PV Gap

Johnny Said:

how much energy does a 70x70 sq ft area of solar panels collect?

We Answered:

I'm putting in a $100,000 solar wind project on ST Thomas, Virgin Islands so I have some experience here.....

1) depends on where you are...the further north the less efficient the panels are because early morning and late afternoon sun hitting at a great angle isn't anywhere near as good as noon hitting perpendicular..........the US Department of Energy has a "solar calculator" showing how many hours a day over the year you get enough sunlight to actually run the panels....in the Caribbean the answer is 6 so in Wisconsin you might only get 4 really usable hours a day, Nevada 5, Seattle...forget about it.....

2) the panels I'm putting in are ( roughly) 2 x 3 feet...you would need access around all four sides of a panel...you are NOT going to crawl 35 feet across an array to fix a unit in the middle......so lets say you get 35 panels tall ( 70/2) by 12 wide (3 foot with a 3 foot access area between each row = 72/6) or 420 panels. Each puts out 175 watts at max. So you are cranking out 73,500 watt hours, or 73kW.

If your local utility buys back ( "net metering" ) the juice at, say, 20 cents a kWh, you get $14.75 an hour. If you have 4 usable hours a day x 365 x $14.74 you get back something like $20,000 a year.

You pay about $7.00 a watt for a panel. The 175 watt panels are, rounding up, $1200. each. Times the 420 panels number is $475,000 dollars. Add in about $12,000 for the inverter to change panel volts to power company volts, and maybe another $20,000 for installation you are looking at $500,000 AT LEAST to put in the system you propose.

AT $20,000 a year in sales, its 20-25 years payback.

Now, you can play with these numbers up and down but you still get the answer of A LOT of money to buy and build and a LONG time till payback.

Zachary Said:

Will solar panels provide enough energy?

We Answered:

Solar panels will not provide nearly enough power for even the smallest electric heaters; sorry.
The biggest improvement will be from added insulation as RV insulation is minimal.
The roof can be painted with one or two liberal coats of an insulating material; one brand is Cool-seal. Adding roof insulation can make a big difference.

Nathan Said:

Is it possible to use trees as solar panels and collect there energy?

We Answered:

You can cut the trees down and burn them to run a steam powered generator... thus using the solar energy stored in the tree.