A side project...

Today I got on with a side project I'd been thinking of for quite a while. As many of my regular readers will recall, I have quite a lot of small solar panels. Thus far I have...

2 x 10W the same size

3 x 10W a different size

1 x 15W

2 x 20W

2 x 30W

1 x 5W epoxy panel

That is in addition to the 2 x 10W permanently mounted on the back wall of the bus. Additionally I have two flexible panels of different sizes producing somewhere around 10W though they came from Chinese suppliers that sold them as panels of greater wattage than they actually are and who peeled the labels off to further their lies.

The 15W sat for a long time above my windshield until a vandal cracked the plastic bezel. After that I removed it. It still works but is damaged. The two 10W panels I bought to fit the space but then found they were too big. Thus I ordered the three 10W panels but when it was time to mount them, because of the way the front of the bus is constructed and because they were taller than the 15W panel, I could not employ them. 

The two 30W panels were always intended to sit inside the windshield when parked and that's what they do quite well.

The two 20W panels were cheaper and intended to be sat on the ground outside. 

So, I currently have 185W of solar power that I can use. Parked I can get away with just the 20w on the back wall. I leave the two 30W panels plugged in, just in case though.

With that mass of smaller panels I decided I needed to work on them so I can employ them beneficially.  Thus today I fastened the 3 x 10W panels together with hinges.

I didn't get the hinges perfectly aligned and used only one hinge. On the other hand, the panels are small enough that using one hinge should not matter too much. 

All the panels fold down quite nicely together, even though the hinge sticks out a little. I was limited in how to do this as I had to drill holes in the surround without damaging the panel. Then I simply riveted the hinges to the panel.

Three panels together was good. I have to say two together as a tent - as they were before I added the third panel - is probably ideal as they could be placed as a tent on flat ground to get the sun from all angles throughout the day.

I have around 170W of solar that I could possibly use. On a hot day with the windshield facing North and 60W of power coming from the panels, my extraction fans can be on all day!

People seem to think my small panels aren't up to much. In fact they're perfect. There's absolutely no need for massive batteries or massive numbers of panels when one's electricity usage is as low as mine. Heavens, even when I lived in a townhouse with all the mod cons, my electricity usage was low. The biggest burner of power were probably the fridge and the water heater.

This is the kind of bill I'm used to for electricity. I spent less on electricity than the basic facilities charge. That always used to rankle. 86KWh was mostly the water heater. Over the 32 days of that bill that works out at 2.86KWH a day. 

Just for fun, 2.86 KWH over 8 hours would be 335 watts. That kind of power could be produced by 4 x 100W solar panels. Change cooking and water heating to gas and that electricity usage drops right down. Switch the water heating over to direct solar and it drops even further. There's just no need for masses of power. I'm pretty sure I could run a house off the panels I have.