Balcony PV "powerplants"

[Skybird]

They have become popular in recent two or three years, solar panels that either feed into the existing power cable structure of the house or appartement (and need licensing by the power supplier, and many in Germany say No), you just have to plug them into a usual power wallmount like a radio, and the electricity flows into the cables in the wall and supplies all your wallmounts), or you charge a battery device of any sorts.

Often such batteries are usual car batteries, at least it is possible.

I know about the limits of chraging with sun power in winter, and even in summer on a blue sky day you ight get just 7 hours time out of it. But how much is to be expected of these things, can you maintain a refirgerator with these, a TV and maybe one or two light bulb? Charging devices for smartphones and tablets (which will be of no use of the radio towers are not electirclaly supplied, I klnow I know...)?

I have a small solar thing that is enoiugh to slowly charge a mobile powerpack as to be sued for smartphones, lets say 20mmm mAh. But the purpose I outlined? There is space for 2-3 panels, sizes of maybe 100x150 on my balcony.

I plan to get involved in this, but this is definetly new terrain for me, and I lack the electric knowledge basics.

Also, many such sets have batteries that indeed only offer two poles, but no plugions for housold plugs or USB or anything. Car batteries. Obviously a hardware interface is needed to make these batteries's energy accessible. Well, I am standing there, clueless a bit.

Anyone with experience or advice on all this? costs can be up to lets say 2000 Euros, but the stuff must be "mobile", to be set up only when indeed needed.

[mapuc]

A little lesson in electricity

Ohms first law
U=IXR

Where U is voltage
Where I is currency Ampere
Where R is resistance Ω

But you need to know the effect P.

So First effect law
P=UXI.

Where P is effect Watt

This was todays lesson

Edit
Got a business idea.
Don't know how to explain it. It's solarpanel glued onto soft plastic and then rolled up and placed on the top of the roof. When it's sunny this solarpanel is unrolled and you charge your batteries you have in your basement
End edit


Markus

[Buddahaid]

I have no idea about power where you live but connecting alternate power sources to your house requires some sort of switching for safety. If you have a gas generator large enough to power the house you would need to disconnect from the power grid before tying in the generator, or have an expensive transfer switch arrangement that handles that automatically. It's needed to handle phase problems etc.

I simply unplug my fridge from the wall and into an extension cord from the little generator running outside when needed.

Solar panel systems also use some type of transfer switching arrangement but I don't know how those work.

[Rockstar]

Im not certain how one connects a solar panel to household supply.

But I have used them on a sailboat. For strictly 12 volt system lights and appliance . Add up the total number of amps you will be using and for how long each day. This determines the minimum wattage of the solar panel required and the size of your battery bank.

We added two 185 watt panels to our 600 amp hour battery bank and we never lacked. It powered our propane refrigerator, propane heaters and stove, navigation equipment, RADAR, radios, lights. More than we needed.

To run household appliances such as coffee makers, blenders, etc etc you only need a modified sine wave inverter. But for sensitive electronics like TV’s PC’s you should invest in a true sine wave inverter. Which every inverter you choose either one will place a massive drain on the 12 volt battery bank and charging system. So TV and PC are not something which can be run regularly. Unless you have a lot sunshine and many many more panels.

Then there is the the issue with batteries. Car batteries won’t do, you need a Deep Cycle battery and they all to some degree vent explosive gas when being charged. So good ventilation is a must.

That’s all I can think of right now.

[Skybird]

There are startups, from austria for exmaple, where the panels get connected to some directioning device or inverter, and that device gets linked to a battery/storage and gets plugged into a usual wall mount already existing everywhere in the apprtment/house, a usual wallmount where you usually get electricity out off, you have your TV and PC connected to it for exmaple. But here, the direction gets reversed, you do not drain power from the wallmount, but you stuff it into the walmount, from the solarpanel and inverting device and battery into the circuit of your house cable circuit, and then you have it available at other wallmounts on the same circuit. Its a plug and play solution, and is simple to attach indeed, you have the panels placed, connected to the inverter or what the device is, the device goes to a battery, the battery to a wallmount, and thats it.

I did not believe it, too, until i read about it this weekend.



Question is whether the economic usabilitiy and the costs for especially the battery, calculate well.



I look for something smaller, maybe. I have no electric heating and electric hot water, am more interested in beign able to reliably recharge batteries, maybe run a refrigerator, or just a light bulb or two. So I more likely am looking for a setup like this: solar panel to a cable-connected mobile battery with inbuild inverter (if that is how its called, I am not sure, the German word is I think Wechselrichter), and some mounts in it for various plugs.










In Austria you can feed back 500W into a wallmount and circuit legally, in Germany 600, and an EU norm even mentions 800W. However, in this case you need to repalce your electric meter if it is a Ferraris meter with rotating disk in the display, becasue that disc would start to rotate in opposite direction if the solar device/batter starts to feed into your circuit. Since these solutions due to thew battery are already a bit expensive (2000-3500 Euro), the costs mount up if you want to replace the electric meter as well.


For Germany: https://machdeinenstrom.de/sind-mini...ftwerke-legal/

[mapuc]

I would recommend you to buy a battery with a higher capacity, well buy a couple when you're at it.

It's not how many watts you put into the wall socket it's all about voltage-In Europe it's between 220-240 V.

Your inverter(=Spannungswandler) should have this as output.

Markus