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What's Needed For Decorative Streetlamp

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  • What's Needed For Decorative Streetlamp

    I am looking into converting a large decorative street lamp in front of my house to solar. It is one of those with the 12 inch white globes on top. It has 5 lights and I currently use 14 watt cfl bulbs in each. I would like to keep the bulbs the same, unless there is a large benifit in using led. I would like to run this dusk to dawn. Since i know very little about solar, I would like to know what kind of solar panel i would need, how large, what kind of battery or batteries, inverters, etc... Basically everything you always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask. I have basic household wiring skills but dont know much about converting DC to AC. Any help is appreciated!

  • #2
    winter, dusk to dawn = 13 hours 5*14=70watts * 13 hrs = 910watt hours. That's about 20 cents a night in winter, maybe 15 cents a night summer. $73 a year worst case utility bill.

    a "12v marine battery @ 85ah has a total of 696wh, only half of which are useable. So now, just the battery is at least two 6V 200ah golf cart batteries. Figure about $300 for that, replace them every 2-3 years

    Can you tolerate the lamp being OFF if you have a couple cloudy days that provide no solar charge ? If so, you can use a smaller PV panel array. The 200ah battery would like to see a 20A charge rate at 12V, so that's 240 watts delivered. Most panels only reliably produce 80% of nameplate, so you need at least 300w of PV panels. There's another $350, plus mounting pole and hardware maybe $250 ? And another $200 for a MPPT charge controller, and misc fuses, terminals and cables.

    I'd just stick with the grid. Maybe replace the CFL's with LED lights, might take the wattage down to 10W each. But LED bulbs in a sealed housing with no cooling air may fail sooner than the CFL mercury bombs.
    Powerfab top of pole PV mount (2) | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
    || Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
    || VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A

    solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
    gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Mike90250 View Post
      winter, dusk to dawn = 13 hours 5*14=70watts * 13 hrs = 910watt hours. That's about 20 cents a night in winter, maybe 15 cents a night summer. $73 a year worst case utility bill.

      a "12v marine battery @ 85ah has a total of 696wh, only half of which are useable. So now, just the battery is at least two 6V 200ah golf cart batteries. Figure about $300 for that, replace them every 2-3 years

      Can you tolerate the lamp being OFF if you have a couple cloudy days that provide no solar charge ? If so, you can use a smaller PV panel array. The 200ah battery would like to see a 20A charge rate at 12V, so that's 240 watts delivered. Most panels only reliably produce 80% of nameplate, so you need at least 300w of PV panels. There's another $350, plus mounting pole and hardware maybe $250 ? And another $200 for a MPPT charge controller, and misc fuses, terminals and cables.

      I'd just stick with the grid. Maybe replace the CFL's with LED lights, might take the wattage down to 10W each. But LED bulbs in a sealed housing with no cooling air may fail sooner than the CFL mercury bombs.
      Wow! That is a lot more expensive than I ever thought in my worst nightmare. I can see why solar is not more common. Thanks a lot for the info. Very detailed. I guess that I will stick with the grid unless prices go down.

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