Solar Freaks

Hello everyone! Im very new to solar and I just purchased 4 135 watt solar panels. I want to use about 1100- 1200 watts for about 4 hours a day. First of all, is this doable with the 4 panels? And my other question is, How many batteries would I need and at what watt/hour capacity. I am thinking of purchasing a mppt charge controller and I already have a pure sine-wave inverter rated at 2000 watts. I will be using the system to power a tv, laptop and some lights. Thanks.

Sorry to add that the panels are 12 volt, and a correction on the battery question...amp/hour rating rather than watt/hour, im new, can't ya tell?

I should have included the specs of the solar panels as well which are Kyocera 135 watt, 17.7 volts, 7.63 amps. With 4 panels that would give me max watts 540, 70.8 volts and 30.52 amps output. That is under perfect conditions of course so these numbers would be lower due to wiring and sun exposure. The roof that they will be placed on receives about 5 hours of bright sun on a good day from 9am to about 2pm or so.

4 x 135watta panels = 540 watts.
Average (yearly) of 5 full sunlight hours a day.

Therefore you will generate 540w x 5hrs = 2700w/hrs a day.

So.. 2700w/hrs / 1100w = 2.45 hrs of use.

Doesn't matter about the voltage and current arrangement as long as you make efficient use of your power, using mppt.
You will either have 17.7 volts at 30.52A, or 70.8 volts at 7.63 amps depending on your setup.

TonyB wrote:4 x 135watta panels = 540 watts.
Average (yearly) of 5 full sunlight hours a day.

Therefore you will generate 540w x 5hrs = 2700w/hrs a day.

So.. 2700w/hrs / 1100w = 2.45 hrs of use.

Doesn't matter about the voltage and current arrangement as long as you make efficient use of your power, using mppt.
You will either have 17.7 volts at 30.52A, or 70.8 volts at 7.63 amps depending on your setup.

Ok, I can live with that. What kind of batteries could I use. Could I use two Trojan T-105 6volt @225AH or is that to much amp/hour for my solar panels to charge the batteries to full?

You need to be able to store 2700 watts of power each day.
If you want 3 days backup, you will need to sore 2700 x 3 = 8100 watts.

Now a 8100 watts from a 24v battery bank is 340A/hrs.

The two batteries you mentioned will give you 12V at 225Ah in series. That's 2700 watts. You will need a few days storage, and also take into consideration losses using a de-rate factor of 0.7 for battery solar setups.

Therefore you will need 6 of those batteries, or better still, 8 of them, connected as a 24V battery bank at 450Ahr.

The more the better, because you begin to stress the batteries too hard when they are less than 30-40% full.

Your panels will have no problems charging them.

Ok, that makes sence to me now. I have read that you should have a battery charger for topping off the batteries when weather conditions are bad and the solar system can't produce enough power to charge the batteries to full capacity. Should I invest in one of these as well? Batteries aren't cheap and I wouldn't want to lose the battery bank. Also, should I wire the panels in series or parallel. Being that I only have the 4 panels if I ran them in series it would not have enough amps to charge the battery bank? Thanks for your help!

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