Flood Lit Assisted Solar Panels

[ebow72]

Hello there, I am currently in my last year at college now (C&G 2330 / 2357 ) and we have been doing bits on 'Green Energy', Solar PV in particular has definitely got my attention. I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on a couple of questions I have.

First of all, I know South Facing is the best place to have them installed, but can you install them on in any facing position? I understand there is less light and so on? Obviously lots of properties don't have a south facing roof?

And my next question is also an idea, which will probably be stupid, but here we go anyway...

Solar can be powered by artificial light, that much I do know. If there was something like 4 x 125w floods on a roof to simulate light after the sun has gone down, would this be a possibility? Or would it use more than it generated, if the lights was powered from a battery, which had been charged by the solar panel.
Obviously, you would be restricted to how long you could have the flood lights on, say from sundown to 11pm.
What with the FIT being chopped in half, another carrot might be a way forward.
I haven't done any calcs yet to see how much energy would be used to simulate the light as I don't know if 4 is enough.
It's just an idea I've had and it's probably a load of rubbish, but if someone is kind enough to satisfy my curiosity that would be great...

Thanks for now...

 

[zeljuga]

Perpetum mobile !!! People are searching for newer stooping engine for ages.
No luck mate .
Find solution for above and you are rich man.

 

[TedM]

SE or SW facing panels compared to S facing are of the order of 5% worse - not a huge difference.

Panel efficiencies are around 15% - so you would be losing a massive amount if you tried to power them with floodlights. But this does depend on the wavelength of the light. It might be possible to get better than that figure if you could optimise the light wavelength.

 

[Cider]

Good idea in principal but the FIT has been set upon a maximum yield based on xy & Z (ofcourse it could be ok if you lived near a five aside pitch)
I think you would be moving the goal posts and probably get hassle from the neighbours!

I think storing the leky and using it for running appliances or a seperate light circuit woud be better

 

[Dmeltd]

If it was possible rest assured people would have developed it and they would currently sipping crystal Rose from their beach combo in Malibu!

 

[MrBod]

I know that perpetual motion is a no-no, but at 15% efficiency and FIT being 43.3p and deemed export of 1.5p this could be feasible if you could power the lights for less than 6.7p /kWh.

 

[Earthstore]

How does a Bumble Bee Fly ?

 

[TedM]

If you have power stored in batteries from the day then why use it to power lights to create less power from PV which you then use to .... do what with?

You might just as well use the stored power from the batteries directly and cut out the lights and PV.

Unless the sole purpose is to drive the pv meter and defraud the FiTs scheme - in which case it would just be more 'efficient' to use mains powered lights in the first place.

 

[solarsparkie]

well its just about possible 4.5p plus vat at 5% ( cost 4.725p kwh )is cheapest off peak rate 43.3 p from generation and you get half back for export 1.65p = 44.95 so anything better than 9.51% losses start to finish would be profit so best panel 18% recovered best inverter 5 % loss i think you should do better than break even on extra generation even with cost of replacement bulbs

If you have power stored in batteries from the day then why use it to power lights to create less power from PV which you then use to .... do what with?

You might just as well use the stored power from the batteries directly and cut out the lights and PV.

Unless the sole purpose is to drive the pv meter and defraud the FiTs scheme - in which case it would just be more 'efficient' to use mains powered lights in the first place.

 

[whlphil]

Panel STC is 1000w/m2 you would need a lot of lights to achieve that!

 

[bumcrack]

Your FIT supplier might be wondering why your 1 kw registered install is gaining 1300 kwh/y

 

[Marvo]

You might just as well use the stored power from the batteries directly and cut out the lights and PV.

Unless the sole purpose is to drive the pv meter and defraud the FiTs scheme - in which case it would just be more 'efficient' to use mains powered lights in the first place.

Why use floodlights can't you cut out the middleman and just use battery chargers and a large battery bank. Charge the batteries directly during the cheapest power period and then export back into grid via the inverter and claim your subsidy.

Does the FIT scheme specifically forbid this arrangement?

 

[TedM]

Maybe time-shifting generation will make sense in the future when domestic SmartMeters are fully deployed with variable tariffs based on time of day. But for now if you are going to export to the grid then just do it without the batteries.

Everything you add to the simplest possible system reduces the efficiency.

 

[markfxy]

Its been done before in Spain THE FUTURE OF SOLAR IS DIESEL | Daily Telegraph Tim Blair Blog

 

[Rajeev]

Hi Guys,

Another thought, how about storing say 50% of the DC power generated from the PV Panels during the day in a battery or Super Capacitors connected in parallel to PV panels (with a charger circuitery) and then feed it back to the PV inveterter when the power is required (say in the evening).

But I am not sure the FIT scheme will allow this as there is a potential for users to feed the main electricity to battery and claim FIT!

regards,
Rajeev

 

[TedM]

Its been done before in Spain THE FUTURE OF SOLAR IS DIESEL | Daily Telegraph Tim Blair Blog

If you read that through you will see that they weren't shining lights on solar panels to generate power. They simply hooked diesel generators up and passed the power through the pv meters. Simple fraud.

 

[ebow72]

Thanks so far guys for the input, it was one of those idea's that you have when you're on the 3rd pint.
Hopefully,one day on of my ideas, will make sense...
Cheers
Ian

 

[UKMeterman]

Hi,
There are a lot of ways that the fraud could be committed, I wrote my MSc dissertation on meter fraud associated with the Feed In Tariff.

Uk Meterman.

 

[whlphil]

Hi,
There are a lot of ways that the fraud could be committed, I wrote my MSc dissertation on meter fraud associated with the Feed In Tariff.

Uk Meterman.

Tell us more :tounge_smile:

 

[UKMeterman]

I could tell you how to do it but I suspect I would not be very popular! If there are any meter manufactures or similar who would be interested in commercial developing my ideas let me know..

UkMeterman