Solar panel power output experiment
- Once you have had a go at all the working out, there is nothing
like doing a live experiment to see if all the sums add up correctly.
So here are the results of the experiment I did to see how one
of my 27 w solar panels was actually performing. You can of
course do the same experiment yourself, and it can be good practice
to set up your solar system components on a temporary jig basis
first. This makes sure you are getting what you expect from
your solar system components before the final installation.
You will have to allow of course for a bit of resistance due
to the wiring runs you will have on the final installation.
The basic solar set up for
the experiment:
First of all I let the battery charge up until the green
led was showing on the regulator indicating a fully charged
battery, I then covered up the 27 w solar panel and switched
the 12 volt (0.57 Amp) strip light on for two hours. I then
turned the strip light off and uncovered the solar panel and
watched the regulator to see when the green led came back
on. It took exactly 1.25 hours. The working out goes like
this:-
First January Solar
Experiment
First of all the weather was a mid January day in southern
England with an outside temperature of 9° centigrade.
The time of day was 12:00 GMT London, cloud cover was approximately
55% so these conditions all add up to an ideal average sort
of day for this solar panel power output experiment.
Solar Panel
= 27w
Regulator
= 4 Amp basic model
Battery
= 12 v 110 Amph
Strip Light 12 volt
= 0.57 Amph (power consumption per hour)
Strip Light
= 0.57 Amp
Strip light consumed 1.14 amps for the two hours it was
illuminated
|
Solar Panel
= 27w
Solar panel takes 1.25 hours to recharge battery |
= |
Solar
panel is producing very approximately 1 amp per hour |
Second March Solar Experiment
The same experiment was performed with the same conditions
prevailing as the first although a little later than originally
wanted in the month due to 4/5 days of bad storms in the UK.
We needed the conditions to be similar to the first experiment
to make a good comparison.
Strip Light
= 0.57 Amp
Strip light consumed 1.14 amps for the two hours it was
illuminated
|
Solar Panel
= 27w
Solar panel takes 0.45 of an hour to recharge battery |
= |
Solar
panel is producing very approximately 2.25 amps per hour |
So there the experiment ends
for the time being, but what we have found out is that approximately
for every watt of solar panel energy produced you get 0.04
Amph approximately in the weather conditions stated above
during January, and 0.08 Amph in March.
To find your expected daily harvest you need to multiply your
expected local daily sunshine hours by the hourly outputs
above for every watt of solar panel power.
Typically this may be 2-3 hours in January (UK) and 3-4 hours
in March (UK) and 4-5 hours in mid summer (UK) depending on
your own installation latitude.
It is the figures in the tables above that will be the most
help in working out your panel requirements when compared
with your daily 'energy required' figure. Remember they are
approximate and that all installation sites vary and your
latitude will also be a factor in assessing installation performance.
This experiment will be repeated again in June with increasing
longer day light hours to see the results then, they will
be reported on this page. So please come back again and check
the results.
Other pages to help you with
the installation are:-
To communicate with us over
technical issues please use the Solar
Chat Forum, also take a look at the Solar
Q&A page.
Global
Warming - it's why we are making changes to our way of life!
David Bellamy has a very interesting article on global warming
where he gives another point of view,
Read
the article
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