electricity

Leo,

Thats quite a project that you have planned to do, I hope you have a large home because you're going to need:

A Sun

Several planets to go round the sun

Moons to go round the the planets

An asteroid belt and

An occasional comet

There are quite a few diagrams here to show you how to put them all together

Al

i'm sorry, i mean solar power supply for our small village.

how to build, where to order equipment and materials. and much it will cost.

Thank you very much once again.

regards,

leo

Welcome aboard, Leo, and thanks for the laugh on you!

Looks as if you DID finally get a useful reply, though, and it looks like what you referred to, too. Please come back with questions and an update on progress?

Do you just want to supply just electrical power?

- Which can obviously be generated by other renewable systems, wind & micro hydro for example. If affordable a mix of systems can give a more reliable / constant supply of power.

Hot water can be achieved more efficiently (financially) by direct solar power, but has problems in transportation unless one is dealing with a central building or close housing.

There are cost & efficiency issues depending on the location of the 'generating' plant and the point of use. In some circumstances it is better to have small dispersed dedicated generators rather than a large central unit with the associated distribution.

Storage, whether electrical or heat, is a large part of the project to be considered.

Just a few thoughts to chuck in the mix, I am sure you will get lots of info / help from CR4, good luck.

ps - Al nice to see the British humour & sarcasm is as sharp as ever.

where are you from at first?

then what equipment do you prefer? cell o rheater?

budget? so that we can make a suggestion.

Please visit this web site:bigginhill.co.uk/solar.htm. they have given full instructions about DIY Solar heaters for home.

Hi Leo,

Go Google for solar power or renewable energies. You'll get so many hits you will be reading for days. As CN says it would be better if we knew your location. Depending on the technical and skill levels available to you it may be possible to do quite a lot of the work yourself.

Be careful of salesmen being over zealous with their claims. It is very easy to get sold on extravagant claims. Get references and go to see the installations if possible.

Kind regards

Chas

Rule(s) of thumb I've used for US installations:

100 square feet of photovoltaic modules for every one kilowatt of generating capacity; About $4.00 U.S. for every watt of rated capacity for a given module [example--module rated at 150 watts should retail around $600]; Inverter (to convert DC module output to AC, if needed) - one dollar per watt [example==5000 watt DC to AC inverter retails around $5000]; rooftop mounting system approxi. $2500 for "typical" installation; other boxes, switches, wiring/conduit, etc. approx. $500.

Generally we would charge about $9.50/watt for a turnkey installed photovoltaic system, before rebates [example==5000 watt generating capacity = $47.500--figure about a third off, $14,250, when rebates are collected--this was for Southern California] If you have room a ground-mount system might be easier for a DIY,

Figure about $6500 for a set of batteries if you're off grid.

If solar cells are so expensive then is it possible to generate steam from solar heater and run the steam turbine and connect to alternator. I know there will be energy loss due to conversion but you can DIY solar heater which are very cheap to build.

There are a number of large-scale projects in service and in construction that use mirrors to focus sunlight on a tube to heat either water or mineral oil (or other substances) to drive turbines. Abengoa Solar has a number of these projects. Also, Stirling Energy Systems is developing a system using a mirror to heat a media (air I think) to drive a Stirling cycle engine.

Yes, it is easy for a chimp like myself to get caught up in things--how many people comprise your village and, roughly, where are you located? if you are still monitoring this, what--more or less--do you want to accomplish? These parameters will go far in determining what will best accomplish your goals...