April 26, 2025
Day 1,303 of the Adventure
Almost everyone who visits us here at our place seems fascinated by "How all this Works". The whole self-sufficiency footprint can feel complicated when it's unfamiliar. For example, the solar power plant system we are using feels like "rocket science" when just looking at the individual parts of it. How does electricity run your house with a bunch of black panels in the garden? Well, it's a little complicated but not that bad. Admittedly, I do not understand all of the science behind the conversion process. I do understand the basic flow of power through the system. Other people smarter than me know how to calculate the ohms, watts, voltage and storage capacity needed for optimal efficiency. Aside from that though, the basics are fairly simple. Light energy from the sun is captured through the collection cells in a solar panels. That is a process I do not understand! This energy is converted to a raw electrical current that fluctuates with the amount of sunlight applied to the panels at any moment. That can change with angle of the sun, clouds, shade from trees or dirt, dust and debris on the panels themselves. From the panels, the raw electrical current flows through cables to the utility control building. Once there, it flows through a "Charge Controller". The charge controller converts the raw energy into a DC (or Direct Current) voltage that can be stored in DC Batteries. Similar to a car battery only designed for deeper storage capacity rather than hard cranking amps normally required for the task of starting a car for example. Sometimes there will be a separate charge controller. In our case, we have a charge controller built into the power inverter which also converts the battery bank DC voltage to AC voltage (Alternating Current) needed for household use. Power storage in the batteries is 12 volts per battery. When batteries are connected in series (positive to negative) the voltage will add up to the total of the individual voltage of the series. In our case, we connect four 12v batteries in series for a total of 48 volts per "string" (a "string" is a set of series connected batteries) Multiple strings of batteries connected in "parallel" create a larger storage capacity at 48 volts. Again, in our case, we have four strings of four batteries each for a total of 16 batteries at 48 volts. This provides a large capacity of DC voltage to the Power Inverter. As power demand is drawn from the cabin, the inverter converts the DC to AC voltage and supplies it to the cabin. Once in the form of AC voltage, everything else in the system acts just like any other house would in the process of power consumption. In essence, we have our own power plant using the suns energy to provide electrical power to our homestead. In the next posting, I'll explain what the back-up systems are and how they integrate.
Carry On
Adventure Quote: “People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.” ― Emma Goldman
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