Solar Powered System: Calculations To Consider

A solar powered system needs to be designed for your needs.  Calculations are made for normal use of your electrical system.  But energy systems for determining energy use are different.  Everybody’s needs are different.  Everybody wants are different.  Everybody is different in the way they use energy.  That is a big factor in trying to determine a set factor to determine that individual’s needs.

Calculating a load for one person and compare it to your neighbor is hard to do.  You need to look at each person’s:
•    needs
•    wants
•    habits 
Each person’s habits are different. For instance, when do you wash clothes?  Do you wash once a week, twice a week, or daily?  If you get solar power and you are using solar power to run your washing machine, you would know that you can’t wash at night.  You would have to wash in the day. 

But what are your needs?  One person works all day and comes home at night.  If they come home and want to wash all their clothes at night, they are not conserving energy.  At that point, solar is not producing.  Instead of one small load from one day, maybe they could wait and fill up a load before washing.  That would be washing one less time, using less water, less power and therefore conserving energy.

That’s one person’s habits.  Older people were taught to conserve because they didn’t have the things that we have today.  They didn’t have the amount of appliances that we have today or the lighting that we have today.  A long time ago, every room had one light in it.  You didn’t have a closet light. You didn’t have a fan.  You didn’t have anything else.  So they learned to live within that one light.  I know I learned to live that way when I grew up.  Can you live with one light in your room?  Maybe not.  Maybe you are the type of person that needs all the lights on in the house to see.  So that has to be taken into consideration when you are considering a solar powered system.

You need to consider how much energy a customers uses, his preferences.  One customer tells me he wants to keep his old refrigerator.  He says he loves it because it has lasted forever and doesn’t want to get rid of it. I look at his refrigerator and I see it takes 20 amps to run it.  The new refrigerators available on the market take 5 to 7 amps to run.  So, you would be saving 3 times as much electricity to purchase and use a new refrigerator.  If you want to keep the old refrigerator, I’ll have to put 20 more solar panels on your roof to run the refrigerator that you have to keep.

After considering the habits of a customer, I need to consider essential needs.  What electrical items are essential to your needs?  What are your bare necessities that you can’t live without?  The top 3 essential needs to most homeowner are:
•    Water
•    Refrigerator
•    Lights (in some areas)

If you don’t have gas (natural gas or propane) available in your area, you may add a hot water heater to your list. These can be put on a system individually operated (strictly) for essential needs.  What can you do personally?  Can you do without something personally?  How can you conserve? 

Comments

[Mitch]

I'm glad that you're promoting energy conservation as the best way to save our planet. Thanks a lot for reiterating things. More power to you! Saving our planet indeed has great rewards!