February10, 2008
I did a lot of research on emergency solar power generation and decided to buy a 12 watt flexible Sunlinq solar array and an XPower Powerpack 300 Plus to store the energy. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision to finally get it even though I'd spent most of my time looking into building a solar generator after finding a link on how to make one for under $300 (http://www.rain.org/~philfear/how2solar.html). I might eventually go that route if I like how the items I bought work out. I changed my mind when I saw I could get something similar for the same price without having to do a lot of research of individual components and got an air compressor to boot, which I'd been considering purchasing for a while ever since my local gas station got rid of their tire inflator. With the Powerpack fully charged, I could run a 30 watt laptop for six hours (unfortunately, mine is a 130 watt one), 40 hours on a cordless phone, 3 1/2 hours with a 40 watt table lamp, 12 hours with a 14W florescent work light. The Powerpack also has the aforementioned air compressor that can inflate tires, jumper cables, a florescent light, and a cigarette lighter style outlet for 12V power and a standard 120V AC plug connector for regular items. The solar array folds up to 9"x6"x0.7" and is under a pound, so it's extremely portable. It's not powerful enough to fully charge up the Powerpack in even a day, but the Powerpack is a battery and should be able to hold most of each day's charge till it's fully charged. It appears that it would take a week or two to fully charge the battery.
Here's a review of the flexible solar panel
http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web07f/ms-jr-sunlinq-solar-panel
It seemed to do well in Alaskan winter mountain climbs. It didn't quite deliver on the 12W output for somebody who reviewed an earlier model and only outputted 9W in 120 degree Arizona weather.
I looked into the pricing of rigid solar panels and anything that produces over 20 watts is over $200. I got the 12W flexible one for $170, so it wasn't too bad a compromise. The smaller form factor and weight makes it easy to carry whereas a 20W standard panel will be a few feet long, heavier, and prone to breakage when being moved a lot. Panels are made to be mounted at a stationary location and not to be carried around. Packaged properly, panels could be touted around the world. Rigid panels won't survive in a backpack readily. Rigid panels were made to be mounted on a roof where they enjoy the support of a roof to minimize stress on the panels.
I haven't yet figured out whether I've just spent $300 for what almost amounts to novelty toys. This gives me something to experiment with. It gives me a device that allows me to find out exactly how much light I'm getting where I might put a solar panel and the amount of energy I collect. That allows me to determine how many more solar panels I might need if I want to do more. If it doesn't pan out, I still have a portable solar panel that can provide power anywhere in the daytime. Having a small portable energy source is a nice first step over something more rigid that is more limited in where I can use it. If I wind up buying more panels, they'll probably be the rigid type because they're a little cheaper. If it ever turns out that I wind up using the portable aspect more, I can buy more of those and link them together for larger power generation.
The Powerpack isn't a solar energy specific product. It's a remote power generator to provide a little power in emergencies or power when away from a plug. It was made to be charged from a vehicle cigarette lighter or from a standard house plug. It doesn't mind if the power comes from solar panels. The solar panel I'm using is well below the limits for the Powerpack. The Powerpack is being used for energy storage for later use.
I can't think offhand when I'll need the remote capability offered by the portable solar panels. If I don't find myself making use of the Powerpack, I've at least spent money on solar panels that I can use in other circumstances. If the Powerpack idea didn't pan out and I had rigid panels, they'd be stuffed in my attack. I can leave the portable panels in my car glovebox for emergency use. It gives me a chance to play around with solar and see if it's worth investing more. It provides a little bit of emergency power that can get me through a night if the power goes out. If power is gone for more than a day, the array will only help out with small devices, but that's better than nothing. I'll be able to read books on my PDA all day long with it (or at least I think it will provide enough of a charge to do that--and I can test that theory).
From what I'm reading, it almost sounds as if using solar panels as a power source for homes is an all or nothing proposition for the average home. It seems that the best way to use solar is to have a home set up such that any excess energy collected, that isn't being used to run something in the house, goes to the electric company. That eliminates the need for using banks of batteries to store the energy. Batteries are a weak link in using solar energy for homes because they eventually go bad and throwing them away is not good for the environment. Offloading excess energy to the utility works well because the average household uses less energy in the daytime. During the day, most, if not all, of the family is away from home. At the same time, all those people away from home are expending more energy where they are during the daytime and that means power companies have higher demands during the day and are glad to have a little extra energy at their disposal. A solar home, working with the power company, can get energy credits that they can use in the evening when solar is not providing energy.
Solar panels remain very expensive. Unless a house is designed from the ground up to take advantage of many energy savings technologies and techniques, solar panels are probably not a great choice for most homes unless a person has the money to spend for a very clean source of energy. A house, being designed green, is stingily looking for every possible means to minimize the energy needs of that home because zeroing out power from a utility will probably require getting some energy from solar panels. Roughly, a single 100W solar panel would be needed to power a 100 watt light bulb during daylight hours. That panel costs about $500. If the household switches to an energy efficient bulb that consumes half the power, the family can run two lights giving off the equivalent of 100 watts each without having to buy two $500 panels simply to run two light bulbs. The energy difference, with low electrical consuming products makes a tremendous difference when going solar. The average consumer looks at the higher cost of low energy bulbs and gets the sticker shock of what's being paid for at the checkout line and doesn't quite connect with the overall annual electric bill savings. A person, looking at using solar panels gets the sticker shock with the price of producing energy and feels the sting of every household watt used. Anybody contemplating paying $500 to run a light bulb is going to make some serious energy conservation decisions up front in designing an energy efficient home. Everybody else is looking at the immense cost of converting their existing households from not being energy efficient to being energy efficient. That's going to be a slower process than for somebody building an energy efficient home. It's much easier doing that in the design phase rather than after the fact. An existing house is never going to be as energy efficient as one built to be that way. Yet, any household can be more energy efficient than it is today.
It sounds as if the primary things people can do to lower their energy footprint are to change their lifestyles and slowly convert to more energy efficient products. Things like lowering the thermometer in winter, turning off unused lights, and other simple things will have a large global impact. Switching to alternate energy sources is going to be way low on the scale of practical things that can be done on a large scale. I haven't yet found a very good site that provides a clear, balanced discussion of all the available options. I haven't looked very hard because I was only interested in taking this one little baby step at harnessing solar energy.
The big surprise I received from doing this research is that solar panels are a far less cost effective solution to generating power than I had imagined. I would never have imagined that the investment for the simple act of running a light would be $500. I haven't looked too deeply at all the different options of converting an existing home to an energy efficient one because I don't expect to stay in my current home much more than five years. Up until I started looking, I thought I might be able to make some small investments in solar panels that I could take with me to wherever I decided to move so that I could at least make some small energy savings. Since battery storage is problematic, it doesn't appear that approach will really take off. The kind of thing I'm doing makes more sense for using power in remote locations. If a person wants to leave a low powered data collection item on a mountain, solar energy makes perfect sense because the cost, of going back up the mountain to replace batteries or fuel for a generator, makes solar a viable option. It becomes a similar trade-off for operating in areas away from normal sources of electricity. Due to solar energy's small power generation, any activities that require large amounts of power are still more cost effective to lug traditional sources of power than expensive solar panels.
I don't know if I'll ever get any serious use out of buying this collapsible solar power panel, but it's neat to know that I can bring a small, light source of power with me and always have a power source to charge some small devices. Any more serious use of power requires bringing the 20 lb Powerpack fully charged with me. It's not a bad idea to have that with me if I make any long drives. It's neat to know that I have a permanent source of power regardless of whatever else is happening around me. It's not much, but it's something. I can always add to it if I find myself using it a lot. The ideal application would be something that gets used directly off the panels without having to use the battery, such as a fan in the daytime.
Besides the aforementioned link on building a 300 watt solar generator, here are some more of interest:
http://www.minifarmhomestead.com/homestead/solargen.htm
Supplemental info for the original link to build a $300 solar generator.
http://www.off-grid.net/index.php?p=487
$600 gets your house on solar power - this is more for a cabin than home where solar energy can fill batteries while nobody is there than for continuous operations.
http://treehugger.com/
A site with a lot of info on environmental resources. I don't know if it's the best, but it came up in a lot of my Google searches.
http://www.dsireusa.org/library/includes/genericfederal.cfm?CurrentPageID=1&state=us&ee=1&re=1
USA rebate incentives (my state used to have one that I might have gotten $60 for, but the demand was greater than the money set aside for rebates, so it's stopped). The IRS provides tax free status for renewable energy expenses, but I got mine over the net without paying taxes, so I didn't make any gains there. There were interest free bonds that could be applied for (CREB), but the deadline for filing passed. I didn't require a loan for my small investment, so it would not have applied to me. There is a Residential Solar and Fuel Cell Tax Credit, but it applies to most energy savings techniques for homes through IRS Form 5695.
Here are a bunch of sites that sell solar and energy alternative products (I haven't ordered from any but the first and just placed that order yesterday):
http://www.earthtechproducts.com/ - This is the company I ordered from because they had the best prices I found and free shipping on orders over $299 and my order came in at $290, so I bought a $17 dollar cigarette lighter adapter Y-splitter for $17 and saved $20 shipping. I got what I ordered, so I'm a happy customer.
http://store.sundancesolar.com/ - a well established company I've seen linked from various sites
http://www.cetsolar.com/index1.htm
http://www.solarhome.org/solarpanelscenter.html
http://www.ccrane.com/more-categories/batteries-chargers/solar-powered-battery-charger.aspx - $20 solar AA/AAA/C/D battery charger
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