Solar electric improvements

When we purchased and installed our modest photovoltaic (solar electric) system last winter it made an incredible improvement to our quality of life on the ranch.  With it we are able to have enough AC power day or night to use a computer, recharge cell phones, operate the trailer heater, and many other things vital to functioning in a modern capacity.

Because I was working a full-time job and had just acquired (rather traumatically) my first 10 bison, I never had the opportunity to properly install all of the solar equipment.  Now that I am ranching full-time, I've finally gotten a chance to do a better job.  The following pictures illustrate these improvements. 


My improvised outdoor housing for the batteries, charge controller, and inverter.  A truly sad arrangement, but it did keep the equipment dry.  A wooden pallet was stacked on top of the containers to keep them from blowing away in the wind. 

The batteries and other equipment with the covers taken off.

The permanent housing was made from pieces of aluminum welded together.  Each housing consists of a bottom and a top piece. In this photograph I've installed the bottom portions of each housing assembly. 

The completed installation.  Each upper housing element includes screened side vents to allow circulation, but keep out the rain.  Each upper element is held down snugly by a length of cable attached to the bottom element and tightened with a turnbuckle.

This is the way I initially installed the panels.  They are litterally on the ground and leaning against posts.  Very bad.  The growing grass constantly had to be trimmed back and the panels needed to be cleaned often. 

The new solar panel rack after I had assembled it at my home in northern Virginia.  Like the housing, the rack was welded together from aluminum.  The base and standing arms are attached to the rack with hinges, which allows me to adjust the angle of the panels during different seasons.  The photograph at the top of this post shows the new rack fully installed. 
Now that I have completely finished installing the photovoltaic system for our scamp, the final step will be to do the same thing for the security system.

Comments

  1. SoupdumplingSeptember 7, 2015 at 7:48:00 PM EDT

    Really cool looking work. I want to learn about working with solar power too some day soon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Buffalo DanSeptember 11, 2015 at 12:10:00 PM EDT

    I'd definitely recommend reading the book Photovoltaic Systems by James P. Dunlop. It really helped me understand what I needed to know to install a system safely. I also has a CD included with worksheets that you can use to calculate your electricity requirements and size the photovoltaic system appropriately.

    ReplyDelete

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