Investigating Renewable Energy Data from Photovoltaic Solar

Panels

An EET Chapter

Solar Panel Usage

• Homes

• Schools

• Businesses

Easy Way to Track Solar Panel Data

Example: Gallager MS in Ohio

Your electric bill

• If you know your electric bill totals, you could do some calculations for solar panels

• My family uses 40 kWh per day, so this solar panel from Jan 2007 to Dec 2007 generated enough power to run my house for 5 days

Another good website for tracking solar panel energy

Another good website: solarschoolhouse.org

Harvard University Solar Panels

• During the last 4 years, these 60 solar panels provided 75% of the electricity needed to run my home

• Solar panels occasionally break

• If you don’t count breakage times, the 60 solar panels provided 94% of the energy needed to run my home

Solar Power June 2008 Comparison

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29

Day (june 1-30)

kWh Abilene

Harvard

Solar Power 2008 Comparison

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1 27 53 79 105 131 157 183 209 235 261 287 313 339 365

day of the year

kWh

of g

ener

ated

pow

er

Harvard

Abilene

Questions to consider

• “How much power is this? Is it enough for all the lights in the school? Why would we want to use solar panels instead of the electricity from an oil or coal burning power plant or even a nuclear power plant?”

(EET chapter on solar energy, part 3)

How much power is it?

• “So if we could have power at 2.04 kW for each hour of daylight in January, which is at best about 8 to 9 hours at this latitude, we would produce about 2 kW x 8.5hrs or about 17kWh”

Conclusion

• Solar panels are definitely part of the solution to generating electricity, but cannot generate enough by themselves

• Cloudy days inhibit solar panel production, as do snowstorms and parts breaking

• A school could not supply its electrical needs with solar panels