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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Alternative inventory:Solar
  • Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:13:56 EDT



> I get confused when words like
> resistance and amperage get thrown around.

Bev, here's the crash course:

voltage is the measure of electrical force (potential)
amperage is the measure of electrical flow (quantity)
wattage is the measure of electrical power

wattage = voltage x amperage

A 100 watt lightbulb connected to 100v (rounded down to simplify) AC house
current is using 1 amp of current.

100 watts = 100 volts x 1 amp

Resistance is the 'load' on the circuit, it takes the "pressure", the
potential, of one volt to make one amp flow through one ohm of resistance.

So our above lightbulb has a resistance of 100 ohms.

100 ohms = 100 volts / 1 amp

This is germane to the alternate energy discussion in that we are most often
generating our laternate energy at a low voltage, 6, 12, or 24 volts DC and
most of the devices we want to power require 120 volts AC. A lot of things
happen when we try to store, convert, and transport electrical energy. For
example, if you have a device that requires 120 v AC and it requires a
continuous
draw of 3 amps and if your alternate source generates 12 v DC, let's ignore
losses for the moment and thus the power is constant.

Power (of the source ) = 12 v X some amps.
Power (of the device ) = 120 v X 3 amps.

So:

12 v X some amps = 120 v X 3 amps

some amps = (120 x 3)/12

some amps = 30 amps

You'd need a source capable of delivering 30 amps ( a lot!).

When you convert from DC to AC (or vs versa) you lose some of your power.
Transmission lines and cords have their own resistance (load) and so they use
up some power. Line will lose power as the resistance goes up and the
voltage
goes down, this means that a given wire will lose a greater percent of its
power delivering 30 amps @ 12 v than it would delivering 3 amps @ 120 v.
The
line losses for DC are greater than for AC.

This means, for example, that in the field running a line from your truck
battery to your astronomy site to an inverter will lose a much greater
percent
of the available power from the battery than inverting the power at the
battery
and running the resulting AC at a higher voltage to the site.

----------------------------------------

Like all other analyses, such as we've suggested for canning, just a little
math helps put things in persepctive. Can you save money (or power)
recharging, say AA NiMH batteries with a solar charger? A full charge is
typically
2200 milli-Amp-hours at 1.25 volts. But if we are charging from house
current,
it is 120 v (roughly 100 times the voltage). So our above formula tells us
that it will take 1/100th of the current for a full charge (ignoring losses
for
the moment), or 2.2 thousandth's of an amp for an hour, that is, about a
quarter of an watt-hour. (.0022 amp x 120 v). If electricity costs 10
cents kWh,
you charge that battery for about 1/400th of a cent.

If you are living completely off the grid or far afield from your power
source, charging your batteries vs not charging them is a big thing. But if
you
are already on the grid, the use of solar to charge small batteries is
meaningless except for an amusement.

On the other hand, doing the same analysis for, say, an electric dish washer
shows that doing dishes by hand saves a huge amount of resources (running the
washer, heating the water, using more water) etc.

Refraining from using is an absoulute trump in the alternate energy game.




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