Solar powered sliding gate

[broljo]

I am in the process of installing a solar powered sliding gate in Southern France. I did post another thread concerning the intercom system which is now resolved. Thank you for that advice.

The gate motor draws 450 watts when running and is powered by a 24v battery. It takes a minute to open and the same to close after staying open for 30 seconds. If I take an average figure of say 15 cycles a day that means it runs for 30 minutes in 24 hours.

Using Sunkings excellent calculator from this forum and an insolation figure of 4.3 kwh per day for this area together with a fudge factor of 1.5, I reach figures of needing 76 watts of panel size and a battery size of 47 amp hour ( assuming a 5 day cloudy period).
However the manufacturers of this kit provide you with a 24v ( 2x12v) 20amph battery and a 24v 30w panel which would only give about 6 cycles a day by my calculation.

Would someone be kind enough to check out my figures and the other specifications and advise me if I should change the panel/ battery specs or not? To get the number of cycles I would like, is it as simple as upping the battery and panel size? All advice much appreciated.

[Wy_White_Wolf]

My quick check puts the numbers right at what SK calculator does.

But a couple of 75 to 100 AH marine deep cycles would cost less than a 47 AH battery I'd go with them. Also a couple 50W 12v panels in series would propably be cheaper than trying to find a 24v panel.

This a case I would not hesitate to oversize. While you may figure 15 times a day, I could easily have a family get together would double that with people coming and going.

WWW

[Sunking]

Using Sunkings excellent calculator from this forum and an insolation figure of 4.3 kwh per day

Where did you get this number from? I could be wrong but I do not think France receives that many Sun Hours in December and January. With a battery system you use worse case insolation. 4.3 sounds like a yearly average. I am guessing France is more like 2 or 3 sun hours in December/January.

[broljo]

Where did you get this number from? I could be wrong but I do not think France receives that many Sun Hours in December and January. With a battery system you use worse case insolation. 4.3 sounds like a yearly average. I am guessing France is more like 2 or 3 sun hours in December/January.

Thanks for that SK. You are quite correct in that I could only find a yearly figure (1600 KWH)for this area so I took the average.December/Jan is quite sunny here but can be cold. Normal high pressure winter conditions.