What is a Watt in reference to Solar Panels and Calculating what you need in your solar system?
Mar 11,2020 | Will Wilkerson
When you are talking about electricity coming from solar panels the terminology for a watt and watt hours are thrown around frequently. A watt is explained below as a formula for energy transferred per second, while a watt hour is the accumulation of power over a period of time. If you have a 100W light bulb that runs for one hour it will consume 100Wh.
What is a WATT?
A watt is abbreviated as W and is “the work done at the rate of one joule per second”. So a 100W light bulb is using 100 watts of power at any time it is on, which is calculated as:
Watts = Volts (V) x Amps (A), so you can increase the wattage by either increasing the volts or the amps, or both.
How to Calculate a Solar System for Home's, RV's, etc.
So how does this all compare to what size system you need?
Take the items in your Home, RV, Scooter, whatever it is you are trying to power, and you have a simple equation to figure out what it is you need for energy to power that.
Example:
WHAT IS THE TOTAL WATTS (W) YOUR ELECTRONICS WILL CONSUME? 1 100-WATT LIGHT OR 5
How long are you planning to run the electronics for? 1 hour or 10 hours
Our Charge controller has a 98% efficiency
Average Sun hours per day of the area you live in, which can be found with a simple Google Search.
So, the minimum size system you need of 1 100-watt light bulb running 1 hour a day with 1 hour of power is 100 watt panel running for at least 1 hour of sun charging a battery.
The two factors for what you are buying in this equation is panels and a battery. Our charge controller comes with every kit. The benefit is that our charge controller matches our super capacitor batteries so instead of what you needed before which was a 12v battery or a 24v battery that matched your amp needs.
If you add more lightbulbs or more electronics, then the system needs more panels and more batteries unless you can add hours of sun.