DAY 31: SOLAR ENERGY; LIGHT LOADS VS HEAVY LOADS

Day 31 of #100daysofsolarnuggets

SAMPLE TABLE

S/N	Item	Power Rating (Watts)	Quantity	Hrs/day	Total power required (Watt-hours/day)
	LIGHT LOADS
1	Ceiling fan	15	4	6	360
2	Light bulbs (energy saving)	18	5	4	360
3	Laptop	30	3	3	270
4	Television set	65	2	3	390
	TOTAL				1380
	HEAVY LOADS
5	Air conditioning Unit	1000	3		3000
6	Washing Machine	1450	1		1450
7	Refrigerator/freezer	450	1		450

LIGHT LOADS VS HEAVY LOADS..

Light loads

This loads have low power rating, examples of light loads include energy saving light bulbs, ceiling fans with power rating between (10watts – 75 watts), our laptop chargers and our phone charger are also light loads.

Light loads can be conveniently used on our solar energy system because they do not consume so much power.

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 It’s a lot cheaper to design and implement a solar energy system in your home/office to provide sufficient power to  the light loads.

Heavy loads

This are devices that have high starting current (Inrush current) and also high power rating. They have this small electrical motors inside them, they use it to perform heavy tasks like Air conditioning, refrigerating our foods and many more.

There are some appliances on our homes, the moment we power them (put them on) we notice the light bulbs quickly dimmer, then become bright again.

                                           “                         PRACTICAL SESSION                           “

                                  In our homes, let’s switch on our Freezers, while doing that,

       Take a look at the light bulbs (Not too directly though as this would be harmful to the eye).

                                  You would notice that, the moment you switched on your freezer,

                     The light dimmed a bit, then quickly normalized to its previous state.  

                                   Same thing occurs when you switch on your food blenders.

            (In fact the dimming of the light is much more visible when you switch on your blenders)

                           

Appliances that are considered heavy loads are Air conditioning units (A.C), Micro wave, Blender, Fridges and deep freezers, washing machines and the likes.         

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It’s a lot more expensive to design and implement a solar energy system in your home/office, to provide sufficient power for the heavy loads.

         For this home, with the sample data that we have obtained, we would be designing and implementing a solar system that would meet the power needs of  the light loads only

For our light loads we have 1380watt-hours/day

     Let’s remember this value, it would be very important in our next nugget.

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DAY 30: SOLAR ENERGY SYSTEM; LOAD SIZING

Day 30 of #100daysofsolarNuggets

LOAD SIZING

The first thing to do in designing a solar power system is to determine the load of the system (power consumption of the system). This can be gotten by getting the power ratings of individual appliances/devices that would be connected to the system.

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LOAD

What do we mean by load?

In solar Energy system, whenever we use the word load we are referring to the amount of electrical power that would be used by the devices/appliances connected to the system. House hold appliances like fans. Light bulbs, TV, Refrigerator and the likes are referred to as load.

IMPORTANT.

You would need to create a table with the list of all the appliances being used and their respective power ratings.

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 Sample table

S/N	Item	Power Rating (Watts)	Quantity	Hrs/day	Total power consumption(Watt-hours/day)
	LIGHT LOADS
1	Ceiling fan	15	4	6	360
2	Light bulbs (energy saving)	18	5	4	360
3	Laptop	30	3	3	270
4	Television set	65	2	3	390
	TOTAL				1380
	HEAVY LOADS
5	Air conditioning Unit	1000	3		3000
6	Washing Machine	1450	1		1450
7	Refrigerator/freezer	450	1		450
8	Water heater	1500	1		1500
9	Pressing Iron	1200	1		1200
10	Micro Wave	1200	1		1200
	TOTAL

*Please note; the values in the table above may vary from actual appliance found in one’s home/office.

Above is a sample table of appliances (load) that would be connected to a particular system, their respective power ratings, hours of use and the total power consumption for a given day (Measured in watt-hours).

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Power Rating (Watts)

This the amount of electrical power in watts (W) required by a device, It is determined by the manufacturer and is usually written in the manual of the device/appliance or on the body of the device/appliance.

Once you have created this table, you would have a general idea of your overall energy needs and this information is needed to accurately plan the next phase.

Day 30 of #100daysofsolarNuggets