Solar Panels - Make your own Solar panel

Diy Solar Panels Guide

June 18th, 2011

Hello everybody in this post we will help you to make a self made solar panels. What you will need is solar panels kit so that the only thing you will require is help to set up the solar panels. Just watch the video below by one of the expert who is explaining how to build the diy solar panels.If you face any problems while setting up please post a comment here or contact us we will surely try to help you as much as possible.

In the above video there is no information about the watt of solar panels that will be required. You will have to decide how much of watt energy is sufficient for your home or office or farm house. Calculate It Here

Solar Panels Cost

May 8th, 2011

Solar panels as a source of electricity can be hardly attributed to the most advanced technologies nowadays. Firstly used to power space stations for more than 40 years ago, solar panels have become a part of our everyday life as a source of clean and free energy. The sun always sent and sends to the earth billions of kilowatts of radiant energy and this source will not be exhausted for many millions of years. It seems why nuclear, thermal and hydroelectric power stations are built. Just use solar energy. However, solar panels, which will be discussed, are not very widespread still. What is the reason for that?

According to the principle solar panel is a photoelectric constant current generator, which uses the effect of converting solar radiation into electric energy. More precisely, there is used the property of semiconductors based on silicon crystals in solar cells. Quanta of light falling on the semiconductor wafer knock out an electron from the outer orbit of an atom of a chemical element that creates a sufficient number of free electrons for the occurrence of an electric current. However, one or two silicon cells are not enough in order to get a sufficient amount of voltage and power for house purposes. Therefore, they are gathered in panels, which are connected in parallel or series. The area of such panels can vary from few square centimeters to several square meters. Increasing the number of panels you can achieve greater power output of solar batteries. However, the efficiency of solar panels depends not only on size but also on the intensity of sunlight and the angle of incidence. Consequently, the efficiency of solar panels depends on the latitude, where your house is located, weather, season and time of day.

Advantages and efficiency of batteries

Despite the relatively low efficiency of solar panels it is the most efficient source of electricity among the alternative and independent energy sources. However, due to relatively high cost of solar panels and dependence on weather conditions, they in most cases are not positioned as the primary but additional source of power. It is caused by two factors: sufficiently high cost of solar panels and relatively low energy output per unit of area.

On a clear sunny day with one square meter of solar panel you can get maximum power of 120W. This is not enough even for a personal computer.

Therefore, to obtain much power solar panels are combined into mini power plants. You can get about 1kW of energy from 10 square meters solar panel. It can provide your computer, TV set and a few lights with electricity. In general, it can be enough 20 square meters of solar panels for a house with 3-4 people (200-300kW of consumption per month). You should have a south oriented part of roof for such a panel. If you have greater area, for example, 40 square meters, it would be enough for 500 kW per month. But such solar panels would cost about 10 000 dollars.

Tax Benefit of Solar Panels

May 8th, 2011

Many people know that it is possible to get tax rebates and incentives for using renewable energy sources at home. You can install solar panels, wind turbines or heat pumps, make an application and get tax rebates for your contribution to the development of renewable energy sources. In 2005 was the Energy Policy Act was issued, which guarantee tax rebate for people who use alternative energy sources instead of conventional ones. Before this act people actually didn’t have many incentives for using residential solar energy.

It is certainly good, if you would like to protect nature and think of installing solar panels in your house. But first of all you need to think of your budget. Tax benefits are made specially to help homeowners cover the cost of installation. Making so large investment for installment you will get low cost of maintaining, so this system will be compensated and with time.

Tax benefits can be offered for various usage of solar energy. Thus, the federal government may provide you with tax benefits in the form of credit, if you use water heaters and produce electricity by means of solar energy. Such a credit may cover about 30 percent of installation cost (including equipment too). The systems should be installed in your primary or any other home. In a new house, old house or a house which is in building stage. Expiration date of this tax credit is December 31, 2016.

The first Act implied that a homeowner could get up to 2000 dollars of incentives or 30 percent of investment, if he/she installed solar panels at home. This was applied only to existing homes. In 2008 the act was extended for almost any home in the United States. From that moment even if you only build a house and include solar panels as a part of the future building, you may also get tax benefit for that.

Another act, which is called, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act was issued in 2008. This act also extends the act of 2005. It removes 2000 dollars limitation, so if you install solar panels for 30 000 dollars, you may receive up to 10 000 dollars itemizing your tax deduction. Moreover, if your system works well, you may qualify to receive your 30 percent.

Your state of residence plays also important role in getting rebates, because there are many states that have additional benefits for residential using of alternative energy sources. For example, New Mexico is supposed to be the friendliest state for solar energy consumers. If you live there, you may get credit up to 9000 dollars and you will be protected from electric companies. Other states also offer tax benefits. These can be tax credits and deductions from local governments. The programs vary from one state to another, but you may find everything on governmental web sources.

You should weight all pluses and minuses before deciding of usage solar power. And remember: the more money you invest, the more you receive in future.

Installing Solar Panels

May 8th, 2011

Nowadays more and more people think of using solar energy to provide their homes with electricity. Some of them use DIY guides to make solar panels by their own hands and others hire companies, who can install already made panels on the rooftop of their houses. Every method is good, because you not only using renewable energy source reducing emissions to the environment, but you also help your country to be more developed in this field. That is why you can be provided with governmental grants and rebates. Making panels yourself you also save money, because it is cheaper to make them manually. But if you don’t have time, but still want to have an up-to-date house with your own heating and electricity system, you may hire a company, which will install panels for you.

Of course you can install solar panels yourself. Let’s find out what you need for that.

1. Buy a solar panel for home purposes. This can be a panel of 12 or 16 volts.

2. The second thing you need is rechargeable battery to accumulate energy produced by your solar panels. 12 volts acid lead battery is enough for that.

3. Get a battery box to install your solar panel there. It is also useful to protect it from children or pets, if you have any.

4. You should have a direct current meter (DC meter). It is important for you to get a DC meter that matches the voltage of the battery. Bear in mind that good equipment is a key to convert solar energy into electricity.

5. With the help of handheld drill attach DC meter to DC input on the battery box.

6. Connect the meter with the battery with the help of an insulated wire. Connect inlet to the solar panel and outlet to the batter. Be careful, because you can confuse connections.

7. So, you have a set to produce electricity from your solar panel. Close battery box tightly and put your panel under the direct sun.

8. You should have patience and wait for about 8 hours to get the results of your work.

This is a guide of installing a solar battery for household purposes only. Such a battery will make possible to run some appliances. You need to look for batteries that correspond with your house needs of power, of course. Certainly, if you have money it is better to pay a professional company and install big panels on the rooftop of your house. Big panels can provide the whole house or apartment with electricity and heat. But it is very expensive though. Anyways you will save money for electricity bills in both cases.

Using solar panels at home is a contemporary decision for a homeowner. It is a great investment into your budget and contributions to the development of this field in whole. Installing solar panel, you make your home green and self-sufficient. And do not forget of benefits that you can receive from using renewable energy sources.

How Solar Panels Work

May 8th, 2011

Every living thing arouse due to solar energy. Every second the surface of our planet gets huge amount of energy from solar radiation. While we burn thousands tons of coal and oil products for heating our houses, countries located near equator are languid with the heat. Nowadays mission of many scientists is to direct solar energy to human needs. In this article we’ll see how solar energy turns into electricity with the help of solar elements.

The simplest solar element is made of single-crystal silicon. A thin plate consists of two silicon layers with different physical features. The inner layer is pure single crystal silicon having “hole conductivity” (p-type). It is covered with a thin layer of “dirty” silicon outside, for example, phosphorus-doped (n-type). A continuous metal contact is coated on the back side of the plate. At the boundary of n- and p-layers depleted zones of an uncompensated positive charge are formed as a result of charges interchange with positive in n-layer and three-dimensional negative charge in p-layer. These zones together form a p-n-junction.

Arisen potential barrier in the junction (contact potential difference), prevents the passage of major charge carriers, i.e. electrons from the p-layer, but freely pass minority carriers in opposite directions. This property of p-n-junctions determines the possibility of getting photo-EMF from solar radiation. When a solar element is illuminated, the absorbed photons generate non-equilibrium electron-hole pairs. Electrons generated in the p-layer near the p-n-junction approach to p-n-junction and are submitted by the electric field to the n-layer.

Most modern solar cells have a single p-n-junction. In such an element free carriers are created only by the photons whose energy is greater or equal to the width of the gap. In other words, the photoelectric response of a unijunction element is limited by a part of the solar spectrum, whose energy is above the band gap and lower energy photons are not used. Multilayer structures of two or more solar cells with different band gap allow to overcome this limitation. These elements are called multi-junction, cascaded or tandem, because they operate with much greater part of the solar spectrum and have greater efficiency of photovoltaic conversion. In typical multi-junction solar cells single elements are located in such way that sunlight falls on the first item with the highest band gap absorbing photons with maximum energy. Photons passed by the top layer penetrate into the next element with a smaller band gap etc. The conversion efficiency of such solar cells reaches 35percent. For technological reasons, a separate solar cell can be produced only of a small size; therefore several cells are combined in a battery for greater efficiency.

Solar batteries established a reputation as a reliable and stable energy source in space that can work for a long period of time. The main danger for solar cells in space is cosmic radiation and meteoric dust, causing erosion of surface of silicon cells and limiting battery life. For small manned stations this current source, apparently, will remain the only effective and acceptable one.

Home Made Solar Panels

May 7th, 2011

If you have some extra time after work or at weekends you may try to create a homemade solar panel. Learning how to make the panels yourself will reduce your electricity bills. We used to think that it is very expensive to have commercially made solar panels. But there are not many of us, who are striving to learn DIY guides of how to make solar panels. We even don’t think that it is not so difficult and we can run our homes on solar energy.

Making your own solar panels you start using a renewable energy source, which becomes more and more important in nowadays world. This will help you make as efficient solar panels as commercial one, but the main point here is that you don’t need to pay huge money for that.

If you decided to make your own solar panel, you may find DIY kits on the web for a low price. Certainly, there are many scammers on the web, who appeared according the rising of DIY solar panels popularity. That’s why you need to pay more time for good research to buy quality kits. Usually a good kit contains: easy instructions, illustrations and videos.

You should know that your homemade solar panels may not produce as much energy as industry grids. Moreover, they get energy from solar radiation, so weather is another significant factor here. But do not worry, because it is possible to accumulate energy even in cloudy weather. In any case, you will be able to make a long time investment and save a lot of money with the help of it.

First of all, you need to make a good internet research and find all possible information about DIY kits. It’s easy to do on eBay. There are a lot of sellers, who may offer you such kits. But you may also buy everything by parts. The main thing here is to find good solar cells. Used cells are also suitable here, but they should be not broken. After you find a kit or solar cells, you should talk about delivery. The thing is that solar cells are rather fragile, so they should be delivered with great care. Certainly, you should be careful of scammers.

DIY kits may cost from 50 to 100 dollars. Some of them include tutorials and even video tutorials as we said before. But you may also look through many video materials on the web. For example, YouTube contains many videos devoted to the subjects. You may also face various e-books and mailing, which require to pay an amount of money once and then get all required information with the refreshments free. But this is not the best way, because they are rather cheap, but don’t provide you even with any tools.

Making solar panels is not an easy task, but you can do it. Look through video tutorials first and find articles on the topic, for you to understand what you need and how much energy you can produce with that what you have. And only then make final decision and create your homemade solar panels. Good luck!

How To Make Solar panels

May 7th, 2011

Renewable energy sources are an alternative to conventional energy development and the most promising field of industry today. Any investment in this economic sector is encouraged by the governments of all developed countries. Government incentives are given to big companies as well as individuals, who provide their homes with energy by means of alternative energy sources. The main principle of using renewable energy consists in its extracting from constant natural processes, which take place in our environment. These processes include sunlight, wind, rain, tidal waves and geothermal energy. Perhaps, the most well-known source among the mentioned above is solar energy.

Solar energy is a branch of alternative energy based on direct usage of solar radiation for getting various kinds of energy. Solar energy uses the renewable energy source and is absolutely green. There are two main kinds of energy which can be extracted from solar radiation: heat and electricity. To convert solar energy into electricity PV solar panels are used. Solar panels are widespread in many countries and cities nowadays and used not only at solar power plants, but for everyday necessities as well. For example, such panels can be installed on the rooftops of houses to provide buildings with electricity and heat. People, who live in remote areas, also use solar panels and wind turbines to provide themselves with energy, which is not available there from other sources. Moreover, governments of such counties as Australia, USA, Canada, Great Britain and many others offer various incentives, tax rebates and grants for those, who use green energy and supply themselves with it.

But is it possible to make a solar panel by yourself? It is! You may do different kinds of panels from the smallest ones for making your radio play to big ones for providing your home with electricity (of course, if your latitude makes it possible). Let’s look through how solar panels are made in general and how you can make it yourself.

Schemes of Connection

A photovoltaic module or solar panel is the main component of any photoelectric system intended for electric energy production. A solar panel consists of several photovoltaic elements connected with each other. Two ways of connection are used either for gaining voltage or current: the series connection and parallel connection. But there is also a mixed type of connection for gaining both voltage and current. The series connection implies connecting of positive terminals of one module to negative terminals of the other. In this case, we have the voltage of two or more panels between the terminals, but the current is the same as in one panel. So, if we connect two panels of 12 V and 4.5 A, the output voltage is 24 V and 4.5 A. Connecting 4 such panels we get 48 V and 4.5 A and so on.

Parallel connection means that positive and negative terminals of the panels are connected according to their polarity. As a result we have a sum of current strength of all panels and voltage remains invariable. So, 2 panels with 12 V and 4.5 A gives output of 12 V and 9 A, 4 panels give 12 V and 18 A etc.

Series-parallel connection is used for getting high values of output current and voltage. Besides, one group of 4 modules can be connected to another by means of parallel connection, thus creating a system of high capacity.

But let us also consider manual system of making solar panels. We already know that a solar panel is a container consisting photovoltaic (PV) elements. PV elements are those things which convert solar energy into electricity. Unfortunately, you need a lot of those things to get enough electricity for your needs. Moreover, these elements are very fragile. So, this is one of the reasons for uniting them in solar panels. A battery has a sufficient number of elements to produce high power and protects PV elements from damage.

If you look for the PV element, you see that new elements are very expensive and not as widespread as used ones. But it’s ok, because you can do a solar panel from used PV elements as well. It is reasonable to look for them at eBay.

First of all, you need to find and buy a few sets of single-crystal PV elements. The size can be various. You should only remember that you need only similar elements for making a panel. Let’s take the size of 3×6 inches. To make a solar panel you need to connect in parallel 36 elements of this size. Each element generates about 0.5 V, so 36 elements give us the output of 18 V. This is enough for charging 12 V batteries. Remember that PV elements of this kind are very fragile and can be easily damaged. You should also know how to work with soldering iron, because you will have to connect elements with its help.

At first we need to make a shallow box with low borders, which will not shade our PV elements. You may use veneer with thickness of 3-8 inches; sides should have about 3-4 inches of thickness. It will contain 36 elements. You may also divide it into 2 parts (18 and 18) for you to have fewer troubles with soldering. You need also to make holes at the bottom part of your panel to equalize air pressure within it. These holes should be only at the bottom, otherwise rain or dew will penetrate into the panel.

The exterior part should be covered with plexiglass to protect elements. It is more effective than usual glass in this case. Then you need to paint the boxes to protect wood from moisture, which will have negative effect on your elements in its turn. After that you should draw a scheme for placements of your elements. It should be something like a grid. Place the elements on it upside down to solder them in parallel. You remember that we have to parts with 18 elements in both. The parts should be also connected in parallel.

Then we need to glue elements to the base. You should add a little of silicone glue to the center of an element and then slightly press them down. Be careful with that, because you may damage the elements.

Make holes in the bottom of your panel to take the wires out. Bind a two-contact plug to this wire. It will make possible the connection with accumulator. After that you may install your battery anywhere you like and accumulate electricity with its help.

Certainly, this is a basic guide of how to make solar panels. The panel of such type can be used only for accumulation energy for small appliances. If you would like to provide the entire house with electricity, you need to turn to professional companies. This is rather costly, but profitable in future.

What is Solar Panels ?

April 14th, 2011

A solar panel is a packaged interconnected assembles of solar cells which can be used to supply electricity for commercial and residential electronic appliances. Solar panels are mostly used by people who reside at a place where power is not available or its hard to get it.

Solar panels use light energy from sun to generate electricity with the help of photovoltaic effect.

There are many benefits of using solar panel for power because they not only save some bills but also uses renewable energy which is very good for natural reasons .