The quantity of Watt-hours you intend to produce in twenty four hours.

Identifying your Watt-hours goal is the most vital part of correctly guesstimating how enormous a system you’ll need. If you intend to tie your solar array at once to the grid to offset your costs, start by having a look at your electrical bill for the kilowatt-hours you use in a month. If you won’t be hooked up to the grid and you may in reality be producing all of your own electricity, the Watt-hours or kWh number becomes even more crucial. If you’ve got the patience to live off-grid, then you definitely have the tolerance to finish a loads list.

If you do not know how many Watt-hours you need to produce, stop here. There’s no guessing you can do without that basic building block of knowing your energy consumption.

Insolation is a funny word for the amount of hours in a day that a solar panel will produce its rated voltage. While all of the day’s sunlight counts toward this total, not only the brightest hours, not every daytime hour counts the same.

When the sun is low in the sky, a solar panel facing it does not produce as much energy as it would at midday. An alternative way of putting it might be to assert that if you crammed all of the day’s daylight into equivalent hours of top sunlight, you’d have the sun hours, or insolation, number.

In your neighborhood, while the sun could be up for ten hours in a Feb day, not all that light is powerful enough to be counted at full worth, so the insolation price in your neighborhood may be nearer to two sun hours. In our calculations, we use average insolation values taken from years of info collection. Insolation varies by location as well as by month. If you are arranging an all year solar electrical system, the yearly average insolation value will give you a good place to begin for your estimation. If you only plan to use the array seasonally, then use the insolation values for those months only.

Take a look here if you want to know how to build a solar panel.

Standard Test Conditions is an outlined set of lab test conditions which approximate conditions in which solar panels, or Photovoltaic modules, could be used. The same standard is also used to judge potential installation locations. Since it is used to calculate the following 3 values:

Irradiance – measured in in Watts per square meter falling on a flat surface. The measurement standard is one kW per sq m.

Air Mass pertains to “thickness” and lucidity of the air thru that the daylight passes to get to the modules, remember the sun angle is affecting this value.

Cell temperature that may differ from ambient air temperature. The graph is known as an “I-V curve”, and it refers back to the module’s output relationship between current ( I ) and voltage ( V ) under prevailing conditions of daylight and temperature.

The curve appears like a seated person’s leg: Theoretically, each solar panel has multiple I-V curves ( many of which are shown above for one actual module ) – one each for all of the different combinations of conditions that will affect the Standard Test Conditions rating parameters above : temperature, air mass, irradiance that is a large amount of possible graphs. A solar panel module loses voltage as the cell temperature increases; that effect is not unusual to all crystalline modules. Due to Ohm’s Law ( and the equation Power = Voltage x Current ), the results of reduced voltage is reduced power output.

The best position on any I-V curve-the sweet spot where we are able to collect the most power from the module-is at the “knee”. That is the maximum power point ( MPP ), and you can see that its position changes with temperature and irradiance. In battery-based Photovoltaic systems, an MPPT, or maximum power point tracking charge controller monitors the array continually to find the ever-changing MPP and therefore capture the most power from the array. In straight grid-tied systems, MPPT technology is built into all of the inverters, so these systems have a tendency to have awfully high. 2 groups of conditions which can turbo-charge voltage-and change the MPP-in a Photovoltaic or solar electrical system include over-irradiance and temperature effects. Over-irradiance is simply a fancy way of pronouncing daylight with a power above the standardized Standard Test Conditions price of one thousand Watts per square meter.

This suggests less energy-robbing atmosphere for daylight to pass thru.

This condition could happen at high altitudes, for instance.

This effect happens as a cloud shade passes out of the incoming daylight’s pathway to the solar panels. Refraction can concentrate the daylight while the fringe of the shadow passes by. The result’s a lift in module voltage output. Powerful reflections from nearby bodies of water and even a surrounding carpet of snow on a bright, winter day can produce a lift of solar power that will affect voltage.

Temperature effects are the result of an inherent characteristic of crystalline silicon cell-based modules. They have a tendency to produce higher voltage as the temperature drops and, inversely, to lose voltage in high temperatures. Any solar panel or system derating calculation must include adjustment for this temperature effect. Customarily, this derating is performed when figuring out the sizes of related system parts, for example charge controllers or grid-tied inverters, as these components must be sized to deal with the possible current spikes from the Photovoltaic array due to over-irradiance and temperature effects. Grid-tied inverter sizing, especially, depends on identifying the lowest recorded temperature at a suggested site. Inverter manufacturers include this variable in their tables or online Photovoltaic string-sizing tools. They, in turn, get factoring info. If a low temperature is even remotely possible you may plan for it or you risk frying your charge controller or inverter. Since module voltage could spike under bright daylight and lower temperatures, you want to make sure that your charge controller or inverter can handle the highest possible voltage and current. For site temperature info, I counsel consulting the weather info available at weather base.

In planning a Photovoltaic system, Standard Test Conditions is your first guide for sizing and planning. But Standard Test Conditions relies on lab conditions. Following acceptable derating procedures will make sure an effective and safe Photovoltaic system. Click here to read more on how to build a solar panel.

Purchasing an RV is a big call and something everybody needs to think about hard.

An RV is also an investment, an investment in time and cost but you won’t see any profit in an RV, well not in money terms but it can have a big payback re satisfaction and pleasure but if you go out and buy an RV without giving it a large amount of thought then it might be, at best, a pricey waste of money, and an RV can be, at worst, a wedding breaker.

When we were trading up to a larger and newer RV, my sister in law from Atlanta decided she was going to buy our old RV. The difficulty was it was her idea and not a joint family call. He was the type who would select a sports auto to drive without thinking about where his girl was going to sit. It lasted some years with him being unhappy with all his holidays in the RV, he bumped into some wagons and did some damage to the RV and was just typically sad with the entire concept of having a holiday in an RV. It came to the stage of seriously damaging their wedding.

What she should have done is to hire an RV first to try things out. This way she could have seen if owning an RV was going to work. So what do you look for when hiring an RV? Well I would think the most vital point is to decide where you want to go with it. Pick the area you want to holiday in and then look for somewhere to hire one from. Think about how you’re going to get there. Driving lets you take more things in,than flying does, so if you are flying then you might need to make certain that you hire an RV which comes professionally equipped as some don’t have things like kitchen utensils in them or towels and so on, though many firms will supply these but often they come at a cost.

What about the dimensions of your RV from little to huge. I suspect this relies on what you need to attain. If you’re a family then you want a bigger RV and so on. Are you wanting to drag a vehicle behind your RV? Some companies will let you, some will not and if you are in a hire auto, will the hire company permit it to be towed behind an RV. Is the RV you wish to hire capable of towing an enormous vehicle or only a little car? These questions could go on but the best folk to answer them are the RV rental company you are working with. It is often good to get an RV solar panel with your RV so you can power your appliances without the requirement of a generator. You should be in a position to spot the RV solar panel on the roof.

Think about where you are going to holiday in your RV, think about the way to get there, think about your RV in particulars of size, think about the kit you want for your RV, think about pets in the RV if you’ve a pet and think about who to lease your RV from.

Get many quotes from RV rental firms and then match them and read the fine detail to see what you get for the price and what extra you want to spend. When you have done all this pick an acceptable RV to hire and an acceptable company to hire your RV from and then just do it. When you have hired an RV you will then have a better concept of what it is like being an RV owner,then make the decision to buy an RV or not.

Technology looks to be invading virtually each part of our life for better or for worse. In the case of portable rv solar panels, it is for the better.

They are similar to the panels you see in peoples’ backyards or on their roofs. Even better, one of the weaknesses of home solar cells does not exist with an RV. Solar energy panels produce DC electricity that needs to be converted to AC for a home. Since an RV runs on DC, the difficulty is eliminated and you get more kick out of your panels. A portable solar panel system can be really powerful. Really, it can put as much power into your batteries as a gas or propane generator. Another advantage is your rv solar panels will not make the noise of a generator. On the other hand, it also does not produce energy at night, so you want to do some planning for your energy needs. Using solar energy panels for an RV is a reasonably straightforward process. You can attempt to work out your energy usage to pinpoint the correct number, but it is simpler to just ask the dealer.

Anyhow, you mount your panels on the roof. They fold down flat to the roof when you’re driving. When you park, you must park in the sun and in a direction where the panels will get the maximum exposure.

If you like to park in the shade, you can purchase a moveable system that you can position on the ground. Make sure you have a long wire in case the shade covers a large area. The power from your solar energy panels should be ready to keep your batteries charged as long as there is sun. The biggest issue you will run into is powering your air-conditioning. RV air conditioners use the power in large quantities, so use it sparingly or turn on a generator.

And if you’ve got an RV of your own, you are doubtlessly wondering how it’s possible for you to get one of those RV solar panels and how to set it up for yourself.

Here’s what you want to understand so you can do it. The very first thing to realize is that you are potentially not going to be able to generate enough power to fill all your electricity needs for an entire day with your new RV solar cell.

Now, two hundred watts is actually not very much power and that is what a basic solar panel will generate. Not wanting to discourage you from undertaking this excellent idea, we just want to help you to tackle it with practical expectations. The point of an RV solar energy panel should be to add to your available power, not provide the entire thing. With that noted it’s a brilliant idea to first sit down and work out how much supplemental power you would realistically like your RV solar panel system to generate for you. How much power are you planning to use? What’s the wattage of your Television, fan, blender, etc? And how long do you mean to run each of them in a single day.

If you think you will be using eight hundred watts, for example, then you will need to install four 200 watt panels. If you live in less sunnier climes, you might need more.

The best and most inventive idea is to get a deep cycle battery so you can charge it up when the sun’s not out and an inverter so you can plug your appliances in and utilise the solar electricity you have stored up and can use it when you need it, even if it is dark or raining outside.

Check that either your batteries or your RV solar panel has a charging controller that can meter the charging process and shut it down before you overcharge your batteries. Barring that, an additional battery charge meter is useful. Without one, you risk prematurely reducing the lifespan of your batteries. When you install the RV solar panel, point it upwards so you can catch the most sun during the main sunlight hours, 11am-3pm, when it’s highest in the sky.

Do also take care to note the new height of your RV now that it’s got an RV solar energy panel on top of it. The very last thing you wish to do is smack that into a low underpass, right?

The steam can have a degrading effect on the interior paint work and fittings; it will age your vehicle prematurely and will leave unpleasant odors. Let alone the stale air you keep breathing in which is being re-circulated around your motor or the need for extracting the heat and cooling the air temperature.

When looking to install a ventilation fan into your RV, you need to consider these two points:

• What size fan do you need?

• How are you going to fit it?

Solar extractor products are measured in the amount of air it can extract per hour, so you are looking at cubic feet of air per hour. To calculate cubic feet, you multiply the height x width x length of the inside of your motor home together.

Then you need to work out how long it will take to replace the air. For example, if you had a product that can extract 500cb ft per hour. You would need to divide the cubic feet of your RV by 500 and then multiply by 60 to give you a figure in minutes.

You can get different size ventilators which have corresponding different size solar panels. For example a 12,000cb ft per hour vent would use a 100 watt panel.

Bear in mind that you can get extractor parts made from different materials, so if you live in a harsh climate or near the sea you might want to consider a stainless steel one.

The second point we now need to consider is how your are going to fit it. The most obvious place to site the electric fan is in the ceiling. However this is not as simple as it may seem. The disadvantages of solar fans is that to fit it in the roof you have to cut a hole in your roof which is about 120mm in diameter. Unless you are pretty handy at doing DIY then I would suggest you get a professional to do the work for you.

If you are going to do it yourself, I suggest you do it by marking out the diameter of the whole you need; then use a 10mm drill and drill a series of holes inside the diameter of the circle you have scribed. Drill these wholes close together and then use a hacksaw to finish off the job.

Alternatively what you can do is fit the fan to a piece of hardboard and position it in the window of your door. As you wind the window up, you trap the hardboard in the window frame.

Finally, you are left with attaching the RV solar panels, read the instructions carefully and make sure the system is in the best position for absorbing as much energy from the sunlight as possible. There is not much in the way of electrical systems to worry about, all you have to do is connect the solar powered panel to the unit, and that is all there is to using solar RV fans.

The question is should you use evacuated or the conventional collectors for your solar heating system. Evacuated collecters are very well designed. You have a series of tubes in a panel. Each can be individually replaced should it become faulty or get damaged.

What you have is two tubes, an inner and an outer one. The inner carries the water and the outer one creates a vacuum. This vacuum makes the system very efficient. The solar water heating glass tubes heat losses are kept to a bare minimum, less that 2%. It also means that these units can work in very low temperatures even down to as low as -40 deg F.

The liquid is pumped round the system, and the heated liquid transfers its heat to the water held in a hot water heater storage tank.

All very good, so why do people still use flat plate absorber panels for a solar hot water system? There are two main reasons. One is that the evacuated collector tube systems are larger and heavier than the flat plate collectors, this means you need at least two people to install it. Where as the flat thermal systems can be carried and positioned by one man.

The other reason is that because they are more sophisticated and have a lot more parts to them, they are more prone to damage. Remember you are dealing with glass with a vacuum between the two tubes. In the past, these panels have been susceptible to damage due to the thermal expansion of the different materials. The glass is connected to a copper pipe with a waterproof seal. Because glass and copper expand at different rates, this seal often became damaged. I understand that modern production techniques have by and large overcome this problem but when you compare them to flat plate systems there is still a lot more to go wrong.

In fact, the flat plate solar hot water system is extremely simple and have very little that can go wrong. The main things you have to look out for are joints leaking and ensuring your system is designed that it can never freeze up should the temperature plummet below freezing point.

There are plenty of suppliers who are offering solar tubes kits for easy installation and it might worth experimenting with it to see if it is right for you.  However I have seen reports and some independent organizations are saying that the efficiency of the evacuated type compared to the flat type, when measured over a year is not that much, perhaps 5% better. They are also suggesting that because there is less maintenance and fewer things to go wrong with flat plate, flat plate is a better option.

Solar water heating collector tubes are more efficient but you have to decide if the advantages are great enough to warrant the higher cost over flat plate.

Before you start searching for the cheapest solar electric panels, systems and accessories such as an inverter, generator, battery or batteries (for off grid storage). You need to first calculate your energy requirements in watts. You can do this in a number of ways, you can go round and look at the wattage of all your appliances and add them up, or you can look at your electric meter and determine how many kilo watt hours you use per day on average and then multiply that figure by 10% to 25% just to give you a little to play with.

Once you know that figure then you can go and look for the cheapest products. You can get a 1.2 watt panel for $32, and you can get a 210 watt panel for $836, and there is a whole range of different sizes and prices in between.

However, when looking for the cheapest system you must remember that buying the products only accounts for half the cost. The other half of the cost is fitting the systems, paying contractors to install and wire them up to your home. If you do this job yourself, then you can make considerable savings or if not do it yourself then control the project. You might then want to spend a little more on getting more efficient panels and so generating more power for your buck.

Remember that you do not have to purchase and install all your panels at once. You can spread it over time, start small and inside your budget, and as you see the benefits in reduced energy bills and have new savings, then you can invest again and add another solar array or two. It is a fairly straight forward process of adding cells when you have the basic installation in place.

Build Your Own Homemade Solar Panel

Of course the ultimate way to save money is DIY. There are plenty of books around which will teach you how to make a solar panel and the pitfalls to look out for when building one. They do go into real detail so you can see exactly how to assemble the photovoltaic cell into an array and build a panel. They even explain where you can source the cheapest solar cells and find damaged ones which you can repair. Their efficiency won’t be as high as a factory made one though.

The down side here is that you’re exchanging time for money. If you have plenty of free time and are good with your hands then this could be a good option for you. This residential solar power system is sitting on your house and is exposed to all the elements, so it has to be made waterproof else they won’t last.

To summarize, the cheapest solar power systems are the ones you make yourself but they won’t be as efficient and you are exchanging time for money. Take your time and weigh up all the pros and cons.

To turn a photovoltaic solar cell into an infrared solar energy panel the glass has to be treated during the production phase. It is turned into low ironed tempered glass as opposed to normal ironed tempered glass.

By producing low ironed tempered glass, it means that the system can absorb high wavelength sunlight. The high wave length range is from 800 to 1200nm and this is the infrared range. A lower wave length from 400 to 800nm is the normal visible sunlight.

The reason why you would want a photovoltaic cell which picks up infrared light is because it makes the panel more effective, it increases energy conversion efficiencies.

For cells covered in non infrared glass, they will only produce energy when the sun is shining directly upon them, when sunlight is in the 400 to 800nm range. This means if the sun goes behind a cloud, they stop producing power. When the sun goes behind a cloud the only light that can be converted into energy is infrared sunlight.

So why aren’t all solar cells covered with infrared low ironed tempered glass, surely it is more eco friendly? Well there is only one reason and that is cost. As the glass needs additional materials and complex production methods being applied to it, this pushes up the cost considerably. This means when deciding whether to go for the extra expense or not you have to weigh up your payback period timeline.

If you live in a part of the world where you do not experience much cloud cover then it would not be worth the extra investment because when the sun is shining directly upon the panels the non-infrared glass is just as efficient as the treated glass. However if you live in the part of the country where you do get a lot of cloud cover then it is probably worth going for. It will mean even during the winter months you can generate electric solar power.

The other benefit of the low ironed coatings is that it cuts down the emission by about 80% which increases the efficiency of the solar cell. Emission is a technical term for the amount of energy which is released back into the atmosphere. Obviously you don’t want to have the effect of energy bouncing off your panel, you want your panel to absorb and convert as much energy as possible.

So at the end of the day, it comes down to what you can afford. In an ideal world you have all your solar power being produced with infrared photovoltaic solar cells.

Using solar collectors for heating water can produce 42% to 72% of all your hot water needs. This can translate to 53% and 81% reduction in your energy water heating bill. If you maintain your solar water heating system, it can last for 25 to 30 years before needing replacing.

Our recommended supplier of Solar Water Heating is the altE Store, who offer a range of solar panels and accessories including:

Climate freezes: Closed Loop Systems

Closed Loop Systems for 1-4 People

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Closed Loop Systems for 5+ People

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Climates are mild: Open Loop Systems

Open Loop Systems for 1-4 People

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Open Loop Systems for 5+ People

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Collectors, Mounts and System Components

AET Collectors, Rack & Mounts

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AET Absorber Plates

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Heliodyne Collectors, Racks & Mounts

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Retrofit Kits for Drainback Systems

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SolarRoofs Skyline Collectors & Parts

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Differential Temperature Controllers

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Heat Exchangers

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Hot Water Storage Tanks

Tanks WITH Heat Exchangers

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Tanks WITHOUT Heat Exchangers

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Solar Circulator Pumps

Ac Pumps

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Dc Pumps

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Grundfos Flanges And Unions

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Taco Flanges

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