In the early days of solar power there were huge installations necessary to make use of this energy source. The solar panels that were needed were larger than the average full grown man. This made the collection of solar power a bit of a challenge. Therefore making use of solar power was not suitable of everyone. It was expensive and a bit of a chore as well.

These huge solar panels still exist in solar power plants, which produce energy for certain parts of the world. But over the years technological advancements have made solar power affordable and portable enough so common people can use it for their everyday lives. Nowadays solar panels have become so small that pocket calculators use these as an alternative power source to the usual single cell batteries.

But the use of portable solar power did not stop with the use of pocket calculators. Numerous inventions have made use of portable solar power and some of these are available all over the world. Let's take of look at 5 affordable uses of portable solar power.

1) BRUNTON BATTJACK Batteries and Chargers

The charger comes with the SolarPort 4.4, wall transformer and 12V car cord to charge batteries from AC or in a vehicle. The charger can hold 4 AA or AAA rechargeable batteries. The kit has 4 1500 mAh NiMH AA battery cells. The charger will switch to trickle charge when the batteries are fully charged. It also has a discharge option for maintaining NiCad batteries. This will cost $30.

Batteries are NiMH AA dry cells, have a 1500 mAh capacity, can recharge for hundreds of times, and come in a package of 4 AA batteries. These cost $14.

2) SS-PVSMALL Power System

This portable solar power system from Silicon Solar Inc is easy to use and needs no assembly. Included in each system is an inverter/battery carrying case and 8.5 or 17-watt solar panel/charge.

This system can power a laptop computer, portable audio devices, small coloured TV, and most devices that need less than 140 watts AC 110-120v, and 60Hz input. Power time can range from 30 minutes to 56 hours, depending on the equipment being powered up.

The system is also used for indoor/outdoor lighting, and is lightweight. The system also includes inverters, cables, battery box, and sealed gel cell battery. The system comes with a 1-year warranty. The system costs $149.95.

3) UNI-KIT

The Uni-Kit system is a portable, durable, solar powered lighting system that can provide extended lighting hours to its users. This is powerful enough to let even a 12-volt radio or TV operate, and easy to install. The Uni-Kit system also comes with a basic power controller that maximizes battery life of its 12-Volt Deep Cycle SLA Battery by controlling its charging and load use, and protects the system from overcharging and excessive discharging.

Uni-Kit can be used in the garage, tool sheds, remote homes, isolated buildings, surveying sites, construction sites, camp sites, and even during water pumping operations.

Uni-Kit comes with an 11-watt fluorescent lamp that has a 1-year warranty. The 15-watt solar panel has a 20 year warranty. You can add up to 4 lamps to increase the system's illumination capacity. The default kit weighs 10 pounds and can be purchased for $249.95 from Silicon Solar Inc. If you have additional 4 lamps, all 4 will cost an extra $235.

4) BRUNTON Portable Solar Panels

Brunton has portable CIGS (copper indium gallium diselenide) solar array panels that are thin and lightweight to save weight for backpackers. These panels produce standard 12volts outputs, and come with basic 12V vehicle socket, 4 different jack plugs, and battery clips. Solar array panels come in a 6 and 12 foldable, and 14 roll able series. Prices of these panels range from $129 to $399.

5) EN-R-PAK AC/DC Backup Power Supply

The EN-R-PAK backup power supply 200 series are compact solar power backup supplies that have built-in electronics that store, control, and produce energy from the sun, wind, or flowing water. The system can accept additional solar panels, wind turbines, or water turbines. These power supply systems use renewable stored energy to produce 115 volts and 12 volts DC. A 230-volt unit is also available for international use.

The EN-R-PAK can provide emergency power for a home or office, remote areas, a cabin or cottage, for communications, wherever and whenever you need power! This system has no parts that wear out, is environment friendly, quiet, does not emit harmful fumes, easy to operate, requires no assembly, needs almost no maintenance, and is designed to survive rugged weather conditions. These can also power energy efficient lights, a laptop computer, a small TV, rechargeable power tools, and other electrical equipment.

The EN-R-PAK has a 1-year system warranty, 20-year solar panel warranty, 2-year battery warranty, and is built to conform to UL, NEC, and CSA electrical standards.

EN-R-PAK 50-watt solar panels are liquid-proof and shatter proof. These also come with a blocking diode, 30 feet of cable with a connection plug. Wind turbines are also configured to the EN-R-PAK so changes to the power centre are not needed.

The basic system will cost $1500. Additions to the system will make the cost reach a maximum of $2950.

This sums up the possibilities for portable solar power. As time and knowledge progress other devices and possibilities will be available on the market. The prices mentioned here can give you an idea, but are by no means accurate.

The simple fact is that we cannot depend on oil and fossil fuels for our energy forever. Many people are already starting to realize this and are beginning to switch to residential solar power.

Using residential solar power may seem complicated but it's simpler than you might think. I personally know people that aren't as smart (or as good looking) as you and they have built their own solar power system.

First, let's talk about what solar power is and how it works.

Solar power is an amazing thing. The sun blasts more than enough energy to provide us enough power to sustain ourselves. They key is being able to harness this energy and use it to our benefit. Our goal is to take this energy and convert it into electricity. Once we convert to electricity, this will give us all the residential solar power we will ever need.

Electricity is created by solar panels and converted using photovoltaic cells. The word photovoltaic literally means 'light electricity'. Don't let these big words confuse you, creating solar power for homes is quite simple and anyone can do it.

A solar generator can cost as little as $200 and can pay for itself within the first few weeks that you put it into use. Not to mention the benefits to the environment.

Let me give you an example of a recent solar generator I built. This is what's called a 'portable solar power system' and can be made with only four pieces of material. (solar panel, charge controller, battery and inverter) These supplies can be purchased from any major hardware store and should cost around $200 total. This is one of the most popular systems to build due to the fact that it is 'portable'. Take it wherever you like and you will never have to worry about the lack of electricity again. With a system like this, you should be able to get your investment back in as little as two weeks.

I have cut my electric bill be nearly 85% due to the solar panels I have built. Not to mention that the whole setup cost just under $200. Now how's that for 'going green'.

Anyone can do this, sometimes on a much larger scale. I've have know people who SELL the excess energy that they don't use back to the electric company. So much for being at the mercy of the power company. Now you can actually MAKE money from them.

The idea of making homemade solar power was unheard of 20 years ago, but today is one of the fastest growing trends in the world. With the ever increasing costs of utility bills it just makes sense for someone to use homemade solar power as an alternative energy resource.

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There are two main types of solar power, solar thermal and photovoltaic. Solar thermal uses the sun light's infrared energy to either heat a liquid or to warm a mass of material that will later on release its stored heat. Harnessing solar thermal energy involves building a house in such a way to collect the sun's heat during the day and radiate it into the home during the evening. However, in the summer time the house's construction uses mass to keep the sun's heat out of the home.

Solar photovoltaic energy converting sun light into electrical energy. The most commonly associated component are the photovoltaic panels or solar panels that you see mounted on roofs.

This article will be focusing on how photovoltaic solar power (solar panels) and systems work.

Why are solar photovoltaic panels always on the south (or north) side of the roof?

In order to get the maximum electrical output from photovoltaic panels they need to be oriented to solar south in the northern hemisphere and solar north in the southern hemisphere. Solar north and solar south are the same as magnetic or compass north or south. There is about a fifteen degree difference between them.

Most solar photovoltaic panels are set at home latitude plus fifteen degrees or home latitude minus fifteen degrees. Depending on if you want a summer or winter bias to the angle of the solar panels. In higher latitudinal areas it makes more sense to have the photovoltaic panels set on a winter bias, so that during the winter the solar panels still get enough sun light to produce electricity.

How does a photovoltaic cell produce electricity?

A solar panel consists of a collection of photovoltaic cells. Each photovoltaic cell is made up of silicon wafer. Silicon in its pure state is a poor electrical conductor. During the manufacturing process, an impurity is added to the silicon so that when the photons (light) strikes the wafer electrons are released and create electrical current.

The type of electrical current produced by a solar panel is a low voltage direct current, or DC, typically in the range of six to twenty four volts. Photovoltaic panels have a nominal output voltage of 12 volts and an effective operating voltage of 17 or more volts.

A solar panel's electrical output is affected by several factors. They are angle of the photovoltaic panels to the sun, time of day, time of the year and weather conditions. Solar photovoltaic panels produce more electricity during the middle of the day when the sun is directly overhead compared to the early morning and late evening when the sun light is striking the solar panel at a shallow angle.

Components of a residential solar power system

A residential solar power system consists of four components are: photovoltaic panels, charging controller, battery pack and an inverter. The photovoltaic panels convert sun light into electricity. The electricity is sent to the charging controller who keeps the battery pack fully charged, but not over charged. The battery pack sends the electricity to the inverter who converts the DC voltage to household AC at 120 volts and 60 hertz.

Photovoltaic panel

The output of a solar panel is stated in watts. The wattage is stated is typically for peak sun hours. Since the amount of sun light varies through the course of a day, to level out the variations the peak sun hours has been adopted by most manufactures to help installers and customer's compare different solar panel models.

Suppose a solar panel is rated for 100 watts and an average of six peak sun hours is available per day. Then the solar panel would produce 100 watts * 6 peak hours = 600 watt hours of electricity or 0.6 kilo watt hours (KWh).

Charging controller

Charging controller or charge regulator controls the charging of the battery pack. It continually monitors the battery pack's charge state. If the batteries are low, it will send electricity from the solar panels to the batteries. It also prevents over charging of the battery pack.

Don't allow someone to convince you that a charging controller is not really required. Directly connecting the photovoltaic panels to the battery pack can permanently damage the batteries and possibly cause them to explode.

Battery pack

The battery pack's purpose is to store electricity generated by the solar panels during the day and then at night or during extremely cloudy days provide electricity to the inverter.

The battery pack typically consists of lead acid batteries. Lead acid batteries are relatively inexpensive and readily available. There are many different types, sizes and capacities of batteries available. The most popular are gel cell and AGM deep cycle batteries because they are maintenance free and last a lot longer than wet cell lead acid batteries.

The most important thing to remember about the batteries is that the need to be deep cycle. Deep cycle batteries are designed to be discharged then recharged hundreds if not thousands of times. A deep cycle battery is designed to discharged to nearly empty, but not completely and then be slowly recharged over time. A common mistake for home owners is to think that they can use automotive batteries instead of deep cycle batteries. Car batteries are shallow cycle batteries. They are designed to discharge a lot of current quickly and then be immediately recharged.

Inverter

An inverter converts the DC electricity stored in the battery pack into household 120V AC. Almost everything in your home is powered by 120V electricity. Things like table lamps, freezer, lights, motors, dishwasher, and so on.

There are two main types of inverters sine wave and modified sine wave. The power company provides electricity as a sine wave. The electricity's charge value goes smoothly from positive 120V to 0V to negative 120V and then back up to 0V and finally up to positive 120V. Then the cycle begins all over again. The time it takes to go through the entire cycle is one second.

Modified sine wave is also known as a square wave. Here the electricity's charge value goes from positive 120V to negative -120 volts in effectively zero seconds.

Most household devices will function on a modified sine wave power. Light bulbs and motors will work, just not quite as efficiently as they would on sine wave electricity. However, there are some electronic devices that will not work on square wave electricity. It will be necessary to check with the manufacture to determine if the device will work on square wave electricity.

Now you have a basic understanding of solar power how it works to power your home. Now you have enough information about how solar power works to determine if it is a technology that you would want to invest in for your house.

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