Solar panels to power a mini refrigerator?
Question:
Any examples, or info from people using solar pannels and converting the watts into volts, or any application of solar pannels to power anything. Would be greatly appreciated.
What are the variables to look for in determining how many watts I will need?
Please don't take the following wrong, I don't mean to insult but may sound that way.
You are a long way away from planing it on your own. You really really need to do a lot of reading first or call a solar dealer and start asking questions.
The question is a great one to show a solar dealer where he needs to start with you. They way you ask your question would take a 500 page book to attempt explain.
My questions to you are:
What brand of mini frige so I can look it up on the net and get the amps and watts. Or you need to provide this information.
How many hours a day do you think the compressor will be running in the unit? This depends on how hot or cold it is where you put the unit.
What are the watt-hours of the unit? How many watts will the unit be using for how many hours?
How many days do you want to be able to run the unit from battery power if the sun don't come out? Or hours?
Will you be willing to use an MPPT charge controller? Not using an MPPT charge controller will require you to add 1/3 more solar modules because reglar controllers do not down convert which means you waste as much as 30% of your power.
With batteries you have a minium recharging loss of about 15%.
You have voltage loss in wires that are too small.
So you need to read up a little or just find someone who can ask you the right questions and you have to provide the answers.
watts divided by amps = volts
watts divided by volts = amps
volts times amps = watts
watts times hours = watt hours
We had a mini fridge 1.5 amps
1.5 amps x 120 vac = 180 watts
It ran in 15 minute cycles for 4 minutes totally 16 minutes per hour.
16 minutes x 24 hours = 384 / 60 minutes = 6.4 hours per day
6.4 x 180 watts = 1152 watts per day
The average is about 1200 watts per day.
Cycle times will vary depending on ambient temperature.
You would need a solar array of producing 300 watts for 4 hours per day to get 1200 watts to run the mini fridge. This is not including the charge controller, inverter, cables, battery backup (depends on the amp hour rating).
For DC applications it is the power of 10 so 120 vac= 12 vdc.
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