Toofuzzy OT Power Question,
You said:
For you electrical engineers out there:
I have been getting all my electricity from a 200W photovoltaic system which after all the efficiency losses are figured in probably lets me use about 500W / day (1 100w lightbulb running for 5 hrs/ day).You quickly learn that it is cheaper to spend gobs of money if necessary to reduce the demand rather than the supply but in most cases....
Well, I am nit picking, of course, but here are three points:
1) I suppose you mean it is cheaper to spend a lot of money reduce the demand rather than to increase the supply capacity. Right? I suppose it would be a lot cheaper to get a little larger unit and safe all the money to reduce the demand.
2) Your term 500 W/day is an energy acceleration unit, and this would mean that the energy consumption is increasing each day with 500 W. You mean, no doubt, 500 Watt-Hours/day.
3) With the 200 W system you must mean that the output is 200 Watt. With a solar input of 200 W you might light-up a 25 W light bulb. With the 200 W capacity you should be able to load up a battery for 6 hours a ~50% efficiency of the battery charger(estimate) to get 1200/2 Watt-hours is 600 Wh. So you 500 Wh is a good estimate.
But then it means that while you are charging the batteries during the day that you can not watch TV or do much else electrically, or when you run your 100 W light at night you cannot use a 100 W TV(both for 5 hours), or heat the coffee electrically.
Do you make your coffee on a wood heater? Anyhow, 200 W for a power system is very little indeed. I would probably get a 500 W system with the money you can safe.
Regards,
Conrad
AI
