With the tremendous interest I’ve seen in my solar energy and solar home design posts, I’ve decided that they need a new home of their own – with a name and address that better reflects the subject matter and makes them easier to find. So check out my new website – How to Use Solar [...]
Posts under ‘Our Off-Grid Experimental Home’
The Renewable Power System for the Experimental House
A solar powered home presents a unique set of challenges for the designer. The home relies for its power on weather conditions, which are highly variable from site to site and even from year to year. The technology is still fairly costly so designing a system with high reliability often comes at a cost that [...]
The Battery System for the Experimental House
An off-grid renewable power system needs a way to store power for overnight and for calm and cloudy days. This is done with a large battery bank, designed to store power for several days.
A Load Analysis for the Experimental House
The size of a solar power system depends on how much power you need to operate the various systems and appliances in the home. Loads can be continuous (running 24 hours a day) or intermittent. Many large loads, such as toasters, vacuum cleaners and microwaves are seldom used or are only used for very short [...]
The Solar Power System for the Experimental House
Solar Power – Photovoltaics The process of converting solar energy to electrical energy is called photovoltaic power generation. The photovoltaic cell (or solar cell) was invented in the early 1950s, with the increase in semiconductor technology. Photovoltaic panels are made from silicon – either a single crystal, amorphous crystals, or a thin film. Considerable research [...]
The Inverter for the Experimental Solar House
An inverter changes the low voltage DC power that is stored in the battery and produced by your solar or wind source into the standard AC alternating current that is used to power most Canadian homes. This is an important component of a renewable energy system because it makes it possible to operate all your [...]
The Wind Power System for the Experimental House
Part of our off-grid power system for our experimental house would be a wind turbine. We estimated our monthly load requirements for the experimental house to be about 150 kWh. Part of this load would be supplied by a 920 watt solar panel array, but we also wanted to use a wind generator to supplement [...]
