I have panels, now what?????

[Andrew18]

I have 5 panels now what?
I picked up 6 cells from a friend a while back. I put one to work on my 24 foot camper. The remaining 5 are just sitting in the shop collecting dust. So what can I do with them? How much could I save by hooking them up?

Mage Solar cell 60"x33"
Mage Powertec Plus 185/5mh
Max Power, 185 WP
Volt, 36V
Current 5.14
-Andrew

[Naptown]

How did the trip work out with the one panel?
You could do a small grid tie on your house with them.

[Andrew18]

It went great. The one cell kept everything at 80% for 9 days. I was using a 1000 watt power inverter for my hot glue gun, soldering iron, a lap top and my video camera chargers. (not all at the same time) On the 12 volt side I was running the lights and waterpump plus a 400 watt battery charger.
A grid tie. Ok, I will look into that.
-Andrew

How did the trip work out with the one panel?
You could do a small grid tie on your house with them.

[MAGESOLAR]

Dust them off and let the sun shine save some green!

Happy to hear that you are ready to dust off your MAGE modules and put them to use!
This means that you will instantly begin to get a return on electricity savings and save money.
In MD there are incentives for grid-tie systems that make it very attractive to install solar panels and reap the benefits (please refer to www.dsireusa.org for exact details on your area/utility).

Here's just a little calculation on what you can expect from modules:

Example with 5 panels at 185 watts each, = 925 watts.
Multiply this by the number of “sun-hours” in MD (4.5) per day and it equals 4162.5 or approximately 4.2 kilowatt hours per day (direct current/ DC) that can be generated from these panels.
Based on this, in one year you can average 1,533 kilowatt hours. If the price of a kilowatt hour is .12 cents, this equals $184. Add to this the incentive from SRECS at the current price of $200 each and the grand total for one year can be around $485 per year from those panels. When installed properly the panels are guaranteed to deliver most of their
power output (80%) for 30 years.

Additionally to saving you money, you will reduce your carbon footprint, help create jobs and reduce our dependency on foreign oil coming from some dangerous places in the world.

I have 5 panels now what?
I picked up 6 cells from a friend a while back. I put one to work on my 24 foot camper. The remaining 5 are just sitting in the shop collecting dust. So what can I do with them? How much could I save by hooking them up?

Mage Solar cell 60"x33"
Mage Powertec Plus 185/5mh
Max Power, 185 WP
Volt, 36V
Current 5.14
-Andrew

[russ]

Magesolar is being a bit of a ??? - mixing DC output and annual AC kWh - gotta love salesmen! Only a 25% difference.

For Baltimore, MD the annual average insolation (sun hours in salesman's talk) is 4.66 kW/m2/day - the high in June is 5.70 and the low in December is 2.85.

Considering PV Watts derating of 77% the annual output should be approximately 1228 kWh for the 925 DC watts of panels.

[Andrew18]

Cool. Thanks

Ok cool. Thanks guys. I have been away with work, kids, family and flying. Summer is a busy time for us.

I will look into the grid tie set up. It sounds like the best way to put them to use.
-Andrew

[PNjunction]

You could also provide a charging station for your R/C buddies at the airfield!

I've seen a setup like that before where somebody set up a bunch of dc outlets, inverters and whatnot to accomodate multiple users with everything from cell-phone stations to high-current charging with multiple connectors etc. Of course you'd be on the hook if devices started to burn up for whatever reason.

[Andrew18]

Cool Idea.

I did think of that. The only problem is I don't think they will stay put. A lot of the flying fields are out in the middle of no where.
-Andrew

You could also provide a charging station for your R/C buddies at the airfield!

I've seen a setup like that before where somebody set up a bunch of dc outlets, inverters and whatnot to accomodate multiple users with everything from cell-phone stations to high-current charging with multiple connectors etc. Of course you'd be on the hook if devices started to burn up for whatever reason.

[inetdog]

I did think of that. The only problem is I don't think they will stay put. A lot of the flying fields are out in the middle of no where.
-Andrew

It would have to be portable (or at least transportable). It might or might not make sense compared to just carrying out some charged batteries. But it would be a good introduction to solar for some people and an opportunity to start them off with non-sales-driven information.

[Andrew18]

I have had a few local clubs ask about them. Most of them want me to donate the panels. One guy had the *^@$ to say he would take all of them. But he assured me that they would be put to good use. Yea, ok.
-Andrew