How to buy a solar generator? This has been one of the prime questions that hit my mind.
Ages ago, I was about to purchase the best solar generator. It proved to be a tough job with lots of options available. The price of these varies with size, batteries capacity, solar panel, and many.
It just froze my mind and I came back emptied hand.
If this has been the case with you too, then this article will help you in selecting a good sun generator.
Steps To Buy Best Solar Generator
As technology continues to advance, the demand for clean and renewable sources like solar energy is increasing day by day. It is one of the most reliable sources of energy and also protects our environment from greenhouse gases.
Deciding to purchase a solar generator is a noble cause. However, it is never a walk in the park.
What you want to purchase depends upon your budget, power consumption, size, and many more.
Before that see the first thing first.
What Is A Solar Generator?
A Solar generator is a power source that uses solar energy to produce electricity. It can come into various forms including a power station system, portable solar box, street light, and many more. They are used to supply power to power grids or other machines.
They also come in small portable sizes to use it anywhere.
Sun generator can’t deliver power continuously and hence required batteries to supply energy.
The generators are made up of solar panels, battery chargers, solar batteries, and charge inverter.
The Function of these components is as below:-
1. Solar Panel – It is responsible for direct energy conversion. The sun rays fall on solar panels which excites electrons in it. These electrons are responsible for electricity.
2. Battery Charger – The energy produced by solar panel is processed by a battery charger.
3. Solar Batteries – Battery charger processed the energy and transfers it to solar batteries. These batteries utilize this electricity to charge.
4. Charger Inverter – The electricity stored in batteries is in DC (Direct Current) form. It needs to convert into AC (Alternating Current) before using it.
This is the basic principle behind the working of Solar Generator.
How Does Using Solar Power Affect The Environment?
There are lots of positive effects of using solar energy over fossil fuels. Some of them are as below: –
1. Using Less Water – Traditionally electricity production requires thousands of liters of water each year. This put a lot of pressure on our ecology. But with solar energy, this is not the case. Solar power doesn’t require water at all for electricity production. A small amount of rainwater is sufficient just to clean the solar panel.
2. Decreases Air Pollution – Air Quality Index decreases day by day. This is primarily due to the use of fossil fuels. We heavily depend on fossil fuel for our energy production that causes a lot of health-related problems. The use of solar power means we will emit less hazardous gases in the environment.
3. Reducing our reliance on Fossil Fuel – Fossil fuels are non-renewable source of energy. This means they will be exhausted once. While on the other hand sunlight is never to be exhausted. Replacing our need for renewable sources like – solar means less pollution, lower energy cost, less health problems, etc.
4. Decreasing Household Carbon Footprint – Sun energy is one of the cleanest sources of energy. They don’t produce any harmful gases and do not require water, the best part, it’s free. Switching to sun energy results in lesser production of carbon dioxide for your house.
5. Slow Climate Change – Global warming is increasing day by day. The main responsible for this are greenhouse gases like – methane, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and many more. These gases are released due to the burning of fossil fuel. If we all could reduce our dependency on fossil fuel, global warming will be reduced to a great extent.
Sun Energy has a wide range of benefits to our environment. From reducing greenhouse gases, improving air quality index, and conserving our precious water resources, it can do it all.
It has also lowered our energy prices.
Buy Best Solar Power Generator In 5 Steps
A few years back, I made up my mind to purchase a solar power generator.
I did some research to find a generator that could fulfill my requirement. This research confused more.
Why?
There are lots of variations of the generator with varying prices, sizes, and more. All these generators come with their own USP, power applications, different types of solar panels, power efficiency, weight, etc.
Here, I will help you in selecting the best solar generator with step by step guide.
1. Type Of Solar Generator
Broadly there are 2 types of solar generators. The one for your home, offices, factories, and other one is a portable solar generator.
The one used in your home is bulky, heavier, and can produce more electricity. While portable generators are small and produce less power. They can be used in trekking, camping, and other such places.
You need to fix why you need to buy a solar generator.
This is the first step towards choosing a generator.
2. Power Requirement
The next step is to check your power requirements.
Before buying a generator, keep in the mind the approx. the power you will be needed. For a home, this could be your refrigerators, microwave, water heater, light, fans, etc.
But for a portable generator how many lights do you need? Do you need to charge your mobile or laptop, etc?
Remember more the power, bulkier will be the generator.
If I am to purchase a generator for my home, I would think of using 3 – 10 lights, with a fan and a television set. These were the ideal case for me.
Similarly, for a portable generator, I would consider using 1 – 2 light and also that could charge my laptop.
This would be my ideal case for purchasing a generator.
3. Solar Batteries Types
Batteries are an important part of solar generators. They store power to be used in the future. So, it is good to have higher capacity batteries. This is not the ideal case as always.
There are mainly 4 types of solar batteries:-
- LEAD Acid
- Lithium
- NICAD
- NICKEL Iron
Of all these, Lithium batteries are mostly used worldwide due to its high efficiency and long life cycle.
With the type of batteries, the capacity also matters.
Selecting a battery for household use could become complicated.
On a normal day, an average U.S. household uses 30 kilowatt-hours (kWh) for electricity per day while a typical solar battery can deliver 10 kilowatt-hours (kWh). In simple calculation, you need 3 solar batteries to have power for the entire day.
This is a very simple calculation.
There are other factors to consider. Batteries never deliver 100% of their capacity that is nearly 90%. So you get 9 kWh of electricity. Also, solar generators can produce electricity in the day time that also needs to be considered.
4. Solar Panels
The other important thing that you must consider is using solar panels.
Why?
Simply, because it is the part which produces electricity.
The key factor to consider here is the size and type of panels.
There are 4 types of solar panels:-
- Monocrystalline Photovoltaic Panel
- Polycrystalline Photovoltaic Panel
- Thin-film Photovoltaic Panel
- Concentrated Photovoltaic Panel
____Table with advantages, prices, etc. like – https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/2015/09/types-of-solar-panels——-
If you have a larger area, then low cost with low-efficiency solar panels could work. But if the area is compact and you want to have more power than a high-efficiency panel is a must.
For a home generator, any type of PV panel could work depending upon the size of your rooftop.
But for a portable solar generator, it is necessary to have a highly efficient solar panel.
5. Power Efficiency
Power efficiency is determined by how much output you are getting.
It is calculated in percentage (%). The closer to 100%, the better it will be.
“Efficiency could never be 100%. There will always be some power loss.”
If you follow these steps in the right wayfinding a sun-powered generator wouldn’t be a tough task.
Final Thoughts
You have 2 different types of requirements – one for home or other portable.
Over To You
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
