Types of contents
1) How Solar DC System Works
2) Types of solar power systems
3) How electricity will be saved
4) How do Solar panels Works
How Solar DC System Works with DC Light,Fan, Panel,TV and Battery
Solar power is a free source of energy. The electricity that you were using for both these work, you can save money on that. To use solar power, you need to install solar power system in your house.
There are Three types of solar power systems –1) DC system,2) On grid and3) Off grid solar system.
How DC System Works
In this post, we will understand how DC system works. DC system is an innovative and environmental-friendly home lighting solar solution.
It is especially designed for areas where there are frequent power cuts or areas where electricity is not at all available. Before understand DC solar system.
What is DC Current
It is very important to understand what is DC or direct current. There are two types of electric current- Alternating current or AC and direct current or DC. An electric power house produces AC.
The supply coming from power station to your house is AC. The appliances at home like TV, fan, light are normally AC. The electricity created by sun and the power stored in battery is DC.
How to install DC power System
You will be surprised to find out that if you install DC power system rather than the AC power used in your house, then you can save around 70% on electricity as compared to AC.
Not only this but if you run DC appliances from the battery that you were using to run the AC appliances in your house, then youwill get three times more backup from the battery. You don’t believe it? But this is true.
Advantages
To know the benefits of using DC power and disadvantages of using AC power, we willhave to understand the waveform.
AC Current
As we saw, AC means alternating current which means currentand voltage keeps changing directions. So the waveform of AC supply in one cycle willalternate from positive to negative.
DC means direct current which means current and voltage gear flowing in the same direction.
Waveform of DC System
The waveform of DC supply never flows in the negative direction which means that DC supply has minimum loses so that DC appliances consume less power ascompared to AC appliances.
Formula for Current Consumption
For example. let’s assume that we want to compare a 54 inchesD fan and a 54 inch AC fan. To calculate the power consumption of both these appliances,there is a simple formula P=VxI.
If we want to calculate the consumption of DC fan, sowe will put V as 12V in the formula because we are getting 12V DC from the battery andD fan consumes around 2.08 A current. So according to the formula,P=12X2.08=25W.
Power Consumption of AC Fan
Now if we calculate the power consumption of AC fan, we will put the value of V as 220Vbecause we are getting 220V from mains and AC fan consumes around 0.36A current from mains.
Then according to the formula, P=220X0.36 = 80W. From this example, you can see thata 54 inch DC fan consumes 25W power whereas a 54 inch AC fan consumes 80W power whichshows that if we use DC appliances, we can save 70% more on power and since power consumption is less, then backup time will increase.
Power Consumption
Due to 70% less power consumption, we get threetimes more backup and helps in saving on your monthly electricity bill. Now we will understandanother benefit that comes out of running DC appliances on DC supply.
Let’s assume thatyou have a normal inverter at house which converts the AC supply coming from mains toDC supply and charges batteries and after that converts the DC supply stored in thebattery to AC to run load.
Energy of AC and DC Current
There is some energy loss in this AC to DC and DC to AC conversion because whenever one energy form is converted into another energy form, there is energyloss in the form of heat or switching loss.
inverter consumes extra power
Therefore the load connected to the inverter consumes extra power. But these loses are not present in a DC system because in thissystem, there is no form of energy conversion like AC to DC or DC to AC.
Batteries with DC Power
This system charges the batteries with DC power only and runs the load also on DC power so that a DC systemis way more efficient than a normal system.
You must have understood the benefits of usingDC power. To install a DC system at home,you need solar panels, batteries and DC load. DC system uses the power coming from solarpanels and intelligently charges batteries and runs DC load.
DC System Formula
This DC system is available in 800VA/12V. You can run three DC fans, one DC LED TV and three or four DC LED lights with this. As we told earlier, all these appliances are DC. Hence their power consumption is veryless as compared to AC appliances.
Solar Batteries
If ever the power received from solar is not enough to charge the battery, then you can easily charge the batteries connected to your systemvia mains. Apart from this, there are two charge controllers in DC system that are inbuilt.12V/10amp MPPT solar charge controller.
This one controls the uncontrolled power from solar panel and efficiently charges the battery.
Solar Panels
Second one is 12V/10amp grid charger which the battery from mains supply. But mains connectivity with the system happens only then , when the battery connected with the system and the current coming from solarpanel goes below a preset limit.
Utilisation of Power
Due to this feature, mains supply is minimally utilizedand results in maximum savings. Let us understand this concept in detail. Let us assume thatwe have connected the DC system to 12V/120AH battery and 120 W solar panels as well.
This 12V battery’s boost voltage will be 14.4V which means thatat 14.4V, battery will get fully charged. For 120 AH battery to charge, it requiresaround 10 amp current. DC system draws 10 amp from solar to completely charge the batterybut if the current coming from solar is 4 amp or less.
Battery Voltage
The battery voltage goes below 12,5, then DC system will get connected to mains and the batteries will get charged frommains. As the solar power becomes available again, then DC system will charge batteriesfrom solar.
You can check different parameters of the system on LCD screen like Rupees Savings,Battery Voltage, Solar Voltage and Current, Solar Charge Controller On/Off, Grid ChargerOn/Off, MPPT Equalization On.
LCD Power Consumption
Apart from this, the LED indications lights provided below LCD display glow in various conditions.
First indication is when the battery is getting charged from mains, then mains charging on LED will glow in green colour and after thatwhen the battery charges from solar, then solar charging on LED will blink in greenand when battery will be fully charged from solar, then solar on LED will continuously glow.
LCD Working Principal
When the battery connected to the system discharges and goes in low condition, thenthe third LED will continuously glow in red colour. Apart from this, there is a mobile charge port as well in the DC system through which you can charge your mobile phone bysolar power with the help of a USB cable.
Now we will understand some important protectionfeatures in DC system. There are two fuses provided in DC system for protection – ACfuse and DC fuse. First we will understand AC fuse.
In DC system, there is an AC fuseof 6.5 amp provided at the side panel of the system. If the input current coming from mainsis more than 6.5 amp, then AC fuse will blow and keeps the system protected.
On the otherside panel of the system, a 30 amp DC fuse is provided. If for some reason, there isa reverse connection with the DC system, then DC fuse will blow and will keep the systemprotected.
How do Solar panels Works
How does a solar panel get energy from thesun and then how do we convert that then to useable energy?
Yep. yep yep yep. As the sun comes out for us. Exactly. Fun fact is that the sun, uh, will produceenough energy for the entire world 10,000 times over, per day. Wow.
So the amount of sun energy that’s landingon the earth is enough to run the whole world 10,000 times. Wow.
And so, what solar panels are doing, is theyare capturing a small portion of that energy. So they are taking photons from the sun, uh,exciting the cells.
So, your cells, you have four 60-cell panels. Each one of those cells is taking that photonand creating a circuit of electrons. Um, and that power is DC power – direct currentpower.
That DC power you’d find in batteries, you’dfind in motors, um, but what we’ve done, we have two strings of uh panels.
Plugged into a charge controllerwhich is effectively just a controller to set the voltage right for the batteries thatyou have. And the batteries you have are lithium ionphosphate batteries.
Which, really interesting, uh, I believe itwas the nobel peace prize which was given to the people who invented lithium ion. Because it’s so ubiquitous now in our world,with uh, cell phones, with cars, all have lithium ion batteries, and now we’re gettingthem into people’s homes.
Conclusion
Right. So, it’s getting quite to be everywhere. So it goes from solar panels, DC power tothe batteries, DC power, and then whenever there’s a load on in your house – like ifyou’re running your fridge, if you’re running your stove, turning on your lights, then there’sa unit, an inverter.
It’s taking DC power and turning it into AC power, for running a regular 120, 240 volt circuit, um that you would see regularly inmost people’s houses. Right on.