Solar system: Setting up components

A lot of planning goes into a solar system.  I am very fortunate to have Husband who loves to tackle technical problems and who has spent many hours learning and planning our system with the help of the internet, YouTube and the good people at Northern AZ Wind and Sun!  As I mentioned in previous post we have been collecting all of our components over the past many weeks and are due to make our final trip to Flagstaff, AZ in the near future to obtain the final components which include the pole upon which the solar array will be mounted and the frame which will hold the panels and mount to the pole.  

However there are many small steps towards this large goal of having a self-sufficient home and figuring out how to organize and mount all of the components requires a good deal of work.  The batteries are the heaviest and most bulky component.  Batteries will store the energy from the solar panels so that we have electricity overnight and on cloudy days.  We ended up using Costco golf cart batteries.  They are very inexpensive and should last 5-7 years.  They are lead acid batteries so you have to check the fluid levels and keep them filled.  So, after figuring out where the batteries will be placed...

 

...we started to devise a system for mounting the components.  The largest and heaviest part is the inverter which weighs a whopping 42 pounds! An inverter is necessary because it inverts DC power (from batteries) to AC (standard plugs/outlets in the home). This inverter is a 3000 watt inverter that can be used as a charger (can charge batteries from a generator) as well.  This is a good feature in case we have a long streak of cloudy days.  

Wanting to utilize materials we have laying around, we decided to use scrap steel as the background for the components.  Pieces of wood and plywood will be bolted to the steel to create a sturdy area for everything to connect to.  Here is an early visualization of how things would be laid out on the surface.

And here are the steel pieces with wood for mounting the inverter, mounted to the back end wall (above the batteries -  though due to the weight of the inverter, it is recommended that it not be placed directly over the batteries).  

Next we mounted the inverter.

The next largest component is the charge controller.  The function of this machine is to take in the DC power from the panels (which is changing depending on the intensity of the sun) and adjust the power going into the batteries so that they receive consistent power and so that all batteries in the bank remain equalized in terms of how full they are.   I am sure there is much more to this - I am giving you my limited understanding of how this works!  

The charge controller is placed between the combiner box (which combines the power from all of the panels) and sends that energy to the batteries.  The combiner box is a component that mounts outside and receives the cords running from the solar panels.  The combiner box also has access to the inside to send the energy to the charge controller.  

These preliminary steps were taken prior to setting up the solar array (by mid July).  In my next post I will detail the process of setting up the array and connecting them to the combiner box and the rest of the components inside the garage.  Because we have been working every day I have not been able to write up our progress!  I am going to try to bring you up to date....