ajdelange
Well-known member
- First Name
- A. J.
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- Dec 8, 2019
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Cost is of course a consideration and it is great that cheaper panels are available but the really important thing here is the stuff I bolded. For each square meter of panel, no matter how big the panel be, you are only going to get 216 watts per square meter out of it in full, direct, cloudless sunshine when the normal to the panel surface is aimed directly at the sun. Converters are pretty darned efficient these days but you are goung to lose some of that energy to the converter too so 200 W /m^2 is probably a good working estimate. A 2 meter by 6 meter active area is thus going to yield about 2400 W (at full sun).With today current solar panel technology it would take 5 panels or even less.
....Trinasolar 670W Ultra-high Power with 21.6% High Efficiency
Doesn't matter what the most common use case is. The man asked if he could use the solar panels in the toneau to run the A/C while he was out of the car without running down the battery. The answer is "no". Period. Doesn't matter if he runs it for 5 minutes when the vehicle is best pointed or 5 hours when it can't be (unless someone goes out and moves it.) Could energy collected by solar cells in the toneau offset some of that battery drain? Yes. Is the offset enough to be significant? Well that's really up to the person of whom you ask the question. Most practically minded people would say "no" but there are apparently many who would say "yes". Let's sell them systems and hope it boosts the price of the stock.Agreed the solar energy captured in real-time could not keep up with consumption but that is not the most common use case.
I've driven these things for a couple of years now and have a pretty good idea of how to use the A/C and what impact it has on the battery. The most important aspect of it is that it doesn't consume that much energy in cruise per mile so that you needn't force yourself to swelter on a hot day for fear of losing appreciable range. The other is that it is fast. It will cool a car that's been out in the sun down to comfortable temperature in 10 minutes.Most people spend 3 hours in car only on long trips the occur once a month or so. The most common...
I guess you weren't aware that in all the places I referred to NREL and equivalent hours of full sun that I was using data from this site.U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
https://www.nrel.gov/gis/assets/images/solar-annual-ghi-2018-usa-scale-01.jpg
I say again that you are free to grasp at any straw that comes by in order to justify this expense to yourself. Just don't expect practically minded people, especially those with some knowledge of solar systems, to agree with you. Each to his own.
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