swiftfall
New Member
I'm trying to wrap my head around what seems like it should be fairly simple, but I'm obviously missing a link somewhere in all of this.
Let's first imagine a "perfect" scenario. All the days are perfectly sunny for exactly 6 hours then the sun just turns off, like a light bulb. My solar panels are perfectly aligned and 100% efficient.
Now imagine I wish to run a load 24 hours a day that pulls 100A during the 6 daylight hours and 1A during the 18 night hours.
With solar panels I need to produce 103Ah for each of the 6 hours they will produce power (100Ah to use immediately, and 3Ah to store for the night).
So I connect the solar panels (via MPPT controller) to a busbar with 103A cables. The battery connects to the busbar with 3A cables. The load connects to the busbar with 100A cables. And I'm good, I think (plus fuses, oversizing cables, etc, but, we're assuming a perfect world here where nothing breaks and everything always works exactly as expected).
EXCEPT... what if the daytime load is only run on weekdays? What happens that first Saturday when the sun comes up dumping 103A of solar power in and I only have a 18Ah battery to consume it? Is there some component I need to drain this surplus power? Do I need to wire it differently (PV directly to the Load, or something)? Or does it just work and I'm overthinking it?
Let's first imagine a "perfect" scenario. All the days are perfectly sunny for exactly 6 hours then the sun just turns off, like a light bulb. My solar panels are perfectly aligned and 100% efficient.
Now imagine I wish to run a load 24 hours a day that pulls 100A during the 6 daylight hours and 1A during the 18 night hours.
With solar panels I need to produce 103Ah for each of the 6 hours they will produce power (100Ah to use immediately, and 3Ah to store for the night).
So I connect the solar panels (via MPPT controller) to a busbar with 103A cables. The battery connects to the busbar with 3A cables. The load connects to the busbar with 100A cables. And I'm good, I think (plus fuses, oversizing cables, etc, but, we're assuming a perfect world here where nothing breaks and everything always works exactly as expected).
EXCEPT... what if the daytime load is only run on weekdays? What happens that first Saturday when the sun comes up dumping 103A of solar power in and I only have a 18Ah battery to consume it? Is there some component I need to drain this surplus power? Do I need to wire it differently (PV directly to the Load, or something)? Or does it just work and I'm overthinking it?