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• Advanced Design Concepts
• Inverters
• Financial Concepts
• Grid Connection Process
• Installation
• Glossary
• Self-Test Q's & A's

Solar Power Basics

 Solar Power is relatively easy to understand.  When you work with Future Sustainability, we work with you to ensure that you understand solar power and the reasons why we only work with premium products - Hyundai solar power panels and Power One Aurora inverters.

Basic Energy Concepts

• AC: Alternating current, most household appliances use 240 Volt Alternating Current
  DC: Direct current produced by solar panels.¹ 

• kilo (k) = 1,000, mega (M) = 1,000,000

• kW: kilowatt, a measure of instantaneous power output kWp: peak kilowatt, a measure of a panels output under standard test conditions. Actual instantaneous output varies depending on panel temperature, solar radiation and atmospheric conditions (i.e. cloudiness and angle of the sun) kWh: kilowatt-hour, a measure of total energy consumption or production over time

  • Solar Power Systems are rated in kWp, their peak output power. However, the electricity company sells kWh.
  • If you run your 1000 W kettle for half an hour, youve used 500 kWh of power.
  • Similarly, if your 1kW solar power system operates at peak efficiency for 2 hours, it will produce 2kWh. Over the course of a typical year a 1kW system may produce 1440 kWh of energy
  • An analogy would be to consider speed and distance, where distance (km) is akin to energy (kWh), and speed (km/h) is akin to power (kW). Another analogy is to volume and flow rate, where volume (litres) is akin to energy (kWh), and flow rate (litres per second) is akin to power (kW). Power is thus a measure of how quickly energy flows.

Solar Energy Classification

• Solar Power converts sunlight (solar radiation) into electricity.
• In contrast, solar hot water converts sunlight (solar radiation) into heat.
• Solar Power is also commonly referred to as Photovoltaic (or PV for short).
• The term “Solar Energy” can refer to solar hot water or to PV. “Solar Power” more explicitly relates to PV, but is often mistakenly used to refer to solar hot water. The term “Solar Electricity” or PV cannot be confused.
• Solar Panels can refer to solar hot water panels or PV panels.
• PV panels cannot be used to heat a solar hot water system² .
• PV panels can create electricity to heat an electric storage hot water unit, but it is more energy efficient and cost effective to heat the water directly with solar hot water panels.

Systems

• Direct Current (DC) electricity is generated by PV panels.
  • Most household appliances use 240 Volt Alternating Current (AC). An inverter converts the DC electricity produced by the PV panels into 240V AC electricity.
  • It is possible to run DC appliances on DC power and thus eliminate the inverter, but batteries are required for reliable operation, and the cost difference between DC appliances and less expensive AC appliances is larger than the cost of an inverter.
• Grid Connect Systems (illustrated above)
  • Solar Power Systems that are connected to the electricity network (grid) are labelled “grid connect”.
  • The solar power system does not need to meet the household’s electricity consumption, because the grid supplies whatever electricity demand that is not met by the solar power system.
  • Batteries are not needed, because the grid acts as a battery in this regard.
  • The inverter synchronises the output AC electricity to the grid frequency. During a blackout, the inverter automatically switches off its output in order to protect any electricity service personnel that may be working on the grid. Because of this, grid connect systems do not provide power during blackouts³ .
• Stand-alone power systems
  • In locations without affordable access to the grid, solar power systems use batteries to supply power when the sun isn’t shining.
  • The costs of such systems is far higher than a grid connect system, and requires that householders actively monitor and control their electricity consumption in order to ensure their batteries don’t die.
  • Caravans and other mobile solar systems can use a solar panel to keep batteries charged.
  • While panels designed for stand-alone power systems can be used in grid connect systems, specifically designed panels are more often used in grid connect applications.