Solar pannels - where can i get them ?

[Thunderchild]

yes considering they solve many problems such as power in remote places and above all no maintainnace cost and free power for many years to come they are seldeom mentioned. is this because of the cost ? what r prices like now and where can i get them.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

yes considering they solve many problems such as power in remote places and above all no maintainnace cost and free power for many years to come they are seldeom mentioned. is this because of the cost ? what r prices like now and where can i get them.

Basically it's down to the cost, they are very expensive, also the amount of power generated is pretty small, so you LOT'S of expensive panels to produce a decent amount of electricity. You then need lot's of expensive batteries to store the energy, and an expensive inverter to convert the DC from the batteries to a more useful AC mains voltage.

It's a complicated and expensive job, but as you say in remote places you don't have a great many options.

 

[Thunderchild]

yes i see your point so what r the costs like now i mean another advantage is having it already in a low dc voltage and not needing as much power supply gear

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

yes i see your point so what r the costs like now i mean another advantage is having it already in a low dc voltage and not needing as much power supply gear

A simple google finds plenty of places to get prices from, here's one example **broken link removed**. You need to consider what the ratings actually mean!, usually the values given are ABSOLUTE maximum - although in Italy you may perhaps have a chance of that occasionally?.

You might also like to look at the C.A.T. site at http://www.cat.org.uk, it's also a very interesting place to visit - if you happen to be travelling in Wales!.

 

[Thunderchild]

thanks for the feedback yes we do have some heat here in italy but in recent years in the summer it rains often like on the national holiday of the 15th of august the peak of turism here there was a storm that would have had u thinking that u were in the amazons.

 

[Oznog]

The lack of consistent power is another liability. Bad sun days, low sun in winter, and of course night. So you need storage batteries. Their storage capacity is good for very low consumption applications but to get enough batteries to store as much power as a normal home consumes is quite expensive let alone the cost (and size) of panels to do it. Solar cells may last decades but the batteries will need to be replaced.

Not that solar installations aren't great. They can do some specific jobs really well. If you work hard at understanding your consumption and keeping it low you can get a very useful system.

 

[audioguru]

There is an advertisment sign in a vacant field near the edge of my city. It is only about 30m from the mains but it would cost a fair amount to install underground wiring to the sign.

At first, it used a pretty big solar panel and a battery. It wasn't very bright at night and its battery powered it for only a couple of hours.
Now it has a windmill added and it is much brighter and lasts all night long.