12-30-2013, 04:43 AM
Kalakoa:
What angle from horizontal are your panels? I assume most are pointed true south.
I have a 40' shipping container with a 12' wide roof that overhangs the ends so have roughly 45' x 12' to put panels on. The 9 240 watt panels I now have basically max out the single Morningstar 45 amp mppt controller I have and they fit neatly on the roof. If I were to go twice as large I would have to decide what land area to sacrifice. If I had a square pyramidal roof instead of a long skinny roof I would have to break my panel bank up into perhaps 3 banks of 3 and then I would have to buy 2 more controllers so each bank that gets sun at different times and different amounts would have its own controller, so tracking with excess panels and charge controllers does come with a cost.
At present I am not hurting for power but then I haven't hooked up the big screen TV yet. I spoke with friends who live closer to Hilo and they said they have something like 2,500 watts now but would double or triple that if they could. Hilo has got to be sunnier than Eden Roc so I don't know what they are using it all for but then again they have 10 times the money I do and a real house so they are finding a way to burn that power. Then again I haven't looked at the state of charge of my batteries yet today so I may have to start the generator. I basically have only one day's storage.
What angle from horizontal are your panels? I assume most are pointed true south.
I have a 40' shipping container with a 12' wide roof that overhangs the ends so have roughly 45' x 12' to put panels on. The 9 240 watt panels I now have basically max out the single Morningstar 45 amp mppt controller I have and they fit neatly on the roof. If I were to go twice as large I would have to decide what land area to sacrifice. If I had a square pyramidal roof instead of a long skinny roof I would have to break my panel bank up into perhaps 3 banks of 3 and then I would have to buy 2 more controllers so each bank that gets sun at different times and different amounts would have its own controller, so tracking with excess panels and charge controllers does come with a cost.
At present I am not hurting for power but then I haven't hooked up the big screen TV yet. I spoke with friends who live closer to Hilo and they said they have something like 2,500 watts now but would double or triple that if they could. Hilo has got to be sunnier than Eden Roc so I don't know what they are using it all for but then again they have 10 times the money I do and a real house so they are finding a way to burn that power. Then again I haven't looked at the state of charge of my batteries yet today so I may have to start the generator. I basically have only one day's storage.