Emergency Lighting

[Mortblanc]

Joe, are the batteries sealed?

If they are the old lead/acid type it might be possible to drain the acid, preserve it, and hold some of the batteries in reserve until needed. Shelf life is indefinite if stored dry.

[LAC]

Just as a practical note, when the sun is fully shining I get 2000 to 3000 milliamps out of my 120w solar panel. In full cloudy conditions that drops to 100 to 200 milliamps!

[Mortblanc]

I visit several of the "narrow boat" forums and find that those results are pretty standard for them. They are off grid eternally and during the winter they can not hang enough solar panels on top of their 6'x60" floating abodes to keep their battery banks charged.

They are constantly complaining about the need to run their engines for an hour or two daily to keep the batteries at a level where they can use their lap tops, and a lap top does not use much power.

Lights and the 12v water pump are their only daily uses of power other than their computers.

[bigpaul]

friend of hours has a single solar panel and it runs her house lights , and her laptop for a couple of hours each day.

[Straight Shooter]

As has already been said ,solar generation is dependant on how the panels are set up and pitch of the panels depending on the time of year ….use of tracking system that follows the sun ….manual or automatic and having enough sun light , there are lots of things to consider , the amount of panels , the amount of battery storage once you consider that it’s down to the use you will want to get right away or what you really need in an emergency , lighting being a major thing most people want ….I have most covered with a few small mobile systems .

This summer I had a 4 KW system fitting to the roof toned down to 3.6 KW to comply with regs and a battery for the system , at a cost of £9.800 ……I should have done it years ago ! It turning out to be excellent ! But we shall see what winter brings .

I can always fall back on my 300 watt system and the three big deep cell batteries , along with several smaller systems I have .

Thing is it will pay to have some sort of solar setup no matter how big or small .

[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.

[bigpaul]

at the moment the national grid are saying its only a worse case scenario, and the peak time for power cuts is between 4 and 7pm, if its only power cuts we can cope with flashlights and lanterns, I have a fairly decent stock of batteries which I will keep topped up.
if its a permanent power grid failure then a different sort of life style will kick in.
having lived off grid with no power of any kind its not something I'm overly concerned about.

[Pete Grey]

(3 November 2022, 08:59)bigpaul Wrote: friend of hours has a single solar panel and it runs her house lights , and her laptop for a couple of hours each day.

Hey BP, I missed this post, coming from you it’s ALMOST an admission that solar power can be useful.

One of these days we’ll get through and you’ll see the (solar powered) light that’s me, SS and MB smiling, take care pal.

[bigpaul]

(6 November 2022, 21:09)Pete Grey Wrote:

(3 November 2022, 08:59)bigpaul Wrote: friend of hours has a single solar panel and it runs her house lights , and her laptop for a couple of hours each day.

Hey BP, I missed this post, coming from you it’s ALMOST an admission that solar power can be useful.

One of these days we’ll get through and you’ll see the (solar powered) light that’s me, SS and MB smiling, take care pal.

its just one solar panel, plus a very tiny residential plastic wind turbine on the stable rood, and she can run her laptop for a couple of hours and her few light bulbs, heating is a log burner.
I'm old school. I've lived off grid and the only lighting I had was a small paraffin storm lantern and a paraffin boiling stove for simple cooking, if I was cold I went to bed early, it was only a simple 2 roomed wooden caravan .

[Mortblanc]

I look up there a LAC's signature and see that the one eyed man is king.

I see all of you spending hundreds, perhaps thousands of pounds to light up the world...

With no mention of spending anything to see in the dark!

In a world of darkness the man with bright light is a target. The man that can see in the dark is king!

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