Build Your Own Solar Panels For Shocking Low Cost - Part 3 - Wiring Up Your Panel

!±8± Build Your Own Solar Panels For Shocking Low Cost - Part 3 - Wiring Up Your Panel

Today we continue our series of articles on how you can slash your electricity bills by making your own homemade solar panel out of readily available materials. You can get into this exciting technology without spending a fortune - in some cases, you can scrounge everything you need to get started. In part 3 of the series, we will take our solar panel housing we made in the part 2 article and get down and dirty with mounting the solar cells onto the substrate.

And now a brief lesson on electricity and different ways of wiring electrical components up - don't worry - it's very easy. If you are following the suggested sizing presented in this series and are building a solar panel array with 36 solar cells within it you will achieve about 18V from your panel from the 0.5V or so you will get from each cell, and 18V will be great for, say, charging a 12V battery. To get 18V from the panel each solar cell must be wired to it's neighbors in series connection, which means the positive or + from one cell is wired to the negative or - of the next. At each end of your string of cells you will have one free positive wire and one free negative wire, and the voltage between these two wires will be about 18V when the panel is active. The other method of electrical connection other than series connection is parallel connection, and you might need this if you plan on connecting together finished panels so that you still only have 18V but also have more current (measured in amps) produced by your setup. To connect panels in parallel you will connect the positives (+) together and the negatives (-) together of each 18V solar panel.

Now, back to the action. Depending on the particulars of your solar cells that you have purchased (or scrounged), it may be easier to wire the cells together in series connection before mounting them onto the substrate. If this is the case, make sure you leave enough wire between the middle two cells in the series (between solar cell number 18 and number 19) to cover the distance between the top area of the solar panel housing and the bottom area underneath the central strengthening crossbar. Mount the solar cells individually onto the substrate using one dab of silicone caulk per panel in the middle on the back of the cell. Don't spread silicone caulk all over the solar cell or all over the panel, because the expansion and contraction of the solar cell with temperature may very well crack the cell if it is glued in more than just one central point.

Make sure you allow at least 24 hours for the silicone caulk to cure completely before any further steps. We are almost done! We just have a few final steps and our fully functional, low cost, solar panel is finished and ready to usher in a new age of cheap available power. During the next article we will put the cover on, finish up the wiring, test the solar panel, and talk about a few options for using your new solar power generation setup, and also improvements you can make for your next project.

Build Your Own Solar Panels For Shocking Low Cost - Part 3 - Wiring Up Your Panel

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The Future of Solar PV Electricity Generation

!±8± The Future of Solar PV Electricity Generation

The importance of solar electricity generation
With fears of carbon dioxide causing global warming and diminishing supplies of fossil fuels, a looming energy crisis is affecting all countries. As a consequence, a great deal of world-wide effort is going into the development of alternative energy technologies. At present, wind, hydro and geothermal are becoming well established with more niche roles for tidal and solar. The latter technology has two common forms, firstly solar water heating, and secondly photo voltaic (PV) solar electricity generation.

Solar water heating
For domestic hot water needs, solar hot water is starting to make significant inroads in Europe and Turkey but very little impact in the rest of the world, with the exception of China. This country has more than 70% of the world's solar water heating capacity, assisted greatly by government subsidy and promotion. (REN21 Renewables 2010 Global Status Report)

Photovoltaic Solar electricity
PV Solar from the above mentioned report shows a different picture, with Germany having the dominant usage at 47%, whereas China had less than a few percent at the end of 2009. However, whilst the power from PV in total is no more than about 15% of that of solar water, its use is spread more evenly throughout the world.

There is much research into new and improved photo voltaic technologies as well as rapidly increasing use of existing commercial products. Traditionally the cost per watt of this technology has far exceeded that of conventional power generation and not surprisingly the main development thrusts are increase in efficiency and reductions in cell costs.

The operation of a PV solar cell is based on the photovoltaic effect, when the capture of a light photon photoexcites an electron to a higher energy level. The cell is constructed as a PN junction from semi-conductor material, like the common diode, in which photoexcited electrons preferentially diffuse across the junction barrier and flow around an external circuit providing power.

Silicon single crystal solar cells
Traditional cells are made from single crystal Silicon or c-Si and produce about 0.5Volts per cell, with typical power efficiency of 15-17%. The maximum theoretical efficiency of conversion from light energy to electrical energy is about 30% and recent developments have produced examples exceeding 24%. Clearly, with an output of a mere 0.5V, numerous cells have to be connected together to produce enough voltage to work with. This is done in the solar panel where the cells are arranged in a matrix, encapsulated in transparent EVA, usually behind a glass front cover and sealed into an outer frame. The back of the panel is sealed with a polymer film backsheet, selected for its electrical insulation, toughness, and importantly, lack of water permeation. These devices are expected to last for 25 years or more and corrosion damage to the electrical contacts by water is one of the biggest threats.

Thin film solar cells
At the time of writing, c-Si PV solar cells are the most dominant type in the market by far, occupying over 80% of the market. However this position is likely to change soon with the advances being made with thin film solar cells, which form the remainder of the market. These newer cells are made from other types of semiconductors and are based on an amorphous rather than crystalline material, which is assembled in thin layers allowing it to be flexible.

There are at least three different common types in production, these being, amorphous Si (a-Si), Cadmium Teluride (CdTe), and Copper Indium Gallium deSelenide (CIGS). Mention should also be made at this juncture of dye sensitised solar cells (DSSC), which are also classified as thin film but are not PN junction based. These are referred to as photoelectrochemical cells, and were invented by Michael Grazel. As mentioned for c-Si cells, this type also needs exemplary environmental protection, with emphasis on water ingress through permeation.

While thin film cells are in general less efficient than the c-Si variety, being in the 11-13% region at present, they have some major advantages over their predecessors. Much larger single cells can be made, not being constrained by the size of a single crystal, at markedly lower cost, and their flexibility allows considerable diversity in mounting. It is possible to print the materials, which can be made into a form of inks, in layers onto wide continuous strips a metre or more wide. The resulting rolls can then be deployed in large solar collecting arrays and can even be used as an outer skin on buildings. Not surprisingly, given the volume of research into improving these thin film variants, their market share is expected to soar over the next few years.

Solar panel backsheets
Polymer film backsheets which are used for c-Si panels are often based on polyvinyl fluoride (PVF), which is frequently laminated with other materials for improved properties. The DuPont PVF material known as Tedlar is a favourite and is used to sandwich a layer of polyester film to form TPT or combined with EVA as TPE. Numerous alternative polymers are available offering trade-offs between performance/lifetime and cost. Related materials are available for use on thin film solar products, with perhaps more emphasis on performance because of the need to keep thickness down to maintain flexibility.

Water vapour permeation measurement for PV Solar Cell packaging
Clearly, the future for solar photo voltaic electricity generation looks optimistic and importantly, a major growth area. It is also likely to be a growth market for the solar cell manufacturers, as well as the equipment and instrumentation companies to support the cell production. The ability to provide definitive water vapour transmission rate (WVTR) data for production backsheet materials on a routine QA basis, is key to a reliable PV Solar Cell product. Such WVTR measurement can be provided by the Systech Illinois 7000 water vapour permeation analyser, capable of measuring from as low as 0.002 g/m²/day.

The Future of Solar PV Electricity Generation

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Solar Tutorial - DC Power, Not AC

!±8± Solar Tutorial - DC Power, Not AC

Household devices, chargers, and appliances cannot plug directly into a solar panel. Solar panels use DC power, while most household appliances use AC. But there are ways to solve this mis-match.

You've got your solar panel, now where's the outlet for your laptop? Well, unfortunately solar panels do not produce the same power that you have in your home. Solar panels produce power like you have in your car, and pocket solar chargers produce power that is like your flashlight batteries and cell phone's battery.

What do you need to get your panel to make the kind of power you need? The answer is 'converters' and 'inverters'.

First, we'll look at DC voltages, and how to make the solar panel output match the needs of your DC devices.
A converter is a device that converts one voltage to another. Converters can be as simple as an adaptor cable for a computer's USB port, and as intricate as one that converts your home's wall outlet into a power for your iPhone. In brief, converters can be DC to DC (ie one battery voltage to another), or AC to DC (ie wall charger for your batteries, phone, iPod, etc).

So, before purchasing a solar panel or pocket solar charger, make a list of all the devices you plan to power from your solar power system, and what voltages they need. For example, your laptop uses 120v AC, but the wall adaptor for your laptop actually converts this to something like 18V DC for the battery inside the laptop (the label on the back of your laptop will state what it needs, or look at the wall adaptor itself). iPods, iPhones, Blackberries, most PDA's, and other devices that plug into your computer's USB port will need 5V DC (this is the USB standard).

Once you have your list, you will be able to determine if you should get a standard solar panel with 12V output, or one of the USB models. You will need the 12V panel if you are wanting to power things as large as a laptop.

What if you need household AC power?

Sometimes it is not possible to find a car adaptor for a device that will enable it to plus into a DC solar panel. Or you might have a specific device, like a specialized camera battery charger, that only operates from an AC wall outlet. In these cases, you need to have a solar power system that can provide AC power, and the key to this is the AC inverter.

An AC inverter is a small device that takes 12V battery power, like the power in your car, and converts it to household AC power. Now, before you decide that this is the best way to go for all your devices, consider the following...

Inverters are the size of a deck of cards and larger
Inverters cannot operate direct from a solar panel
Inverters require a specific type of battery to provide them with power
Inverters will consume about 15-20% of the power themselves to meet their own operating needs
So, in brief, consider inverters to be your last option for a portable power system, when all attempts to live in the DC world have been exhausted.

Solar Tutorial - DC Power, Not AC

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