> One day we all want PV to offset our household usage, excellent.
> But, the average household array, to achieve this, occupies between 50-80%
> of
> roof space, that's in the order of 500-1200sqft if you'd like me to pull a
> figure from the darkness
It's not quite that bad. I have a 3.4kw array that provides all the power
we need and then some. It's only about 250 sq ft.
Mine is on trackers so it performs a bit better than a fixed roof mount
array, but a roof mounted one would only need to be 20-30% larger to
produce the same output.
FWIW my array is averaging about 20kwh a day last month and about 30 kwh a
day back in June.
> I did some math a while back for a truck, figuring I could fit roughly
> 800-1000watts
> covering the bed, it would net me between 3-4 miles of range.
> Not exactly on the good side of the cost benefit analysis.
Yeah there are only a couple ways that a vehicle mounted array would work.
Either you build a light weight, high efficiency EV that is covered in
cells like a solar racer; or you have a vehicle that spends most of the
week sitting in the sun and you only drive it on weekends.
It occurs to me that something like the first idea isn't that far fetched.
A small three wheeled enclosed vehicle (like a Corbin sparrow, but
smaller) that has perhaps a 1 meter^2 array and a pedal generator.
If you could get the energy requirements down to about 30-40 wh per mile
(at 30-35 mph) this could have a range of perhaps 15-20 miles on solar
power with pedal power extending that another couple miles.
Might be enough for someone with a short commute.
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> But, the average household array, to achieve this, occupies between 50-80%
> of
> roof space, that's in the order of 500-1200sqft if you'd like me to pull a
> figure from the darkness
It's not quite that bad. I have a 3.4kw array that provides all the power
we need and then some. It's only about 250 sq ft.
Mine is on trackers so it performs a bit better than a fixed roof mount
array, but a roof mounted one would only need to be 20-30% larger to
produce the same output.
FWIW my array is averaging about 20kwh a day last month and about 30 kwh a
day back in June.
> I did some math a while back for a truck, figuring I could fit roughly
> 800-1000watts
> covering the bed, it would net me between 3-4 miles of range.
> Not exactly on the good side of the cost benefit analysis.
Yeah there are only a couple ways that a vehicle mounted array would work.
Either you build a light weight, high efficiency EV that is covered in
cells like a solar racer; or you have a vehicle that spends most of the
week sitting in the sun and you only drive it on weekends.
It occurs to me that something like the first idea isn't that far fetched.
A small three wheeled enclosed vehicle (like a Corbin sparrow, but
smaller) that has perhaps a 1 meter^2 array and a pedal generator.
If you could get the energy requirements down to about 30-40 wh per mile
(at 30-35 mph) this could have a range of perhaps 15-20 miles on solar
power with pedal power extending that another couple miles.
Might be enough for someone with a short commute.
_______________________________________________
| REPLYING: address your message to [email protected] only.
| Multiple-address or CCed messages may be rejected.
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| OTHER HELP: http://evdl.org/help/
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