Discuss Solar power stored in batteries for lighting. in the Solar PV Forum | Solar Panels Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

C

Captain Haddock

I was thinking of using solar pv power to charge 12v batteries during the day when I'm at work and using a quasi-sine inverter to power the lighting ring during the evening, have energy saving bulbs and would only draw about 300w with every thing turned on at once, was thinking of a change over relay to switch back to mains when the battery level drops, obviously not very efficient but it's finantially better to use the power than export to grid, how would energy saving bulbs cope with quasi-sine and would the system be practical?
 
A dutch company named Power Router had a booth at Solar Power UK: they make solar inverters with a small battery to keep using some of the energy generated during day time after dark.

I've never used it so cannot advise on quality, the website is: Homepage | the PowerRouter
 
As has been said, probably isn't worth doing. I've tried something similar with a security camera system. The advantage of this was that the system (cameras, IR lights, hard-drive recorder) could be run from 12volts, so no need for an inverter. At night, the highest sustained load was about 150W, average about 100W. I was using wheel chair batteries, which I could get 'cheap' (£50 for a 50Ah 12volt). They're meant to be good for several 100 cycles provided they don't go below 20% capacity and possibly 1000+ if they don't go below 50%. Anyway, the recommendation is that you don't discharge at greater than 0.1C (5A) (otherwise the effective capacity is reduced and keep them at room temperature), so for 150W this means you need 3x50Ah batteries in parallel (or one 150Ah battery) and provided don't run off battery for more than about 10 hours. I had a simple setup, where the batteries were connected in parallel to the security system and there was a 12V charger permanently connected via a timer to the mains. The timer set to be on for 14 hours during the day. Now I have PV, I could have had the charger powered from the inverter (SB4000TL) via the multi-function relay and a contactor to the mains, but likely would have needed another 1 or 2 batteries to cope with winter nights. After about 6 months, the batteries are pretty well shot (now about 60% rated capacity), so just on batteries, I've spent about 82p a night, and could have saved myself about 9p per night in electricity (about 1kWhr at 9p a unit). So even if I could have gotten 1000 cycles (about 3 years) out of the batteries and only charged them from solar, it still would have been cheaper to use the mains.
 
Thanks for the input, it was the sums that was making me wonder if it was worthwhile, not yet done the working out but I know good leisure batteries are not cheap.
It just seemed strange that I could find a long running thread on storing pv energy as hot water but nothing about storing it in batteries for lighting use in an electricians forum.
I certainly don't fancy 12v lighting in the house so inverter would have to be the way to go if at all.
I think I need to work out the amp/hours @12v required to be useful enough to bother.
 

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