04-20-2014, 04:27 AM
There seem to be several people referring to kilowatts per day. This doesn't make any useful sense. Electric rate has the units kilowatt-hours or KWH or kw-h.
You have differing loads at different times of the day and these define your minimum and maximum power required. Kilowatts are a unit of power. It is multiplied by time to get a rate.
Then, there is how long these loads last. For instance, a 1000 watt microwave uses 1 KW of power but it only does that for 10 minutes or so (most of the time). All the various electric loads are added for the 24 hour day and that ends up being kilowatt-hours per day. The utility reports it as kilowatt-hours per month. For a single person, it can be about 500 kw-h per month, for a family of four, it can be over 1,500 kw-h per month very easily.
The key factor for a solar PV is what is the peak power it can provide at any time. During the night, this is zero. During the mid day, the sun directly overhead, no cloud cover, is the only time the maximum peak of a solar panel is reached. Any other time, the output power is fluctuating wildly, usually leveled with regulation and batteries.
So, determine what your maximum load is. Take your highest use scenario, the load each device is taking and add those up, keeping in mind the worst case is having every device turned on. For houses with ceiling fans, big screen TV's, computers, electric stove/oven, electric washer/dryer, electric water heater, air conditioning, etc. and everybody is at home with everything turned on, a maximum load of 5KW is about average.
For better instructions, watch Green Acres and see how Mr. Douglas used to handle his electric loads. Also, his interactions with the county, the reliability of his local help, and how it was his dream to live the simple life in the country. Is Puna Hooterville or is Hooterville Puna?
"This island Hawaii on this island Earth"
You have differing loads at different times of the day and these define your minimum and maximum power required. Kilowatts are a unit of power. It is multiplied by time to get a rate.
Then, there is how long these loads last. For instance, a 1000 watt microwave uses 1 KW of power but it only does that for 10 minutes or so (most of the time). All the various electric loads are added for the 24 hour day and that ends up being kilowatt-hours per day. The utility reports it as kilowatt-hours per month. For a single person, it can be about 500 kw-h per month, for a family of four, it can be over 1,500 kw-h per month very easily.
The key factor for a solar PV is what is the peak power it can provide at any time. During the night, this is zero. During the mid day, the sun directly overhead, no cloud cover, is the only time the maximum peak of a solar panel is reached. Any other time, the output power is fluctuating wildly, usually leveled with regulation and batteries.
So, determine what your maximum load is. Take your highest use scenario, the load each device is taking and add those up, keeping in mind the worst case is having every device turned on. For houses with ceiling fans, big screen TV's, computers, electric stove/oven, electric washer/dryer, electric water heater, air conditioning, etc. and everybody is at home with everything turned on, a maximum load of 5KW is about average.
For better instructions, watch Green Acres and see how Mr. Douglas used to handle his electric loads. Also, his interactions with the county, the reliability of his local help, and how it was his dream to live the simple life in the country. Is Puna Hooterville or is Hooterville Puna?
"This island Hawaii on this island Earth"
*Japanese tourist on bus through Pahoa, "Is this still America?*