Solar Panel and driveway lights

[brad]

Mate thank you so much, great ideas. At $100 a pop thats only $800. Surely a kit with regulator, inverter, solar array, lights, wiring and headfark would be a lot more?
And power isn't cheap. Our power bill alone is $2,500 a quarter and getting worse.

With that type of bill, it would be worth getting somebody to review where you might be able to save some money - change of lighting systems; switch some systems to off-peak etc.

[Dyldo]

who does the reviews?

[brad]

who does the reviews?

Some of the retailers were offering them a while back IIRC. AGL maybe

huxham? greenproject? Sydney Solar

google something like Home (or household) Energy Audit & you should get some hits. i went for a job about 3 years back - ecosmart?

ring your retailer & ask them what they offer.

[Peter Jones]

A good electrician should be able to offer some suggestions, but try your power supplier first they're increasingly helpful in reducing power consumption.

[Jarred]

if you're paying that much per quarter for energy, i'd seriously look at getting a decent solar set up for the house!

There are systems that are connected to the mains that recharge excess power that you're creating, and get paid for. and if you aren't making enough, you just use power of the mains as per usual. This could save you a fair bit in electricty bills, and (depending on size of the set up) could pay itself off after 5-10 years, then it's 'free' energy.
Sorry if that's a bit jumbled, i havn't gone into detail, but I'm sure you get the jist of it.

Pete Jones is right though, if it's only for lighting a driveway (and 8 lights) a stand alone power system isn't going to be economically viable. Those jay car ones look pretty nifty actually, and 8 of them would be truck loads cheaper than a decent solar set up, imo.

[brad]

If Aussie Solar will come to your area, they can do a basic 1.5kW PV setup for ~$1300. Doesn't help with your driveway lights but it would knock $90 off your bills most months ($25 off the bill & $65 for your gross feed).

[Peter Jones]

It takes some pretty heavy machinery to clock up a $10,000 pa power bill, I'm guessing this is a small farm or something?

[Mr_Bob]

If you opt to setup an isolated system, i wouldn't be going the 240V route unless you have to.
LEDs run off DC,
Solar panels generate DC,
using an inverter to convert to AC then a rectifier to convert back to DC is going to waste 20-30% in each conversion...

i would buy a set of forklift batteries, and use solar panels to charge them.
If you use them to power the LED lights off a light sensor, they should last days without charging, which should help with overcast periods and short days in winter

[Spyda]

I work at Jaycar and we help customers do this kindo stuff all the time. Its easy as p!ss but it wont be cheap.

To keep the cost of the solar panels down you should make use of LEDs. We have LED strips that are super bright and are about $30 for a 50cm strip (non water proof) but you can make the prity water proof using clear heatshrink which we also carry, ask for a demo at your local store, you will be suprized how bright they are. Other than that there are heeps of LED options and a few neon/fluro options too. LEDs will consume the least amount energy.

It all depends on how many lights you want but i cant imagine your drive way needing more than a 120watt solar panel. They are about $500-600, come with 1year warrenty and a 12year limited warrenty IIRC. You will need a charge contorler, you can get a simple one for $30 or a digital one with a read out and memory for $170. All our solar panels are 12v appart from the largest one which is 24v.

On top of that you will need batteries to store the power, our SLAs range from ~2ah up to 100ah in 12v. You can also use a car battery but again it depends on how many lights you have. Keep in mind the charge rate of the solar panel.

We also have wind generators that are about the same price and specs as solar panels but obviously dont require the sun to create charge.

Just pop down to your nearest jaycar store and have a chat with them, they will be more than happy to help you. We have just about everything you need for this project.

[ryana89]

I work at Jaycar and we help customers do this kindo stuff all the time. Its easy as p!ss but it wont be cheap.

I shoulda said this first!
The Jay-car guys in our area are always more than happy to assist customers and give demos!
Great service/knowlege and a massive range. Jaycar FTW