President Barack Obama has agreed with the installation of photovoltaik plug and play panels in White House to provide electricity and hot water to his family and staff members. We should do the same in our homes to increase use of renewable energy. This article will highlight the possibilities and methods to install solar panel in our homes.
Solar Power is a renewable energy and new technologies allow to harness it with greater efficiency. We know that solar power is free. On a bright sunny day, you can collect from sun 1000 watts of energy per square meter of the planet’s surface. For decades, scientists and engineers are trying to make use of solar power cost effective and now it is within the reach of everyone of us. Solar technology is now available, reliable and ready to be installed in our homes
What would you have to do solar-powering your house. It is not as simple as installing an electric kettle, and at the same time it is not difficult to do either. You have to understand the basic principle and the kit details to power your house with solar power.
Basic Principle: Solar power is generated by photovoltaic cells. Photovoltaic cells are made of special materials called silicon. When sun ray strikes the cell, a portion of it is absorbed within the semiconductor resulting in current flow. This current together with the cell’s voltage ( which is the result of the built-in electric filed ), defines the power the cell can produce. If a properly designed kit is used, this power is sufficient to meet the electrical energy requirement of a house.
Solar Power System Kit: The most obvious question is that how to get power when sun is not shining. The solar kit will answer this problem. Your solar power system has to be independent of the grid supply from the electricity board. You will have no problem, when there is sufficient sun ray. If you want to live completely off the grid, you have the two alternatives. Either you keep a backup generator or store the energy in batteries. Generator and Batteries both have merits and demerits. Battery is costlier and has to be maintained, but it is noiseless and almost pollution free.
1. Solar Cell: You will need a photovoltaic solar cell to be installed at your rooftop and adjust it to correct orientation or angle of inclination to get full advantage of sun’s energy. You have to choose the more efficient silicon based solar panels. Solar panels will last more than 30 years and requires little maintenance.
2. Battery to store solar energy: You have to choose deep cycle batteries. We are using shallow cycle batteries in our car, which will discharge large current for a very short time. In Solar Cell application, batteries has to discharge small current for a much longer period. Deep cycle batteries like sealed lead-acid batteries or nickel-cadmium batteries are suitable for solar cell.
3. Charge Controller: You have to use a charge controller to charge the battery. When fully charged, the charge controller has to disconnect the battery from the solar cell and again re-connect when the charge is low. The use of charge controller is necessary for long battery life.
4. Inverter: The electricity generated by the solar cell is direct current and most of electrical gadgets operate on alternating current. This conversion can be done by the inverter.
This is the basic solar power system for homes. Initial cost is higher than the grid supply from the electricity board, but you have the two unique advantage. First, you will get free power, you do not have pay anything for using this solar power and the second advantage is that you are independent i.e., you do not have to depend on the grid supply.