPOSED to be 9.7 so I'll go with the easy number a little over it.)  This means I have to divide by 10 if I want to get dollars.  So it's obviously $2,340 a year where I am minus cost of obstructions.(If it doesn't move then time of shade, If I don't clean it then dirtiness, I can't stop the clouds, and any form of partial eclipse... I'm sure there are more and will keep trying to figure them in.)

If we could find a way to buy in bulk it's a lot cheaper I'm sure.  I'm going to call these guys
http://sunelec.com/index.ph p?main_page=index&cPath =32 tomorrow to see what I can talk out.

If we use the prices of $0.61 per watt, (I heard $0.85 was supposed to be good) then we could get an idea of what it should begin to cost when it all comes together.

It takes 1000 watts to make a kilowatt.  So it takes 1000 watts activated for an hour to make a kilowatt hour or KWH.  To get 2 KWH per hour you would need 2000 watts of solar paneling. You can find the cells cost by multiplying by it's price per cell.  Since 2000 x .61 is 1220 you know it's precisely $1220.00 to buy the solar cells (Not full panels yet) to get 2KWH per hour.

So add that with other costs and obstructions subtract from $2,340 to find out precisely how much ground you'll cover in the first year.  (Of course I know some of these things like the weather can't be predetermined, but we can resort to the almanac and meteorology to ball park it.)

So far I've got $2,340 - 1220.00 + $165.00 for inverter and ? for all other costs and obstructions, lets try to figure out and or delete as many of these as possible

by EuphoriagenicCause on 07/10/2009 05:06:17 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Link to the inverter (none / 0)
http://www.topsalesdepot.co m/abc.html?gclid=CIWjtqL4yZ sCFRdGxwodNyznig

If anybody knows why this wouldn't work for solar from battery to house please tell me.

by EuphoriagenicCause on 07/10/2009 05:20:08 AM EST

[ Parent ]
here we go. (none / 0)
this is where i bought my systems. they use a grid intertie system which is pretty easy to set up. basically plug and play. the grid intertie bypasses the need for a battery. the energy you get goes directly into your box and the grid. so if on the off chance you make more electricity then you use the power company has to PAY you at THEIR rates. basically anytime you produce power it sends that power into the grid, since the elec company has to pay you for that power they just deduct it from your bill, penny for penny. as for the inverter i just used the one they sent with most packages tho they do have some options there.

now for the angle of the sun this is a good diagram you can use. to figure out the angles on different day's of the sun you just need to realize it goes around the sun and the sun's rays always come in horizontal (in accordance with that diagram). now note the angel of the earth's tilt is, 23 and a half degree's, that diagram is at summe solstice, so for winters solstice the earth would be 23 and a half tilt to the left, instead of the right. which means across the year the total degree of change is 57 degree's you divide 57 degrees by 365, and that's how many degrees worth of change you get per day. from there you just use some trig and your location on latitude(or was it longitude, i always mix those up) to figure out the angle of the sun.

by kingbane on 07/10/2009 04:33:13 PM EST

[ Parent ]
whoops (none / 0)
forgot to paste the link hahah

http://www.energyalternativ es.ca/catalogue/Categories/ 263.htm

there. hope that works.

by kingbane on 07/10/2009 04:38:59 PM EST

[ Parent ]
dude i suck today. (none / 1)
the first link there is to the place where i got my own solar and wind systems. i forgot to paste the link for the sun diagram duh.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2 471088/How-to-Find-the-Suns -Angle-above-Horizon

by kingbane on 07/10/2009 04:43:09 PM EST

[ Parent ]
THANK YOU! (none / 0)
Now we are really getting some where.  I haven't slept in a little over a day, so I should probably give my brain some sort of rest before I do so much.  Though from what I see it looks very promising!  I will get on that as soon as I have any free time.  Thank you again.

by EuphoriagenicCause on 07/10/2009 05:15:35 PM EST

[ Parent ]
You know what. (none / 0)
This is a very good example of supply and demand coming into effect for time to buy.  If you look at the most expensive solar paneling at http://sunelec.com/ will end up being about 3/4s the price.  I'm not an expert on this or anything, but I'm pretty sure these guys are betting on changing the market.  I want to make sure they do it.

by EuphoriagenicCause on 07/10/2009 05:21:51 PM EST

[ Parent ]
ea those guys. (none / 0)
i had tried to buy from them originally i almost forgot. but back when i bought my stuff they had issues with shipping to canada so i wasn't able to purchase from them. as you can see in canada solar power is even MORE expensive. sad really. might also be because our energy companies dont use solar at all because of how north we are. i know enmax (energy company where i'm from) uses a decent percentage of wind power but no solar as of yet. and if no energy company has any demands for solar panels then production of them would be low.

by kingbane on 07/10/2009 05:32:12 PM EST

[ Parent ]

Questions about solar paneling. | 27 comments (27 topical, 0 hidden)