minimum amount of solar
I am considering starting into the solar age. I currently have 4 group 27 batteries and have no problem going for weekends dry camping with our current battery capacity. All of our lights have been ...
Forum Discussion
Randomly saying X watts, is unlikely to give you an accurate answer.
Look at your use case...what will you run and how long will you run it?
Multiply the watts times the time that it's drawing those watts...add it up and that will give you the total watt-hours you need to replace.
Typically you can assume the watt-hr produced will be about 4 times the rating...ie: 100w panel will generate around 400watt-hr per day.
If you are willing to crank up a generator or provide an alternate charging source, this is probably good enough for the solar panels...if you want to be able to go say 3 days without another source, figure a bit less than 3 times the wattage to allow for cloudy days with minimal output.
Then you need to assess the battery bank...Divide the watt-hr by 12 to get amp-hr needed, then size the battery bank accordingly. Note: For traditional lead acid batteries, you can only use around 30-50% of the rating without causing damage and short life, so you need a rating of 2 to 3 times what you calculated (lithium are a different ballgame and more complicated).
Look at your use case...what will you run and how long will you run it?
Multiply the watts times the time that it's drawing those watts...add it up and that will give you the total watt-hours you need to replace.
Typically you can assume the watt-hr produced will be about 4 times the rating...ie: 100w panel will generate around 400watt-hr per day.
If you are willing to crank up a generator or provide an alternate charging source, this is probably good enough for the solar panels...if you want to be able to go say 3 days without another source, figure a bit less than 3 times the wattage to allow for cloudy days with minimal output.
Then you need to assess the battery bank...Divide the watt-hr by 12 to get amp-hr needed, then size the battery bank accordingly. Note: For traditional lead acid batteries, you can only use around 30-50% of the rating without causing damage and short life, so you need a rating of 2 to 3 times what you calculated (lithium are a different ballgame and more complicated).
