Discussions on solar home installations

last week have been to Simlife Electric Private Ltd (sometime back @varunversion1 share the info and invited to visit)

these guys are into solar installation and ups solutions.

Varun is not around but Arun helped me understanding requirements and cost to charge our Flight off-grid

so this is what i understand from conversation we had

we need 2kW solar panel and 1kW UPS system to charge our flight (as our flight charges at 1kW - on board charger)

i had this question that when solar panel is generating DC power why should we convert this to AC and in turn put it into battery using AC adapter or charger

logic he explained was electricity generated is inconsistent and varies with many factors as it is dependent on sun light being reflected on panel… which had to be regulated to get a consistent output, and 1kW battery help to keep the charge and flow consistency can be achieved by inverter based on our requirement - in our case 220v and 1kW/hr

and the cost

around 90k/kW solar system

meaning we need 1.8lac to charge our flight off the grid - but this can be used for household purpose - this can be a nice investment for people who own houses - again need to consider consumption as the requirement may be higher which will increase the cost

i realized this is not for me at the moment but sure looking forward in future…

this place is awesome - they are into developing custom devises based on needs which i liked the most

finding this is little difficult on map hence included pics - just incase someone wants to visit

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Hi Abhishek,
Just in case you have asked below questions with supplier.
1)What will the maintenance cost incurred annually?
2) Also what is the shelf life of solar panels and does it require periodic cleaning to have better efficiency ?

haven’t enquired about recurring cost…

about the panel itself, in general life will be more than 15-20yrs and yes to achieve better efficiency regular cleaning is required (depends on where u live)
though i didn’t confirm second question have this information before as my uncle’s farm land have solar panels installed… got the info from there some years ago… but it is heavily subsidised by government as it is used for farming appliances

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copying @Abhishek as well

  1. Maintenance cost is almost Zero , however expect these
  • Distilled water cost is around 130â‚ą for 5 ltrs/bi-monthly
  • Battery cost (expect this once in 5 to 7 years)
  1. Shelf Life - 20 Years

  2. Yes, periodic cleaning is required for better efficiency

You are welcome to visit my home to see it yourself :slight_smile:

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Thank you Rajesh for your invitation … Will plan a visit to your house…

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Wow, Is yours apartment? Are you using for your home or Ather alone?

Installed in my house 4 years back and I use it for domestic usage.

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@rajeshkav Can you share your solar setup details ,it may be useful for people to go solar.

abhishek shared has shared contact and pictures

And also you can check https://solarify.in/ I think Ather space has setup from them

I have 1.5KW Solar UPS, 2x150AH C10 batteries, 2x250W Solar panels.

I reside behind IIM, if someone wants to take a look, feel free to visit me.

Should you have specific question, feel free to ask.

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For people looking to invest in a solar-based power system, I would recommend a grid-tied solar solution because it will be cheaper as it does not need a battery and an inverter. We basically offload the power storage headache to the grid. i.e someone else will consume the power generated by you and your meter will be billed on a net basis. No of units you consumed - No of units you generated/supplied to the grid. One drawback of this setup is that it does not serve as a backup power source when the grid is down. If you have power cuts in your area, even though your panels are generating power, it will not be sent to the grid. This is to avoid accidental electrocution of linemen who may have turned off the supply for maintenance.

I have a 500 Wp (250x2) off-grid system charging two batteries (12x2) 24V batteries of 150 AH each via an MPPT solar conversion kit. My existing inverter of 1500 VA has been converted to the solar inverter using the above method. I am able to generate between 1.5 to 2 units of electricity every day using the above setup. Which is less but the initial cost was also not huge. I have ensured to provide a scope to update this up to 1000Wp over time. I spent approximately 35k-36k(22k for panels,5k for the stand,7k for mppt converter+1k for 6 sq mm copper wire+1k misc) on this setup. I did the installation of the system my self. (I would not recommend people installing these systems on their own because solar panels generate enough juice to kill a person if an accident happens and wrong connections may damage your panels or the downstream system. I did it myself because I have an engineering degree in electrical and electronics and I am aware of all the precautions to be taken). Installation costs may have to be applied in case you choose professional installation. This was 4 years ago when grid-tied systems were not as easily available in Bangalore but nowadays they are available online and offline as well.

[https://www.loomsolar.com] is a nice online store for solar power systems.

Additional links if anyone wants further information.

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@rajeshkav have you checked if the ather can be charged via your ups in the morning when solar is available as it’s a 1.5 kV ups with 2 batteries … also can I know the make and model of your inverter used .

I do not charge directly from panel (dc). So question of sunlight or dark does not hold good. I have MRO Teck MPPT inverter.

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Usually, inverters are smartly rated in apparent power (VA) to give a false sense that it can handle higher loads. This is done because the manufacturer does not know what type of load will be connected to the output of the inverter and also helps them as a marketing gimmick. Hence a 1.5KVA is actually capable of delivering somewhere around 1.2 KW real power or true power. If Ather charger consumes 1KW per hour to charge the vehicle, it would take around 3 hours to charge a 2.7KWh battery and consume around 3 units of electricity. 2X250 Wp solar panels can generate 500 watts only at ideal conditions. In reality, you would be able to get 2 units in total (6-8 hours of sunlight) on the best day.
If you do not run any other significant load on your inverter, you may charge your bike using off-grid solar setup but you would still be drawing from the grid for that additional 1 unit. I also read in this forum that Ather chargers are sensitive to fluctuations and stop charging when there is a fluctuation in the power. If the inverter is not pure sine wave inverter or if the switch time from the grid to the battery is more than a few milliseconds, the charger may stop the charging. We need to test this practically and results may vary from one inverter to the other. Since I already have an off-grid system in place. I am planning to request Ather charger installation team to provide me with an electric box near the charger. This box would have two sockets, one will be connected to the lighting line(Inverter) and the other would be the heating line (AEH). With this setup in place, I can choose to run the charger on solar or grid by inserting the charger input plug in the socket of my choice. This way, I can also consider the existing load on the inverter before making this choice. In a worst case scenario, if someone accidentally adds significant load to the inverter while it is charging, the MCB on my inverter would trip cutting the supply. I would have to reduce the load and reset the MCB.
On the side note, a grid-tied solar system would have avoided these hassles implicitly by its design.

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Any one here in the forum who has experience building similar solar systems as below as a hobby .
It would be a boon to have a portable solar charger that can charge the vehicle anywhere .

http://laserhacker.com/?p=611

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I am hearing about some changes in the solar policy for KA? Rumors that net metering is being discontinued… or something along those lines.

Has anyone heard about this?

Has anyone here installed solar panels for a rented house…? If yes and if you don’t mind, could you tell me what were the various aspects you took into consideration.

If no one has here, does anyone have an opinion on feasibility?

As long as your owner is okay to install the panel on roof and run the cable to the inverter, then it should be very much possible. Other than this, everything else is conventional.

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But it would be a stand-alone and not grid-connected… correct? For a grid tie you’d need to change the meter to a bi-directional one.

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True, your understanding is correct. If it is Grid connected, lot more is needed and owner need to be involved heavily with Electricity board in the initial phase. Agree with you that I should have asked this question with Arvind.

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