Setting up a Solar System

[WindmillHill]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum so Greetings from me to you!

I would like a solar system to power a 700 watt oil filled radiator for a maximum of 7 hours every night.

I understand that I will need solar panels, batteries, a charge controller, inverter, and cabling. But I need to work out -

1) How many solar panels I need and the correct wattage.
2) How many batteries I need at the correct ampHour rating.
3) The correct inverter.

But I am very new to all this and I don't know where to start. As I say all I need the system to run is a 700 watt oil filled radiator for maximum 7 hours every night.

As I live beside the sea I think it might be beneficial to add a wind turbine to the system at a later date.

If anyone could help me figure out what requirements my system will need that would be great !! Thanks a lot.

[adam2]

Solar PV is not often the best choice for electric heating since it can be a relatively costly source of high grade energy.
Also, one may reasonably presume that the heating is required in the winter when PV input is at its lowest.

There is nothing impossible in what you propose, but it will probably be too expensive to be viable.

To power an electric radiator, a cheap modified sine wave inverter will be fine. In theory you need an inverter rated 700 watts or more, in practice cheap inverters are usually rated in Chinese watts. For reliable operation I would select a 2,000 watt inverter.

The battery will need to be sized to run the load for several nights to allow for cloudy weather.
Presuming a 12 volt system, the inverter will use about 70 amps from the battery.
To supply 70 amps for 28 hours (4 nights) will require about 2,000 ampere hours, a substantial investment. A VERY ROUGH estimate of battery costs is about £1 per ampere hour, so allow over £2,000 for batteries.

Winter sunlight is neither strong nor reliable, and as a VERY ROUGH GUIDE there is in winter about one hour of bright sun per day.
Therefore the solar array must in this one hour replace the battery charge used in one night, which is about 500 amp hours.
Experience shows that in UK conditions, that a typical PV module puts about one amp into the battery for every 20 watts of nominal capacity.
Therefore a VERY ROUGH estimate suggests an array of 10,000 watts peak output.

In practice a higher voltage might be more sensible, but the costs would be broadly similar.

It would probably make more sense to use heating oil, off peak grid electricity, paraffin or bottled gas for the heating load.

Electricity from wind can be economic for heating, but is very reliant on a good windy site.

[WindmillHill]

Solar PV is not often the best choice for electric heating since it can be a relatively costly source of high grade energy.
Also, one may reasonably presume that the heating is required in the winter when PV input is at its lowest.

There is nothing impossible in what you propose, but it will probably be too expensive to be viable.

To power an electric radiator, a cheap modified sine wave inverter will be fine. In theory you need an inverter rated 700 watts or more, in practice cheap inverters are usually rated in Chinese watts. For reliable operation I would select a 2,000 watt inverter.

The battery will need to be sized to run the load for several nights to allow for cloudy weather.
Presuming a 12 volt system, the inverter will use about 70 amps from the battery.
To supply 70 amps for 28 hours (4 nights) will require about 2,000 ampere hours, a substantial investment. A VERY ROUGH estimate of battery costs is about £1 per ampere hour, so allow over £2,000 for batteries.

Winter sunlight is neither strong nor reliable, and as a VERY ROUGH GUIDE there is in winter about one hour of bright sun per day.
Therefore the solar array must in this one hour replace the battery charge used in one night, which is about 500 amp hours.
Experience shows that in UK conditions, that a typical PV module puts about one amp into the battery for every 20 watts of nominal capacity.
Therefore a VERY ROUGH estimate suggests an array of 10,000 watts peak output.

In practice a higher voltage might be more sensible, but the costs would be broadly similar.

It would probably make more sense to use heating oil, off peak grid electricity, paraffin or bottled gas for the heating load.

Electricity from wind can be economic for heating, but is very reliant on a good windy site.

Thanks for all the info Adam, much appreciated. Lots to think on.
Cheers

[Little John]

Something, perhaps the shock wave from an exploding supernova (dying star) triggered dust particles to be drawn together to form a dense spherical cloud. The accumulation of dust set off a chain reaction. As the core of the cloud attracted more dust, its gravitational pull increased. More and more dust was sucked in and..........

Oh...hang on.....

wrong system

[emordnilap]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum so Greetings from me to you!

I would like a solar system to power a 700 watt oil filled radiator for a maximum of 7 hours every night.

I understand that I will need solar panels, batteries, a charge controller, inverter, and cabling. But I need to work out -

1) How many solar panels I need and the correct wattage.
2) How many batteries I need at the correct ampHour rating.
3) The correct inverter.

But I am very new to all this and I don't know where to start. As I say all I need the system to run is a 700 watt oil filled radiator for maximum 7 hours every night.

As I live beside the sea I think it might be beneficial to add a wind turbine to the system at a later date.

If anyone could help me figure out what requirements my system will need that would be great !! Thanks a lot.

Greetings WindmillHill.

Adam's done a great job of answering your question, as usual.

Some other people on the forum would have asked you first for some background information; for example, what way is your house oriented; what surrounds the house in terms of trees, other houses etc; what your existing heating system is; how your house is insulated; what exactly are you trying to achieve etc. All these questions would, quite possibly, bring forth many other solutions than PV and radiator.

Over the years, we have transformed a damp, uninsulated little cottage into a cosy, warm and cheap-to-heat nest. It's an on-going project: meaning sensible additions and alterations planned are going to make it even easier and cheaper to heat and keep warm. Some ideas are culled from this site, most are just common sense, implemented as time and money allow.

So stick with us; fill us in on your individual situation - without giving away your precise location - and you'll learn a lot and hopefully teach some on here something.

[kenneal - lagger]

Using a 700W radiator suggests that either you have a fairly well insulated house or you're trying to just take the chill off a not very well insulated room. In the first case the wind turbine may be the better answer or in the second case spend all that money on insulating your house and you would get a much better solution.

Whether the wind turbine would work would depend on whether you get an uninterrupted air flow off the sea or not. If you've got a lot of houses or trees around the wind turbine might not be the answer either.

More info needed.

[adam2]

Agree, more info needed.
Although the likely application was for domestic heating, my reply did not in fact assume this and would have been just as relevant for some non domestic facility.

[SJason]

This is exactly what I need! Thank you

[kenneal - lagger]

This is exactly what I need! Thank you

Keeping an eye on that one!!

[ericgarmin]

Off-topic, but I thought you had found a way to actually create some planets and a star then

[kenneal - lagger]

I want to set up a solar panel in our roof but kinda skeptic on what materials to use or if I need to hire someone to do it hmmm

A solar panel on the roof can be a DIY job but if you've got a mortgage or are worried about your household insurance both hot water and PV should be installed by a tradesman with the required certification. Having said that I've put DHW and PV on my roof successfully.