Micro Photovoltaic Arrays Need Planning for Peak Performance: Solar Articles: Eco20/20

Micro Photovoltaic Arrays Need Planning for Peak Performance

Going green requires a lot of planning to meet your needs, especially when hoping to power your home or even part of your home using solar energy. Today's solar panels, those mirror-like panels on roof tops, are built into arrays of photovoltaic cells that convert the sun's energy into electricity, i.e., initially as direct current electricity, which has to be converted into alternating current for use with today's modern appliances.

If you are planning to convert your home to solar power, the first thing you will need to know is how much power you will need. You can spend a lot of time and effort going through each of your electric powered items and adding up the kilowatts required to run each one and then add them up, but chances are you will either forget about one or more of them or get tired of the process shortly after you start. The better way would be to look at your past electric bills.

Most electric companies will provide a monthly usage on the bill, with many allowing you to look at the last year or two to see how much power you have been billed for using. This can give you a fairly accurate measure of your future electric needs. Not forgetting the potential to add more items as time goes on, you will want to add a few kilowatts here and there to make sure your solar system can meet not only your current needs, but also your future electric requirements.

Once you have calculated your needs, you can determine the number of photovoltaic arrays you will need to meet that need based on the expected performance of the selected panels.

Now comes the hard part: determining the right location for the arrays. Remembering you are trying to harness the power of the sun, the arrays will have to have the most exposure to direct sunlight as possible. Your location and how the sun travels across the sky will determine which direction they face. Other factors such as trees or adjacent buildings will also come into play when determining how much sun actually hits the solar panels.

In many systems, the solar panels are connected in series to combine for the most power at the end of the chain, before the power is routed to the power inverter that changes it into usable alternating current. The main issue with this system is that if one panel is shaded, or not functioning up to expectations, the end result will be lower than anticipated.

To get around this, you can use micro-inverters on each individual solar panel and then bring that converted electricity into the house. Even if one panel stops working, or is too shaded to be of any use during the day, the rest will still be functioning to meet your expectations. With the price of micro-inverters falling in recent years, this can be an economical way to achieve a consistent output for your solar energy needs.

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Micro Photovoltaic Arrays Need Planning for Peak Performance

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