Collecting the electricity portion of solar energy is now a straight forward task. You are all now familiar with solar panels which are rapidly becoming a part of daily life.

Here's how the electrical collection works. No need to go into the molecular science of it, just the practicalities of how we can use it to our advantage.

In order to collect solar electricity for later use, we will require a complete solar power system. Don't let this put you off, each component is basically very simple and will be explained one at a time.

Starting with the photovoltaic panel itself, referred to as PV, or what we all know simply as a solar panel, this is where the process begins. OK, we mount a solar panel so that it faces the sun as squarely as possible. The closer we can aim the panel at the sun, the more effective it will be. There are sophisticated systems which will keep our panel aimed at the sun by tracking, that's for another day.

The sunlight hits the panel, and now needs to be stored somewhere. Suitable wiring is connected to the panel, and from there will go to a controller. This controller is used to detect whether or not our battery system needs additional energy or not, and if so, it passes the energy through the controller to the batteries.

Basically, that's all there is to it. The sun hits the panel, is converted into electricity, travels to the batteries through a controller, and gets stored for later use. Collecting solar energy in a nutshell.

There are a couple of other components which are necessary, but which do not affect the actual power collection. A DC breaker is needed between the batteries and any other connected item. This battery bank can store a large amount of energy, and without some type of protection in the form of a breaker - the same as with your house current - a short circuit could cause major damage and an instant fire.

It is also necessary, or at least practical, to have something to monitor the health of your battery bank. Monitors are available which will provide you with any detail you might care to name. Even a basic monitor will give you elementary functionality, such as the current voltage, incoming power, usually in the form of amps, amount of amps discharged from the system, and time to empty. Something like the gas gauge in your car.

These basic numbers will allow you to instantly learn the state of charge of your batteries, and will often point you in the direction of any problem should you have one.

Keith Elliott is a retired builder with interests in Astronomy, Architecture, Japanese Gardening, Photography, Writing, Woodworking and anything else that doesn't move

Keith Elliot
June 23 2009

For a further look at solar power please visit http://www.squidoo.com/cocobolospowerpage

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Keith_Elliott

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