Solar Power math explained and simplified
- Filed under: Solar Power and Off-Grid Living, Uncategorized
- Date: Oct 19,2008
As far as Solar Power goes, 80% of everything comes down to this. People try and figure out how many batteries and solar panels they need before they know how much power they use. This is the most basic part, and one of the longest. However once you have that number the rest is fast and easy. This article contains the steps you need to take to figure out how many solar panels you need, and how many batteries you need for your renewable energy system.
Step 1 : Figure out how much power you use daily.
I know that it’s a pain, but it’s inevitable. Make a list of all the electrical appliances you use, figure out how many watts it takes, and estimate how many hours per day you use it. Multiply the total watts of the appliance with the hours used and that’s your total for that particular electrical product for one day. Do the same for all your electrical things and add them all together. Now you know how many watts of power you need to generate per day for everything.
Tips :
- Voltage * AMPS = Watts (Lots of power adapters only list the voltage and current, so you need to do the math yourself to get the total Watts it takes)
- Watts are measured on a 1 hour basis. (So a lightbulb that takes 60 watts uses 60 watts PER HOUR it’s on)
- Some appliances are VERY hard to figure out the total power consumption. If you can call the manufacturer’s they often have these specifications. (Usually measured in KiloWatt hours per YEAR) Just divide it by 365 to get the number of kilowatt’s in takes per day. Multiply that by 1000 to get the number of Watts it takes per day on average.
- Use a Kill-A-Watt meter to measure the exact power consumption that something uses. (These are AMAZING and not expensive : Especially the find out the power consumption of things like fridges and computers)
