Solar panel advice please

[Gary Peacock]

Why does solar work so well on boats but not on houses etc?

 

If I could make it work on houses I would be quids in!

 

Anyone got any ideas? I will let you have a 2% share of the proceeds when I have made my first billion.

[Bullfrog]

Why does solar work so well on boats but not on houses etc?

 

If I could make it work on houses I would be quids in!

 

Anyone got any ideas? I will let you have a 2% share of the proceeds when I have made my first billion.

 

Not many houses I know run on batteries!

Edited July 24, 2008 by Bullfrog

[Gary Peacock]

Not many houses I know run on batteries!

 

But if they did we could bin the eclectic meter and all those nasty bills and just go solar for free?

[bottle]

If a house was designed from the outset to use solar energy, then yes, it is possible and batteries would be used.

 

As to the initial cost???????

[Chris Pink]

Why does solar work so well on boats but not on houses etc?

 

If I could make it work on houses I would be quids in!

 

Anyone got any ideas? I will let you have a 2% share of the proceeds when I have made my first billion.

 

 

solar works wonderfully in houses, take a look at the Steca catalogue, you can even make money by selling to PowerGen (or whatever they're called now) in particular solar water heating is well worth doing, all that roof area going spare.

 

2% please.

[Justme]

reduce your house hold electric consumption dramaticaly & increase the cost of national grid power to the level of NB power & it does work. Failing that fit huge solar panels at high cost & have a payback thats longer than the life span of the panel. Reduction in use is the first thing to do. Stop leaving things turned on.

 

I did some work on using batteries & E7 cheap rate electricity to run a house. It should work but was very costly to set up.

 

 

Justme

[Gary Peacock]

solar works wonderfully in houses, take a look at the Steca catalogue, you can even make money by selling to PowerGen (or whatever they're called now) in particular solar water heating is well worth doing, all that roof area going spare.

 

2% please.

 

So Steca must be worth billions already? (Dam beaten at the winning post!)

 

So how are their products so fantastically camouflaged on houses that we don't spot them all, they are always very obvious on boats?

[Bullfrog]

So how are their products so fantastically camouflaged on houses that we don't spot them all, they are always very obvious on boats?

 

You can tell you are from oop north Gary - you do see quite a lot of solar panel water heaters down here in the south - it's warmer! We've got 2 houses sporting them in our road alone.

 

David

Edited July 24, 2008 by Bullfrog

[Grace and Favour]

Why does solar work so well on boats but not on houses etc?

 

If I could make it work on houses I would be quids in!

 

Anyone got any ideas? I will let you have a 2% share of the proceeds when I have made my first billion.

 

 

A billion is a fairly high conditional level in my opinion . (whether it's the American or UK billion is relatively unimportant in the scale of things) . and 2% is a rather restrained and cautious figure too . .

 

If you make it 55% of all profit, - I'll start thinking about the problem . . .

Edited July 24, 2008 by Grace & Favour

[Trilby Tim]

reduce your house hold electric consumption dramaticaly & increase the cost of national grid power to the level of NB power & it does work. Failing that fit huge solar panels at high cost & have a payback thats longer than the life span of the panel. Reduction in use is the first thing to do. Stop leaving things turned on.

 

I did some work on using batteries & E7 cheap rate electricity to run a house. It should work but was very costly to set up.

 

 

Justme

Exactly

[RLWP]

You can tell you are from oop north Gary - you do see quite a lot of solar panel water heaters down here in the south - it's warmer! We've got 2 houses sporting them in our road alone.

 

David

 

Well, yes, but solar water heating isn't solar electrical generation is it?

 

Richard

[Cris P]

About 100 friends of mine, and to protect their privacy I'm not telling you where they are except to say north of Watford, have a square of 30/40 houses in the middle of nowhere, with no access to the grid. Their entire electricity consumption is provided by solar and wind power. They have a lot of diy homemade wind generators all over the place. It all helps, and it does all work.

 

Since getting panels in late spring, I haven't needed to run my engine for electrical purposes at all.

[Gary Peacock]

About 100 friends of mine, and to protect their privacy I'm not telling you where they are except to say north of Watford, have a square of 30/40 houses in the middle of nowhere, with no access to the grid. Their entire electricity consumption is provided by solar and wind power. They have a lot of diy homemade wind generators all over the place. It all helps, and it does all work.

 

Since getting panels in late spring, I haven't needed to run my engine for electrical purposes at all.

 

Do you have a dishwasher or washing machine?

[Ernie]

Just one small point that I think lots of people will miss.

 

Running a petrol genny does not have to cost more than running a diesel one. Even though petrol costs more per L most small petrol gennys run at about .7 L/h whilst the smallest diesel quote 1.2 - 1.4L/h. I did some working out for a friend & the running costs per hour were 70p for petrol & 90p for red diesel. With the coming price changes in red diesel for boats that gap will increase too. This only works on small petrol gennys. Once you start to hit about 5 kva then diesel ones cost less to run.

 

There is a thread in here about the payback time for solar panels with a very good spread sheet calculation that factors in all the variables.

 

Justme

Our Honda EX4D diesel generator averages around 1 litre per hour. We use it for the washing machine (1200 ish Watts) , the hoover (1200W), power tools and battery charging using a 50Amp + 30Amp Sterling chargers. The average is the consumption over the past 12 months. When the changes in diesel prices come in later this year, I am still hoping to pay the lower rate for diesel for the generator.

[Ernie]

I passed a boat in Rugby this morning stopped to have a chat with the guy about his solar panels.

 

He has 4 x 65W panels and a controller. While chatting to him in hazy sunshine with the panels tilted and pointing roughly towards the sun, his controller was indicating 9.5 Amps. He said that the most he ever sees is around 18Amps – sometimes 20A on bright clear frosty winter days. On dull days the output is around 2 Amps.

 

He started off with 2 x 65W panels and then a year or so later added the second 2. He said that if he were to add a final 2 panels he could probably get away without having to run his engine for about a week at a time at this time of the year. He also has true deep cycle batteries, he bought them second hand from someone he used to know that ran a fleet of milk floats. He paid £200 for the 6 x 2V batteries 20 years ago and they are still going strong. He has been living on the boat for 23 years !!!

 

His loads are much the same (if not worse) than mine, he has a 12V fridge, 12V freezer and they watch the TV quite a bit. We don’t watch much TV at all.

 

The above numbers agree with data from a friend I have recently contacted with 1 x 130W panel, he sees around 9Amps on good day but down to around 1A on dull days.

I am now thinking of 6 x 65W panels, I just need to find an easy bank to rob !!!

[Ex- Member]

Why does solar work so well on boats but not on houses etc?

 

If I could make it work on houses I would be quids in!

 

Anyone got any ideas? I will let you have a 2% share of the proceeds when I have made my first billion.

 

 

Solar works equally well in houses as well as boats, if you invest in enough panels for your requirements then you could rely on solar alone. The reason it's a good option on boats is the installation cost, on a boat it's pretty simple and cheap. On a house roof you need scaffolding special fitting equpment, and depending on the type of installation batteries or wiring direct into the mains supply, this all adds up, instalers electricians etc, so the payback time on houses will always be longer. Were seeing panels now around £4.00 per watt, last year it was more like £6.00 It could go as low as 50p per watt in a couple of years time. We don't need ours for at least 18 months, so keeping an eye open all the time to see what's happening. There's a company in the U.S making printed panels on foil sheet, i posted a similar lionk in another thread.

 

Nanosolar

http://www.celsias.com/article/nanosolars-...olar-now-cheap/

[Gary Peacock]

So a normal household could simply change to being totally solar dependent without any change in behaviour or consumption and then do away with the electric meter?

 

Sounds good kit.

Edited July 24, 2008 by Gary Peacock

[Chris Pink]

Do you have a dishwasher or washing machine?

 

 

That's old thinking Gary, the smart move these days is to use solar for everyday then start a generator for dishwashers, washing machines and any other motor. in the same way as we've stopped using vintage engines for generating power....

 

....'orses for courses mate.

 

Many dishwashers on your boats then?

[Ex- Member]

So a normal household could simply change to being totally solar dependent without any change in behaviour or consumption and then do away with the electric meter?

 

Sounds good kit.

 

 

Or keep the meter and sell back to the grid

[Gary Peacock]

That's old thinking Gary, the smart move these days is to use solar for everyday then start a generator for dishwashers, washing machines and any other motor. in the same way as we've stopped using vintage engines for generating power....

 

....'orses for courses mate.

 

Many dishwashers on your boats then?

 

Nearly all have it saves water.

[smileypete]

Do you have a dishwasher or washing machine?

 

Out of interest Gary, how much cost does a cocooned diesel genset and separate tankage add to a new boat?

 

cheers,

Pete.

[Gary Peacock]

Out of interest Gary, how much cost does a cocooned diesel genset and separate tankage add to a new boat?

 

cheers,

Pete.

 

For a true marine unit I normally work very roughly on about £900.00 per KW fitted.

 

I will probably get shouted at for saying it but most of the inland waterways rather than true marine offerings are fairly awful "agricultual" bits of kit.

[smileypete]

For a true marine unit I normally work very roughly on about £900.00 per KW fitted.

 

I will probably get shouted at for saying it but most of the inland waterways rather than true marine offerings are fairly awful "agricultual" bits of kit.

 

What's the minimum kW and how much does it cost? I doubt there is a 1kW cocooned diesel genny for £900

 

cheers,

Pete.

Edited July 25, 2008 by smileypete

[Gary Peacock]

What's the minimum kW and how much does it cost? I doubt there is a 1kW cocooned diesel genny for £900

 

cheers,

Pete.

 

 

Well size is really down to individual demand, we fit between 5kva and 10kva mainly.

 

Long duty cycle low RPM units are preferable along with keel cooling rather than raw water in the inland waterways market.

 

Mastervolt are the easiest to quote price for because they have a RRP price list most of the other suppliers are price on application.

 

Whisper 6 5.7kw= £6,578

Whisper 8 8Kw= £7,422

Whisper 10 10Kw=£7,716

 

Northern Lights, Fischer Panda might be slightly cheaper and some say more than equal in performance.

 

We fit Northern Lights at the moment and they seem to be very good so far.

[Ernie]

What the 'experts' advise......

Dear Ernie

 

Many thanks for your enquiry into solar power.

 

I have assumed that your system is all 12 Volts. If so your are using around 1800 Watt-Hours per day. If you would like to run your boat on solar only all year round you would need a system with a solar array of approximately

2.5 kWp. This would have a total area of about 20 square meters. I would imagine that that would be slightly large for a narrow boat.

 

A better solution may be something similar to our 650 Wp power system. This would provide all of your electrical energy needs in the summer months but would only supply around 30% or so in the middle of winter.

 

Details of the 650 Wp system can be found at http://www.brightlightsolar.com/acatalog/Remote_Homes.html

 

If you have any questions or comments about the system please feel free to contact me anytime.

 

Kind regards,

Owen

 

Owen Morgan

Systems Analyst

Bright Light Solar

Pendre Enterprise Park

Tywyn, LL36 9LW, UK

 

Office: +44 1654 712713

owen.morgan@brightlightsolar.com

www.brightlightsolar.com

 

 

-----Original Message-----

 

Hello,

 

We are looking for a solar panel battery charging system for use on our narrow boat, we live on the boat all year round.

 

Our daily consumption is in the region of 150 amp hours, the 12V fridge and 12V freezer are the biggest power consumers, especially in the summer.

 

I realise that solar will not solve all of our energy problems due to lack of output on cloudy days etc.

 

Can you recommend a system for us please?

 

Should we be looking at Monocrystalline, Polycrystalline, Amorphous etc ??

 

Many thanks

Ernie

 

The advice is to go for 650W of solar panels (heart attack time), I already have batteries and inverter. Inverter is not needed as the fridge and freezer are 12V. To be fair, with 650W, I would not need to run the generator during the summer months.