I think it's really expensive to power your house from batteries at night. Most houses get power from the grid at night.
Wouldn't the batteries be charged during the day though, to where at night all you're doing is burning up the saved energy, then replenishing it (while at the same time generating power for things) during the day?
Yes, but you have to buy the batteries and all the charging equipment.
I was under the impression that all of that was required anyways, to account from the over/underusing (so for ex. if you're generating 1 KW/hour and you happen to use 300 W one hour, you'd have 700 stored away so the next hour you could use 1.7KW and still not have issues).
.....
If only it was 100% efficient....., you don't take into account fully charged or empty batteries.
Also you have to watch these "criminals" and their solar power ratings for the panels., just consider that you need to at least double or triple up, to ensure that you can use the power AND charge the batteries, if you go that way.... even if you feed surplus into the grid its not the storage capacity you think it is..
I spoke to a 'friend' who has a solar panel factory.. and I was quite shocked, by the time he had finished calculating, we reckoned on nearly 500 panels for even a small sized mining operation.....
Just run the figures for something about 500w..... over a 24 hour period..... (12 kw) based on a 4-5 hours of full sunlight ...
and these 20% conversion rates are bull*** as well (yep if you can get NASA quality then your in with a chance)
So you mean that if you need, say 10 KW a day, estimate 2 KW per hour and therefore you need at least twice that (4 KW/hour) to account for bad efficiency?
It is not down to just efficiency loss, but published Vrs real ratings... Weather... time of year.... temp of panels... age of panels
I'm saying run the numbers , it's not the gold mine people say it is, one of the biggest mistakes is failing to understand the difference between KWh and KW
Panels are stated it W or KW. (and you will not believe the shit load of light they hit the panels with to get that rating...)
You cannot have your cake and eat it... I.E you cannot use the power for your rig AND charge the batteries.
So it is AT LEAST double....
I.E
fag paket calculation @ 100% efficiency...
100w rig would need 100wh +100wh to charge the batteries, and if it is a 5 hour charge then that would get you up-to 10 hrs of running time TOTAL. (5hrs sun +5hrs battery)
To run for 24 hrs
You would need 4*100w (20hr battery storage@5hrs)+100w to run the rig(for 5 hours), then after the sun is down you start on the battery....
I.E 500W of panels to run 24Hr @100% efficiency. (basically a 5:1 ratio).
So 1KW would require 5KW @100% efficiency if I were to require 24hour solar.
Your 10KW is basically 420w/h and if you can get 5 hours sun...
its looking like 2.2kw/h as you said....
But now we have to start throwing in actual efficiency... god only knows what the panels actual wattage is, but the MORE storage capacity in the battery you have, the better its operation.
I.E if you take lead acid to 'deep discharge', then the efficiency overall drops by as much as 30-40%, that is a third of the Wattage you generate just 'disappears'
http://www.localenergy.org/pdfs/Document%20Library/Lead%20Acid%20Battery%20Efficiency.pdfHere you are expected to maintain >70% charge state on the batteries..... and just use the 'top' 30%... to get a charge efficiency of ~90% storage conversion, drop below that and your storage efficiency hits 70%
I'd really like to do some research on this, with field values of an actual setup.. but cash is a problem.
If my house had been in a slightly different place, I would be looking to use Water as there is a concrete drainage ditch nearby 1:3 slope... continuous 24hr power...