How To Calculate Solar Panel
Battery And Inverter?
Using a solar panel system at home is both economical and
environmentally-friendly. But how do you choose a suitable battery
and inverter? Also, how to work out all the precise calculations of the
solar panel, battery, inverter, as well as charge controller may bother
you a lot.
These questions have to be answered mathematically. In other words,
you need some specific data of your power need and certain
calculating processes to finally know the specifications of the
equipment and components.
The calculations are significant for you because they help you to build
a better-performance solar system.
How To Evaluate Your Load
Wattage?
If you are anticipating installing a solar panel system at home and get
rid of being bothered by choosing solar batteries, you need to make
some calculations to select the correct battery, charge controller, and
inverter. The first stage is to work out how much power you need.
Put it simply, you need to first estimate your load watts of
electricity and rough working hours. Then you just multiply the
load watts with hours to get the total power you need.
For example: supposing that your load wattage is 150-watt, and you
need the model to perform for about 8 hours per day, then you can
use the following formula to work it out:
150 watts x 8 hours = 1,200 Wh (this is an absolute power need for
your solar panel)
But if you are a layman of such math issues, there are more
specific calculations:
(1) Work out the maximum wattage or peak load of your house. You
need to estimate the total wattage of your needed devices and
appliances ranging from refrigerators and lights to laptops and
hairdryers. And some of them may work at the same time.
Example: A room has two 50-watt light bulbs and a 200-watt laptop.
The total wattage is:
50 watts x 2 + 200watts = 300 watts
List of the Power Consumption of Typical Household Appliances
(2) you need to figure out how many hours every device will operate
each day. Then you simply multiply every wattage with its working
time (hours) and get the needed power (watt-hour) per day. Next, you
just add up all these values to work out the sum of energy of your
house.
Example: The above-mentioned light bulbs need to run for 6 hours per
day, and the average computer using time is 3 hours every day. The
total value is:
50 watts x 2 x 6 + 200 x 3 = 1200 Wh
However, as we all know, sometimes the devices just can’t work
as effective as it was claimed. Also, some of them may need
more watts to start in the first few minutes. So we will multiply
the result by 1.5 to cover the working bugs. So the total is:
1200 watt-hours x 1.5 =1800 Wh
How To Work Out Battery Amp-
Hours?
Battery capacity is important for you to make sure that the solar panel
system operates smoothly and effectively. If you can’t access the grid,
or you simply want to store the solar energy into a battery as a power
backup for emergencies.
Solar Panel Wattage
(1) When you figure out the total load wattage of your house, you
need to firstly rate all the parameters of a suitable solar panel to meet
your electricity requirement. This is directly related to the best sunlight
hours.
For example: Supposing the best sunlight hours in your area is
approximately 9 hours a day, you can get the required dimension of
your panel by the below formula:
1800 watt-hours ÷ 9 hours = 200 watts (a 200-watt solar panel)
(2) But 9-hour optimal sunlight time is an ultra amount, which is likely
to be achieved only in Summer. On the contrary, during the Winter
season, the value can largely reduce, even be halved. Thus, we can
suppose the best sunshine time in Winter is no more than 5 hours.
Therefore, to make sure that your model can still work effectively when
there is the least sunlight, you need to calculate the wattage using the
Winter value:
1800 watt-hours ÷ 5 hours = 360 watts (a 360-watt solar panel)
Battery Amp Hours
Regarding battery amp-hours, you need to think about how much
power you hope your battery bank to store as a backup. Namely, how
many days do you want the battery to function without recharging?
Generally, that would be 2- 5 days.
(1) Since we have calculated the specific dimensions of a suitable solar
panel, we can better estimate the amp-hour (AH) rating for the
battery. And it should support operations in any possible conditions.
And there are batteries with voltages of 12, 24, and 48 for various
applications. If you choose to use a 12V battery, you can get a
parameter by the given formula:
1800 watt-hour ÷ 12V = 150 Amp Hours
(2) Usually, we would like to add the battery a 20% tolerance to
guarantee perfect usage. So you then get the battery capacity as:
150 Amp Hours x 1.2 = 180 Amp-hours
To make sure there is always enough left power for extra days’ use, the
battery should handle the double amount of its normal usage. So you
need to multiply the last result by 2 and again multiply by your days.
Suppose you want your battery bank to keep running for extra two
days, the final battery capacity should be:
180 amp hours x 2 x 2 = 720 amp hours
So in that case, you will need a 720 AH, 12V battery for your solar
panel system.
How To Estimate Inverter
Specifications?
Charge Controller Specification
You may ignore a component like a charge controller, but it is also
significant to help your solar system to perform perfectly.
A charge controller is used to prevent your model from overcharging.
It interfaces the solar panels and the batteries. Thus it plays an
important role in regulating solar power from solar panels to batteries.
(1) You need the already figured out results from the above example
to calculate how big your satisfying charge controller needs to be. You
can simply divide the solar panel’s load wattage with the battery’s
voltage rating.
And as we have done to the above parameters, we can also add an
extra tolerance like 20% to this value, then we get a rough idea of the
charge controller specification:
1800 watts ÷ 12V = 150 Amps
150 Amps x 1.2 = 180 Amps
(2) If you have no clear concept about a charge controller. Here we will
talk about two common sorts of charge controllers: PWM and MPPT.
PWM means Pulse-Width Modulation. Comparing an MPPT, a
PWM controller is much more economical. But the defect is that it may
generate big power losses. According to the data, as much as up to
60% of power can be lost during conversion.
The reason for the loss is that a PWM controller is limited and can
not optimize the voltage going to the batteries. Such limitation leads a
PWM controller to function with a bug when serving a large system.
So it suits smaller systems.
this comparison highlights the problem with using a higher voltage
solar panel on a 12v battery without MPPT
MPPT refers to Maximum PowerPoint Tracking. Unlike a PWM
controller, an MPPT controller can effectively optimize the voltage
coming from the solar panels. As a result, the produced energy by
solar panels can be transferred to the battery bank at a maximum rate.
Accordingly, an MPPT controller has an efficiency of 93%-97% when
transforming power. And the operation process and automatically
adjust to the peak power point fast to achieve the optimal result. So it
is a price-worth model to use.
Inverter Specification
At the last stage, we need to evaluate the inverter specifications.
Finding a capable inverter allows your solar system to operate well
with the batteries and charge controllers. And to avoid any disorder
situations, you need to calculate the specific dimensions of an inverter.
Mai
n components of a solar panel system
The good news is that after working out all these required parameters,
estimating the inverter parameters is not a complex task anymore.
Still, supposing the peak load wattage of your home is 200 watts, and
you need the inverter to handle such a wattage effortlessly, then you
just need to buy an inverter rated at 200 watts.
Or if you would like it to have a little more tolerance, simply add 20%-
25%. Then the value will be 240-watt – 250-watt.
Conclusion
As we have discussed above, how big a solar system your house
needs, what size the battery should be, or what the capability of a
satisfying inverter is can always be scientifically and precisely
answered.
What you need to do is calculate all these specifications by following
the given formulas. Although that is a math issue, you can still work it
out because the expressions and guides are simple and
understandable.
