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solar panel

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philistine:
how many solar panels and car batteries would I need to boil a kettle 6 times a day?

jackofspades:
Take a vacuum flask!!

Harry:

--- Quote from: philistine on February 01, 2023, 17:57:15 ---how many solar panels and car batteries would I need to boil a kettle 6 times a day?

--- End quote ---
Boiling a kettle once is a big ask of a solar installation.
Some VERY approx estimations because efficiency would depend on location, weather, and time of year. Did you want to be able to achieve this year round? In the middle of the UK?

To boil a full 3kW kettle once uses approx 0.225 kWhour
So boil it 6 times and use 1.35kWhour

That's the easy bit.

A single 100W panel, facing South in the UK in the middle of summer might generate 75W at noon through to 10W at 4pm and 10W at 8am
so let's say 20W at 9am and 3pm, 40W at 10am and 2pm, 50W at 11am and 1pm.

Roughly generating (10+20+40+50)*2+75=315Whr = 0.315kWhr So operating all through a sunny day, it might capture enough energy to boil a kettle once.
In the depths of winter, expect less than 1/4 of that. So you might manage to boil a kettle once per day with 4 x 100 Watt panels
So... 24 x 100Watt panels might be just about good enough to boil it 6 times a day.... most days.

(You might buy 200W panels, where you'd need half as many.

You will need batteries with the capacity to store your 1350WHour. If it's a 12V battery that's 113Ampere Hours. But it would be insane to try to run a battery full to empty over the 30 minutes or so of kettle boiling. So quadruple it. Say 500 Ampere Hours. That's roughly 6 LARGE leisure batteries (at £200+ each)
Or maybe 10 car batteries at maybe £80 each.

You'd need something like a 3kW inverter at about £200 and a heavy duty solar charge controller.

As I say..... VERY rough estimate. YMMV
In summer you'd have wasted capacity, so run the washing machine as well :)

ACE:
Small solar trickle charger, 1 battery and a 12v cup heater. 6 cups? you will not get any work done but a lot of pee for the composting :tongue3:

Tulipa:
A Kelly Kettle (or other make) would boil water with just a few twigs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Kettle

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