Solar Cells for Home Projects
Solar cells, or photovoltaic solar panels, can provide electricity for the home without harming the environment. Solar cells convert the sun's energy into electricity. Usually, just 36 cells produce 63 watts of energy for the home. But converting a home to use solar cells is expensive up front. Implementing smaller projects utilizing solar cells can help alleviate some cost. Does this Spark an idea?
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Stand-alone Solar Cells
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Smaller projects consist of building stand-alone solar units to power individual devices. Stand-alone systems can be used for camping. Mount the system onto a trailer or camper to power the vehicle for the whole camping trip without using a campground's electrical system. It also can help to power the vehicle's own battery. This idea can also be used on trucks, vans or cars. Mount a solar cell system to smaller vehicles to power the battery in an emergency situation. Small systems can also be built for the home or a vacation cabin. These systems can be built for under $2,000 and provide enough energy to power appliances and save on energy costs.
Off-grid Systems
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Off-grid systems are used to generate power and to store power for when the sun is not shining. Off-grid systems do not connect to a utility box, so they power what the owner wants it to power. The systems can be small and cost only a few thousand dollars to build, or they can be quite large and cost more than $10,000. Larger systems can store up to 960 watts of power, but even smaller models can store around 250 watts. They are a way to store power for use in case of an emergency or just to be more energy-efficient. Most commonly, off-grid systems are used at homes or vacation homes.
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Grid Tie Systems without Battery
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Grid-tie systems are connected to the power grid, but they do not have a battery to store power, so any excess power goes back into the utility grid to be used at another time. Because they do not have a battery, the lights go out when utility power fails, with or without the sun. The systems can get expensive, because they are used to power an entire house and have to be correctly configured to the utility grid. But systems can be built to produce more than 2,000 watts of power -- enough to power any household efficiently for an entire day.
Grid-tie Systems with Battery
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The difference between a battery grid-tie system and a non-battery grid-tie system is storage. In non-battery systems it is stored in the utility grid, but this means the power goes out when there's a problem with the utility grid, even if the sun is shining. Having a battery with a grid-tie system prevents this from happening because excess power is stored in the battery, which enables the solar panels to continue to work during a power outage. Besides the battery, the system works the same as non-battery grid-tie systems and are most commonly used for big projects supplying an entire house with energy. Installing a battery, however, makes these systems more costly, and the battery has to be carefully maintained.
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References
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