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I have some leftover solar panels and want to try connecting them straight to a (correctly sized) water heating element -> 50 gal container of water in my garag
by turtlebits 4y ago
I have some leftover solar panels and want to try connecting them straight to a (correctly sized) water heating element -> 50 gal container of water in my garage, and see if I get any meaningful heat in Fall/Winter. That would save the cost of a battery, charge controller and inverter.
If successful, phase 2 would to be to circulate that heat into the house.
Of course it's way less efficient than a solar water heater, but reduces a lot of the complexity/cost and potentially lets me dump excess solar.
- implements 4y agoRecently, people use micro-inverters to convert to AC mains at the panels, and current sensing to detect when their panels are producing more power than the house is consuming - if so, they turn on (1..n) resistive heating elements in their hot water tank to fully utilise the excess. Another thing to ponder is a sand ‘battery’ as a power / heat sink - lower heat capacity than water but doesn’t boil at 100C so can absorb more energy.
- jonatron 4y agoI was thinking about a similar idea. I couldn't find a suitable DC immersion heater to connect directly. An off the shelf on-grid or off-grid inverter wouldn't have made sense either. A massive variac wouldn't be cheap. A purpose built inverter/mppt would be good but I'm not an electrical engineer so I don't know how to make one.
- Dork1234 4y agoThere are a ton of YouTube videos were people have tried the same thing. PV is vastly superior in cost and results compared to traditional Solar Water Heaters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkoesuG72xQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkoesuG72xQ