energy

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Northwest Vista College *

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2301

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Electrical Engineering

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Jan 9, 2024

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pdf

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3

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Lab 12 – Renewable Energy Background: It is not uncommon to see solar cell panels on residential roofs in Bexar county. The houses with solar panels will not have to purchase the energy produced from the panels. In addition, solar cells will be at maximum output during the early part of the peak air conditioning during the day. Some claim that solar cells also shade their roof, further reducing their energy requirement for air conditioning. Use this lab to design a solar panel system for your house or apartment. Make an estimation of the daily savings. Determine the years required to regain initial investment to install the panels. Compare your results to those of your lab group to draw a more general conclusion about residential installations of solar panels. Resources: Chapter 8 – Textbook https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/ https://news.energysage.com/ Lab exercise: 1.) Find the South, Southwest, or West facing portion of your roof (of your house or apartment). If your dwelling has a flat roof, you can use the entire flat portion. Otherwise, the S, SW, or W facing portion of your roof will be the best location for solar panels. If you are not sure about the directions, please use an online map (like maps.google.com) to locate your house/apartment and find the orientation versus the compass directions. 2.) Estimate the size of that portion of your roof. You may want to use the map function inside the pvwatts.nrel.gov to help you more easily estimate the area. See the diagram below. However, if you want, you can estimate manually in this fashion. Take a photo of your front as much as you can from the side of roof from the street. Measure your door (most doors are 80 inches) and use that height to scale your other dimensions. In the example photo, the door was measured at 1.25 in. The actual size of the door in this house was 80 in. The scale factor is then 80/1.25 = 64. If another measurement on this image is 2.125 in. for the height of the roof, this can be scaled as 2.125*64 = 136 in. = 11.3 ft. Note: Make sure to calculate the scale factor for your image and to keep the percent zoom consistent when applying the scale factor. Make sure to ask your instructor if you have any questions about using trigonometric functions or the quadratic formula to calculate distances.
https://www.newhomesource.com/plan/plan-2004-kb-home-boerne-tx/1187916 3.) Determine how many cells can fit on that side of the roof, and the total area and weight. See an example of the space below. Depending on your roof, this might be rectangular (flat roof), a trapezoid (shown below), a triangle, or an irregular shape. One option is to draw a scale image of both the cells and the roof. Make sure that you use the same scale for both. Add cells until you no longer have space on the roof. Or you could just estimate that you could cover roughly 70-80% of the area with cells if it is a regular shape. You can look up the dimensions, or use the average dimensions given here: https://news.energysage.com/average-solar-panel-size-weight/ 1.25 in.
4.) Use the methods in your textbook to estimate the output of the solar panels for San Antonio. 5.) Look up the average cost per kWh for energy in Bexar county. Calculate your savings per year. 6.) Use the online estimator: https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/ Notice that the DC system size sets the area. Use a DC system size that is appropriate for your area above (click on the “i” next to DC system size for the information). Calculate your savings per year. 7.) Compare your two results. If you have a large discrepancy (one result is twice is large as the other) make sure to go back and error check your calculations or entries into the online estimator. Do not expect the results to be the same to the nearest dollar. 8.) Use the system size that you used in #6 above to estimate the installed cost. Use the cost without the tax rebate. https://news.energysage.com/how-much-does-the-average-solar-panel-installation-cost-in- the-u-s/ 9.) Find the average yearly maintenance cost on solar cells and the average life of solar cells. Subtract the maintenance cost from the yearly savings in #5 and 6. 10.) Using your net savings per year above, determine how many years the system would need to operate before you regain your initial investment. Note: Engineers will also estimate the cost of gaining the initial money for the installation (e.g., from taking out a second mortgage on your house or another loan). However, for this lab we can neglect that additional cost of getting the money (cost of capital). 11.) Make a clear conclusion based on the data you estimated about whether solar panels would be a good investment for your particular property. 12.) Write up the lab. Include the calculations from each member of your group and the conclusions from each member. What conclusions can you draw about the current cost effectiveness of roof mounted solar power in San Antonio. 13.) Please note that many things can shift the costs (replacing a hail damaged roof may reduce solar panel installation cost, obtaining a tax incentive or incentive from the power utility company, changes to efficiency, etc.). Make sure to accurately capture the assumptions for this lab in your write-up.
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