If you’re tired on blackouts and high electricity bills, setting up a solar power system for your home is a great idea. This makes you self-sufficient, helps you save money and reduces your carbon footprint. Before you can start generating your own electricity, you will first need to calculate how many solar panels you need, the size of your solar inverter battery capacity, etc. Here’s a little help.
Assume your power needs
The difference between setting up a solar inverter as a backup for the main power grid and for self-sufficiency is that you will need to generate enough power to run all your appliances through the day. This means it might be difficult to get an accurate number. You will need to make a general assumption instead. For the purpose of these calculations, let’s assume your appliances need 100 watts and that these appliances need to be run for 10 hours a night. This means that your solar panels need to generate 100 watts x 10 hours of power. This amounts to 1000 watt hours.
Calculate Solar Panel Size
Based on this, you can calculate the size and number of solar panels needed. Assume that your roof top receives 10 hours of sunshine every day. You would then be able to calculate the capacity of the solar panels needed by dividing the total power requirement by the number of hours the panels receive sunshine. In this case, it would be 100 watts of solar power.
However, in the winter months, the amount of sunshine received may be considerably less. Let’s say you get only 5 hours of sunshine on a winter day. Thus, when calculating the size of solar panels, it is best to assume the worst-case scenario. Taking this into account, the size of a solar panel needed in this case is:
1,000 Watt hours / 5 hours = 200 Watt
Calculate Solar Inverter Battery Capacity
Most batteries have a standard 12V rating. To calculate the battery’s AH rating, you will need to divide the watt hours by 12V. You may then want to add a certain amount of tolerance. This could amount to:
1000 watt hours / 12V = 83 AH
83AH + 20% tolerance = 100AH
You should then connect this battery to a charge controller to ensure that the battery does not drain out through a reverse flow.
Assess Inverter Specifications
This is probably the easiest part of all the calculations. You started by assuming that your appliances need 100 W of power. This mean that when you invest in an inverter, you should buy one that can distribute 100W along with a little tolerance space. Hence, a 125watt inverter would be sufficient in this case.
Having a solar inverter battery connected to your inverter and solar panels makes your home eco-friendly and self-sufficient. Such a system requires minimal maintenance and electricity will continue to be generated without any extra effort on your part.
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