Emergency Lighting

[Pete Grey]

I think with houses not all built with a south facing roof or at the correct angle for the latitude of the instillation (52degrees here), a fixed solar system is rarely set at the optimum position.

A neighbour was telling us the other day his panels (large grid tied system) had been fitted on a fairly flat south facing veranda roof, and were only 70% efficient.

Our roof faces east and west which is why we’ve not had a proper system fitted, the garden shed does face south and the roof slopes at about 45 degrees (near enough), so I’ve fitted the two 120w panels feeding two leisure batteries through a charge controller.

We’re using them to recharge AA and AAA batteries and usb lights (Letour), phones etc, at this moment it’s all we want.

I have not measured the panel output yet, when I have more information I can work out what we can and can’t do. Then we can see what 12v devices we could use, obviously in summer we will have much more power available.

This small setup with our folding panel as backup should cover us for long blackouts.