Awnings over your windows from mid spring to early fall season would help a decent amount in keeping your house cooler (it is hard to tell from the video whether or not the over hang is enough to provide shade?). There are so many things y'all can do that don't cost a lot of money, and which don't require either Solar panels, converters, and/or batteries.
There also has been some recent research on different alignments of Solar panels. Some research showing that standing up bifacial Solar panels and orienting them more west to east actually gives more overall power. They think it is mostly because the panels stay cooler. The hotter Solar panels get, the less efficient they get. Standing them up also makes them get dirty less quickly, and less likely to be damaged by things like hail. They also get more winter Solar when the angles are low, and because the temps are lower, the more direct sun doesn't heat them up as much.
In the winter time, you could easily heat the house at least partially with _direct_ Solar energy, either using evacuated Solar heat collecting tubes with water and running it through some radiators in the house, or more simply, building large essentially Solar "ovens" right outside of the windows and piping the warm air into the house via an insulated window insert + ducting. If we didn't have so much shade on our property, we would do this. Some of the Solar heaters could be immediate, daytime heaters, and some could be thermal battery heaters (for overnight). For the latter, you could set up a tower out of cinder blocks, and fill all the empty spaces with crushed waste aluminum, gypsum powder, or the like (materials that have decent specific heat capacity, mixed with materials like aluminum that have decent heat capacity but also high thermal conductivity, so the heat can move around better in the pile). Paint the outside of the cinder blocks with ultra black, and with about an inch or so air space, wrap/encapsulate the tower with some clear plastic (that can handle the heat and/or UV), twice (2 one inch air spaces). After the sun starts to go down, throw some radiant barrier material over the pile so that the IR doesn't radiate up into space. Putting Solar reflectors around the pile will help to heat it up more and faster. Conversely, you can use Solar panels as direct heaters as well (would recommend getting a couple extra dedicated to just this purpose). Essentially you can run copper wires from the Solar panel through an insulated window insert, and at the end of the copper wires, you attach nichrome wire. The DC energy coming from the Solar panel will heat up the nichrome wire, hw much it gets hot just depends on how many watts are flowing through the Solar panel(s) at the time. That nichrome wire can be put in a couple different things depending on, do you want immediate heat or do you want to save up heat (I recommend a system using both)? If immediate heat, get a large aluminum or copper bucket/container, and fill it up with some kind of highly thermally conductive material after you put the nichrome wire in it. Could be aluminum granules, silicon carbide grit (various grits mixed together work better than just one size), packed down graphite, etc. (Obviously you want this container lifted off the floor and by some kind of heat resistant material). Blowing a fan over it would help. Btw, rough up and spray paint the outside of the metal bucket/container with some kind of high heat paint. This will make the surface more emmisive and allow heat to flow through it better. For later, overnight heaters, get the largest vacuum insulated thermos's you can find/afford. Put the nichrome wires inside and fill up with aluminum granules or crushed aluminum mixed with gypsum powder. Cover the top with a very thick amount of heat resistant insulator like rockwool, ceramic fiber blanket (this should be encased in something as the fibers are potentially dangerous to breath), etc. At night time, you dump the contents into an aluminum or copper container and blow a fan over it. This is significantly more efficient than than running the Solar panels to batteries and a converter and then using the energy. In fact, there are lot's of things you can run from direct DC, you're just limited in the time frame that you can use these things. There is an intentional community in VA called Living Energy Farm that has a very small battery bank (mostly for lights at nighttime) and runs most of the Solar panel energy direct during the day. It is a far cheaper and more efficient way to do Solar. There is also direct, completely off grid cooling one can do, but that is a little more complicated and/or experimental, and this reply is already too long. (I'm talking about things like IR sky window radiation cooling, Solar driven methanol-water closed system evaporation cooling systems, thermal Earth energy exchange, Solar panels direct to Peltiers/TEC's with heat pipe type thermal exchangers on them, etc).
Why not save those old panels and have a separate ground mount with the old panels? Seems like a bit of a waste and you would get even more generation. Or just put the new panels on the ground mount to save cost. Assuming the old panels are still generating...
simples add a 10kw for the roof panels,add more panels to the west side, and move the old clunky inverter to a 6kw ground mount array right where you standing , i have changed my 11 yr old inverter for a brand new solis with the same 3.6 kwh outputBUT the start up voltage is 90v theretically gaining me 25% with my old 250w panels :) pps get some lipo 4 batteries @ 10kw preferably 20kwh with @ least 90% DOD,pps 620w panels here in the UK are now £107 each with 23.2% efficency(AIKO panels), and definately fit a soft start to the aircon a no brainer,check out engineer 775 on yt he is from the USA (soft starts between 100-300 USD and can be diy fitted)
Awnings over your windows from mid spring to early fall season would help a decent amount in keeping your house cooler (it is hard to tell from the video whether or not the over hang is enough to provide shade?).
There are so many things y'all can do that don't cost a lot of money, and which don't require either Solar panels, converters, and/or batteries.
Right, making the house more energy efficient helps significantly for a lot cheaper.
I would also take old if possible and make a shade structure, gives you shade and power
Great thought! We could do that!
There also has been some recent research on different alignments of Solar panels. Some research showing that standing up bifacial Solar panels and orienting them more west to east actually gives more overall power. They think it is mostly because the panels stay cooler. The hotter Solar panels get, the less efficient they get. Standing them up also makes them get dirty less quickly, and less likely to be damaged by things like hail. They also get more winter Solar when the angles are low, and because the temps are lower, the more direct sun doesn't heat them up as much.
Yes definitely! So many different factors affect the production.
Ground mount all day with that land
In the winter time, you could easily heat the house at least partially with _direct_ Solar energy, either using evacuated Solar heat collecting tubes with water and running it through some radiators in the house, or more simply, building large essentially Solar "ovens" right outside of the windows and piping the warm air into the house via an insulated window insert + ducting. If we didn't have so much shade on our property, we would do this.
Some of the Solar heaters could be immediate, daytime heaters, and some could be thermal battery heaters (for overnight). For the latter, you could set up a tower out of cinder blocks, and fill all the empty spaces with crushed waste aluminum, gypsum powder, or the like (materials that have decent specific heat capacity, mixed with materials like aluminum that have decent heat capacity but also high thermal conductivity, so the heat can move around better in the pile). Paint the outside of the cinder blocks with ultra black, and with about an inch or so air space, wrap/encapsulate the tower with some clear plastic (that can handle the heat and/or UV), twice (2 one inch air spaces). After the sun starts to go down, throw some radiant barrier material over the pile so that the IR doesn't radiate up into space. Putting Solar reflectors around the pile will help to heat it up more and faster.
Conversely, you can use Solar panels as direct heaters as well (would recommend getting a couple extra dedicated to just this purpose). Essentially you can run copper wires from the Solar panel through an insulated window insert, and at the end of the copper wires, you attach nichrome wire. The DC energy coming from the Solar panel will heat up the nichrome wire, hw much it gets hot just depends on how many watts are flowing through the Solar panel(s) at the time. That nichrome wire can be put in a couple different things depending on, do you want immediate heat or do you want to save up heat (I recommend a system using both)?
If immediate heat, get a large aluminum or copper bucket/container, and fill it up with some kind of highly thermally conductive material after you put the nichrome wire in it. Could be aluminum granules, silicon carbide grit (various grits mixed together work better than just one size), packed down graphite, etc. (Obviously you want this container lifted off the floor and by some kind of heat resistant material). Blowing a fan over it would help. Btw, rough up and spray paint the outside of the metal bucket/container with some kind of high heat paint. This will make the surface more emmisive and allow heat to flow through it better.
For later, overnight heaters, get the largest vacuum insulated thermos's you can find/afford. Put the nichrome wires inside and fill up with aluminum granules or crushed aluminum mixed with gypsum powder. Cover the top with a very thick amount of heat resistant insulator like rockwool, ceramic fiber blanket (this should be encased in something as the fibers are potentially dangerous to breath), etc. At night time, you dump the contents into an aluminum or copper container and blow a fan over it.
This is significantly more efficient than than running the Solar panels to batteries and a converter and then using the energy. In fact, there are lot's of things you can run from direct DC, you're just limited in the time frame that you can use these things. There is an intentional community in VA called Living Energy Farm that has a very small battery bank (mostly for lights at nighttime) and runs most of the Solar panel energy direct during the day. It is a far cheaper and more efficient way to do Solar.
There is also direct, completely off grid cooling one can do, but that is a little more complicated and/or experimental, and this reply is already too long. (I'm talking about things like IR sky window radiation cooling, Solar driven methanol-water closed system evaporation cooling systems, thermal Earth energy exchange, Solar panels direct to Peltiers/TEC's with heat pipe type thermal exchangers on them, etc).
Yes! So so many options!
Why not save those old panels and have a separate ground mount with the old panels? Seems like a bit of a waste and you would get even more generation. Or just put the new panels on the ground mount to save cost. Assuming the old panels are still generating...
We could do this! I looking at pro/cons including costs, we will probably use our current roof structure and just update the panels.
Guy in the white shirt should let the other guy do the talking
They are both super knowledgeable!
We have thought about solar but not ready to pull that trigger due to some fine print that comes with it😫
Ughh some of the fine print is a pain! It has been worth it for us, we just need some batteries to be a little more off grid.
Nice video. Greetings from Jamaica.
Thank you!
simples add a 10kw for the roof panels,add more panels to the west side, and move the old clunky inverter to a 6kw ground mount array right where you standing , i have changed my 11 yr old inverter for a brand new solis with the same 3.6 kwh outputBUT the start up voltage is 90v theretically gaining me 25% with my old 250w panels :) pps get some lipo 4 batteries @ 10kw preferably 20kwh with @ least 90% DOD,pps 620w panels here in the UK are now £107 each with 23.2% efficency(AIKO panels), and definately fit a soft start to the aircon a no brainer,check out engineer 775 on yt he is from the USA (soft starts between 100-300 USD and can be diy fitted)
It’s crazy how updating an old system can increase the production significantly!
Don't forget roof condition. Roof repair is included for tax purposes for the solar.
Yes! Definitely an important thing to note.
Does eminem do solar now?
Hahah
Enphase? Oh hell no!
Haha it works well for us!