Could This Be Your Next Power Conditioner?

It works. I've been off the power grid totally for over 8 years now.

You can use the PV systems to furnish part, or all, of your electricity needs. I recommend starting with partial solar power, for certain needs, and then moving up to a full system. This allows you to get used to some of the ways that PV systems work, before going "whole hog".

It can be very expensive to try to buy a "whole house" PV system, that will power all of your existing appliances. As a PV specialist, I suggest that purchasing extremely energy efficient appliances is a very important factor in keeping the cost of the solar system to a minimum. The money spent on those efficient appliances can offset much larger costs of solar panels by a factor of sometimes 8 to 1.

One of the things that must be known up front, is that this is not an unlimited source of energy. It produces a certain amount each day, and that is all. Sometimes on cloudy days, it produces far less. If you go "off the grid", you then have no availablity of power from the street. If you lifestyle consists of total "energy hog" practices, this will either be very expensive to provide, or some moderation of energy wasting activities must be enacted. Some people can deal with this, and some cannot. Part of the reason that I am using low power amplifiers, is that I cannot provide thousands of watts of power for hours on end to run a high power class A amplifier(s) without using up the bulk of my available power that also must run the refrigerator, etc. This must be a consideration when moving into the personal power production arena.

That being said, it is totally feasible to use solar power, and it is reliable and practical. There are some lifestyle changes involved if you are disconnected from the grid. If you remain connected to the grid, you can access the grid for high-demand needs, and rely on the solar for less demanding needs. This is a common practice with solar power today.

From an audio standpoint, if you buy the correct equipment, you can provide a far cleaner and more reliable power for your stereo than you can get from the power company, even with power conditioners. If you use battery powered equipment like I do, then you can take that extra step toward ultra-clean power that most only dream about.

It is an interesting exercise, and can be productive. And as a side benefit, you will never have a power outage again.

Pat, the charger will do just fine on one or more batteries, but you should disconnect the charger during play to eliminate any noise from the charger. You can just shut it off when you play, and turn it back on after you are done, to recharge the batteries for the next session. This method allows anyone to use batteries for power, whether they are on the grid or not. However to power any 120VAC items, you need a special power inverter that makes a perfect sine wave, and a perfect 60Hz frequency. Studer makes inverters like this, and I use one on my preamp. It works beautifully, and is noise free, even on my high efficiency Lowthers which will clearly reveal any noise coming through.

Okay, I'll try to answer all the questions.

First, the best thing to do is to start out by going to websites that sell solar power stuff. Many of these websites have alot of educational information that is available for you to read online, for free. They are not books, but when you read enough of these small "blurbs" about how to "size your array" or "build your battery bank", or "select a charge controller", you come away with a fairly good idea of how to set up a system. You always work backwards to determine your power need, by adding up all the amp/hours needed by all the appliances that you use, for the typical amount of time per day that you will use them. For example, a fridge uses maybe 1kw of energy while running, but it only runs for a certain number of minutes per hour. So if it runs 20 minutes per hour, it will use only 333watts/hour. At 120VAC that is about 3 amps/hour, and at 12 volts it is about 30 amps/hour. Then multiply times 24 hours and you have the "daily usage" of the fridge. If you are using a 12v system, you have to use the 12v amp/hour figures by mulitiplying all 120VAC amp/hour figures by 10, like I did above. Do the same for all electrical items in the house, and multiply the total times 1.2 to account for normal losses. That is the total amount of power you need to supply each day.

Then you need to find your "insolation" rate, which is the daily # of hours of full sun per day, in your area. There are insolation charts on many of these alternative energy websites. If you are in a zone with 5 hours average insolation, then you need to divide your total daily usage requirement by 5 hours, and that gives your total panel power requirement, but it is in amp/hours. Since panels are rated in watts, you need to multiply the amp/hours by 12(for a 12v system) and that will give you the total wattage for the panels that you need. If you need a total of 10kw per day, and divide that by the 5 hours of avg. daily insolation, you get 2kw. You'll need to buy 20 100 watt panels to handle that requirement, for that example.

The other stuff is about the same level of difficulty in calculations. The info is on these alternative energy websites. It is a technical subject, but if you want to do it, you must learn about it.

You can't go by the square footage of the house, nor any general guidelines. It has to be calculated at exactly what your appliances require. I can tell you now that anybody using electric heat, electric stoves, and central air conditioning is going to get "sticker shock" when they find out how much it will cost to handle their normal energy needs. This is why VERY energy efficient appliances must be used, and this means specialized appliances that are not bought in normal stores, but are bought from alternative energy outlets that use FAR less than anything that is called "energy efficient" in the department stores. Moving to gas cooking, gas hot water heating, and/or wood/coal/fireplace heat is a good choice. Central air conditioning is either going to be very expensive to buy panels to run it, or you can use a standby generator to handle the air conditioning requirement. This is commonly done by solar power enthusiasts. The A/C usage is so high that it is prohibitively expensive to use solar panels for it. The generator is good for this purpose, because it costs alot less than the solar panels needed for the same purpose. But you have to feed it gas/diesel.

If you remain connected to the grid, then alot of this complexity can go away, because you can always use the power grid to "back you up" when you over-use the energy, or for when you need additional energy to run air conditioning or whatever.

Much depends on what result you want, and how much it will cost. That is why I always recommend doing a certain portion of your needs with solar, to get your feet wet, and then moving into a more complete system, if you decide you want to do that. For somebody looking to get off the grid, and achieve total energy independence like I did, there will be compromises in your lifestyle, or you will spend a hell of alot of money. Each person needs to decide what is the best situation for him and his family. Most wives and children do not adapt well to this. They want to use as much as they want, whenever they want, and also like to leave the lights on, take long hot showers, cook all day, etc. This is a no-no when you are producing your own electric. It is not unlimited.

Don't worry, I'm a fast typist. And I'm warming up my tubes right now for a Sunday afternoon listening session. Oh yes, a pair of sweet 45's sound great on battery power! And the whole amplifier only draws 3.8 amps @12vdc.

Uncle Jeff, doing solar power is something that a person has to want to do. There are some high up-front costs and maximum usage limits that make you have to want it. I don't do it for cost effectiveness, I do it for independence. I like having control over my own circumstances as much as possible, and am willing to live with certain limitations to get that. Also, when everybody else's utility power fails during a storm, my house is running just fine. I never know there was a power outage till I read about it in the paper the next morning.