Solar panels

Engineer1911

Engineer1911

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My feeble understanding of electricity is that Solar Panels produce direct current voltage.

Just how does DC voltage help the alternating current power grid? Please keep your answer simple because I needed 3 semesters to complete the 2 semesters of "Electrical Circuits for Mechanical Engineers". It was truly my most painful educational experience. :confused:
 
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DIY forum site has all the answers. Yes, DC to AC inverters.
I have a 600 watt solar panel system with Lipo batteries and 4000 watt inverter that can power all the household appliances in my off grid cabin.
DIY Solar Power Forum
 

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Best to buy a pure sine wave inverter as bread making machines and some other loads do not like modified sine waves.

Last Blow that had the eye over us, when the wind died down to gale force level, I took my Super Sawzall and cut a path out of the front of the house.
Cop rolls by and asks if power was back on as he didn't hear a generator.
I said that the power was back on. ;)
A minute later he comes back and says that power had not been restored and asked how I ran my saw.
Took him inside and gave him a lesson in inverters, batteries etc etc.

Many days with my chain and bow saws followed.
As a retired marine electronics tech, inverter-charger/battery/solar panel installs was a fun day at the office.

UPS systems are similar and useful for alarms systems.
 
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A 600 acre solar " farm" was recently completed near my house. Banks of panels are connected to an inverter, which converts to AC voltage. Cables from inverters run to a new substation, transformed to high voltage transmission. I feel the whole energy policy needs more thoughts. It's bad enough thousands of acres of prime Iowa farm ground are paved over due to suburban sprawl. Now more farm ground for solar panels. Is this smart in the long run?
 
An inverter is an electronic device that converts DC to AC. Back in the old days before electronic inverters, to obtain the same effect a motor-generator set was used. This was a DC motor that turned an AC generator. The same arrangement could be reversed to convert AC to DC, even though there are simpler ways to do that using diodes. Inverters come in many sizes and have various features depending on your power needs.

Many solar power users incorporate storage batteries into the system. The DC current from the solar panels charges the batteries, then is turned into AC with an inverter. That allows you to have solar AC power available at night or on an overcast day.

One of the big challenges to solar and wind power is how to store excess generation capacity so power can be made available and used when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine. There are numerous ways to do that, but that is a different story.
 
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DWalt said:
An inverter is an electronic device that converts DC to AC. Back in the old days before electronic inverters, to obtain the same effect a motor-generator set was used. This was a DC motor that turned an AC generator. The same arrangement could be reversed to convert AC to DC, even though there are simpler ways to do that using diodes. Inverters come in many sizes and have various features depending on your power needs.

Many solar power users incorporate storage batteries into the system. The DC current from the solar panels charges the batteries, then is turned into AC with an inverter. That allows you to have solar AC power available at night or on an overcast day.

One of the big challenges to solar and wind power is how to store excess generation capacity so power can be made available and used when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine. There are numerous ways to do that, but that is a different story.
Click to expand...
In our solar "farm", a natural gas generator of equal size had to be built to make up the difference
 
Then also consider possible hail and wind damage to solar panels. Last year we had more snow than normal and covered the solar panels to the point of no use till cleaned away.:eek::rolleyes::cool:
 
DC to AC inverters introduce yet another loss in the renewable power delivery scheme. Inverters do not operate at 100% efficiency. No electrical device does, not even a wire. Nothing in physics is free. There's another dirty little not-so-secret issue with solar panels. Their conversion efficiency degrades over time. I'm sure they improve a bit every year with newer technology, but 15 years ago they degraded 5% to 10% per year. GE quietly exited the photovoltaic industry after years of gobbling up small innovative panel makers, perhaps knowing this nasty little factoid would sink long term investment viability without government subsidy and mandated consumption.
 
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On the other hand, solar panels have become more affordable with new panels that can be purchased around one dollar per watt and used ones much less.The idea for solar at an off grid cabin is different than say a residential home that has utilities. Cost wise, my small solar system will take several years to balance out the cost of generator power, but the quietness and mostly maintenance free is real nice, even then, I still want a generator for back up power for rainy, cloudy days. I've learned a lot since a couple years ago on what's required in my particular situation.Some folks need more and some need less to get by on.
 
Countrycuz said:
A 600 acre solar " farm" was recently completed near my house. Banks of panels are connected to an inverter, which converts to AC voltage. Cables from inverters run to a new substation, transformed to high voltage transmission. I feel the whole energy policy needs more thoughts. It's bad enough thousands of acres of prime Iowa farm ground are paved over due to suburban sprawl. Now more farm ground for solar panels. Is this smart in the long run?
Click to expand...

I saw a quote from Biden stating that the US has lots of empty spce here in flyover country to put Solar and Wind farms since the NIMBY's didn't want them next to their house. We actually have a wind farm just across the border in Mt that is supposedly dedicated to help provide power to...wait for it...California
 
SMSgt said:
Roof-mounted solar panels will kill your HO insurance around here.
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Next door neighbor has most of his roof in solar power panels. His system just sells power back to the power company. There was a bad hailstorm here about 3-4 years ago which severely damaged all of the panels. His HO insurance covered the damage, but I’d guess his premiums went into orbit. Damage to the panels was about 25K as I remember.
 
I keep getting stuff sent to the house to put in solar. Why would I want to put holes in my 1 YO roof?

I am led to believe that panels are hazardous materials. I read an article about the big problem in CA to get rid of them at the end of life.

I know at our resource recovery center, they are 1400.00 per ton to get rid of
 
Inverters aren't only used for solar panels. Travel trailers and motor homes use them as well to convert 12 volts from storage batteries to 120 volts. Their inverters also reverse the process to charge the batteries when hooked up to AC power. Many pickup trucks and SUV's also come with inverters to supply AC power to operate power tools and/or appliances. I had a 4000 watt in my 2006 one ton.
 
I've had solar on my 2nd home in Vermont since August 2020. The panels are on a detached garage with a metal roof. There are 20 LG panels on each roof with two Tesla batteries for storage. The batteries provide approx. 15 KW of storage and were sold via the local power company for $5,500/battery. That was about 50% of retail pricing at the time. My panels are 345W each. It's an amazing system IMO. I do sell back to the grid but the Tesla software will watch for impending severe weather and prioritize keeping the batteries at full charge several times/year. My power bills went from $100-$200/month to $10-$20/month. Most of the system has a 25 year warranty. The garage was unheated. Tesla requires that the batteries stay above 32°. The garage sits next to a 500 gallon propane tank so I had propane wall heater placed in the bay where the batteries reside hooked to a smart thermostat. The thermostat has a default low safety temperature of 40° so I don't even turn it on. When it sees 40° it automatically turns on the heat as long as needed to maintain 40°. I've had two micro-inverters fail (each panel has one) otherwise it has been trouble free. I'm not there all winter so snow can accumulate but the roof pitch means it all slides off within a day or so. I could have installed a 14KW generator running off my propane for a lot less money but had several placement issues to work around.
 

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