How my life is like that of a solar panel
Getting up early
A solar panel gets up bright and early in the morning. As soon as the sun starts to rise, so does its level of output. Its current is sluggish at first, but soon the electricity really starts to flow.
I’ve spent the past two days trying to train myself to get up early, just like my future study companion, the solar panel. The first day was really hard, waking up 2 hours earlier than usual. The second day is today, and I’m doing pretty well except for an upset stomach in the morning still. I tried doing some exercise to get my level of output up; I do feel more alert at this time than I did yesterday, though I still can’t exercise at my full level of output in the morning compared to later in the day.
High output on sunny days
Today looks to be a nice and sunny day. On dreary, overcast days, again I find myself to be much like the solar panel. My output really suffers. In contrast, today looks to be a high-output day. Solar panels all over the area should be enjoying the day, as will I.
Finding purpose in life
The sole purpose of a solar panel in life is to produce electricity. It is unambiguous what it is made to do. In contrast, it has taken me some time to figure out what I am made to do. I see that I have hands, feet, and a brain, so I figure I am designed to handle things, move about, and think. However, there are so many possible job functions to choose from where I can do those three things.
I have concluded that, at least for the next year or so, my purpose in life will be to use my innate skills to help solar panels achieve their purpose in life. It is a noble purpose, to help convert free sunlight into electricity that can be used to move things, drive things, power things. Read more…
Categories: Thoughts Tags: life, output, solar panels
Plug and Play Solar
Every now and then I see a good idea and it’s great to be able to tell people about it. For example, take Andalay Solar, which is becoming Westinghouse Solar. They sell what’s essentially a plug-and-play solar power system – the panels come with built-in Enphase microinverters, meaning that 12/24/48V DC is being converted directly to 120V AC at the panel, and then that power is fed into the wiring of the home or business.
One of the advantages of this system that no huge central inverter is required to convert all the power from the panels from DC to AC. If you want to expand the power capacity of your system by adding more panels, you won’t have to replace the inverter with a higher model, which is great because the inverter is usually the single most expensive item of a PV power system.
Another advantage is that the panels will automatically adjust themselves to deliver the most optimized power output to your home or business. If one panel is shaded by a tree or something, that won’t automatically bring down the power output of your whole system the way that normal panels without microinverters can.
Solar panels today are like early computers were – everything has to be installed and configured manually. It takes technological progress before systems can become more simplified and easier to use. Now we just take a peripheral, plug it in to our USB hub, and we’re ready to go – no manual configuration, setting interrupts, etc.
Categories: Solar Buying Guide Tags: Andalay, Enphase, inverter, microinverter, output, solar
The beautiful simplicity of solar panels
It might be hard to see, but I see an implicit beauty to solar panels.
A solar panel has just one purpose in life, and that is to generate electricity for as long as it can. When it is manufactured, its purpose in life never has a chance to be ambiguous. It is readily apparent what the solar panel is for – to take sunlight and convert it to electricity.
It doesn’t matter what the weather conditions are – neither rain nor sleet nor a little snow will stop the solar panel from making its electricity. As long as a few photons can reach the panel from the sky, an output will be made, no matter how feeble. The solar panel never tires of performing its duty, its one job function in the whole world.
When darkness falls, and almost all the people are asleep in their beds, the solar panel must also wait in anticipation for the arrival of a new day. No output can be made in the depths of darkness.
When the solar panel grows old, its output may decline. However, if kept in good repair, it will function for a long time. Each and every day that the sun rises with certainty, the solar panel will output electricity with certainty, until it suffers a terminal malfunction. On that last day of its life, it will produce its last bit of electricity, and then no more.
What happens to solar panels that have died? Do they get recycled to ashes, and their ashes turned to dust from which new solar panels are made? The cycle of life would then continue, powered by the energy the solar panel had helped to capture during its lifetime. That would be fitting.
