Solar power for the house

With the house nearing completion we went ahead and bought a small solar power system to see how that stuff really works. We got ours from a Spanish company called Damia Solar.

The kit consists of two 325W photovoltaic panels to turn sunlight into electrical power, two batteries and a combination of inverter and charge controller. The batteries are gel and weight about 50 kg each.

The kit came pre-assembled. I only had to connect the solar panels and the batteries.

The combined inverter and charge controller has a display where it shows it’s current operating mode. In the picture you can see the panels charging the batteries and the inverter delivering 229V from the batteries to the outlet.

We don’t want to power all the household appliances with that small system. We got it so that we have some power - for higher loads we can use a generator here and there - and earn a bit of experience with this technology. The system will later be used in another project where the power requirements are less than for a fully equipped dwelling.