Solar panel generated electricity and music reproduction

G E · « **on:** 11 Jan 2021, 08:56 pm »

As I sneak up on retirement I’ve been thinking of designing and building a house to grow old in.

Solar produced electricity is an interest.

My concern is the quality of the AC output.

Does anyone have experience in running high quality sound systems/Bryston on solar produced power?

roscoe65 · « **Reply #1 on:** 11 Jan 2021, 09:28 pm »

Ideally you’re not running on solar. You are running on your battery/controller. The quality of your inverter will determine the quality of your power. You need to think of of the discharge rate of your batteries.

genjamon · « **Reply #2 on:** 11 Jan 2021, 09:46 pm »

Are we to assume this would be an off-grid house powered by solar? Or would it be grid-connected, just with rooftop or ground-mounted solar system installed?

mikeeastman · « **Reply #3 on:** 11 Jan 2021, 09:50 pm »

I live off the grid and from what I can tell my power is cleaner than 90% of the on grid power. I've tried at least 8 different power conditioners and devices to clean up power over the years and they either did nothing or made it worse.

I have my dedicated circuits sub panel wired direct to the inverter and the ground is connected direct to my UFA, so I get no feed back from my house.

I was an off the grid contractor for over 25 year so PM me if you have any questions.

A_shah · « **Reply #4 on:** 11 Jan 2021, 10:02 pm »

Have Solar panels for the last 6 years but I am not off the grid ! they way it seems to work is that what I generate goes directly to my electric company and is off -set via true up in other words by panel supplypower goes directly to the grid and I get the electricity from the grid !
However if you are off the grid it is possible to get very clean electrical power

Asghar

G E · « **Reply #5 on:** 13 Jan 2021, 05:11 am »

Thanks for the responses, much appreciated!

JLM · « **Reply #6 on:** 13 Jan 2021, 01:22 pm »

Have had 18 PV solar panels for 5 years. Caught the very end of an incentive program so have net negative electrical cost here in cloudy Michigan (about $400/year). But am still connected to the grid. Going off the grid costs roughly 3 times as much for additional panels and batteries. But the system goes down with normal power so we don't zap repairmen, so added an automatic whole house generator (which has no effect on any gear in the house).

Our house (built 16 years ago) was already passive solar and has an EPA 5 star energy efficiency rating. My audio system is served by (3) 20 amp hospital grade duplex convenience receptacles, each on a dedicated 20 amp/12 gauge circuit and grounded together, separate from the rest of the house.

If I had to do it over again and had more money, I'd consider going with geothermal heating/cooling which would have allowed me to have a bigger array (the program I signed up for limited solar production to no more than our actual use). I'd also go with tilting panels that would be better aimed at the sun and help keep snow off the panels.

Keep in mind that panels lose about 2% efficiency per year.

mikeeastman · « **Reply #7 on:** 13 Jan 2021, 02:23 pm »

JLM, don’t know where you got that panels lose of 2% a year. Most major manufactures guarantee that there panels won’t lose more than 10% over 20 or 25 years, so that works out to only about .5% per year.

JLM · « **Reply #8 on:** 13 Jan 2021, 02:42 pm »

Sorry, don't know where I got that number, but perhaps it's realistic when you figure that panels get dirty over time and rarely cleaned.

Speedskater · « **Reply #9 on:** 13 Jan 2021, 02:50 pm »

In the US, some of the residential solar panel installation jobs are a known source of interference.

mikeeastman · « **Reply #10 on:** 13 Jan 2021, 03:07 pm »

That's because they either use lousy equipment or did a bad job on the installation.

DaveC113 · « **Reply #11 on:** 13 Jan 2021, 04:05 pm »

I hear it makes the sound bright.

mikeeastman · « **Reply #12 on:** 13 Jan 2021, 04:22 pm »

The way grid tie works is the D/C is converted to A/C and fed to the the house A/C meter and any excess is fed to the grid, if more A/C is needed than the system is producing or at night the grid feeds the house. Grid tie systems are tied to the grid, so grid is going to have an effect on the electricity. The problem if cause by the power could be the grid or the solar reacting with the grid or could be the equipment or the install.

NekoAudio · « **Reply #13 on:** 13 Jan 2021, 06:33 pm »

Anecdotally I've heard from friends that their power is cleaner and more reliable if using batteries, which are typically only installed with solar.

DaveC113 · « **Reply #14 on:** 14 Jan 2021, 12:51 am »

Quote from: NekoAudio on 13 Jan 2021, 06:33 pm

Anecdotally I've heard from friends that their power is cleaner and more reliable if using batteries, which are typically only installed with solar.

For some components you could possibly bypass the inverter and run components directly off the battery. If doing so you'd still want to treat the battery as a "raw" source and at a minimum use some parallel capacitance. Batteries by themselves aren't as good as a high quality AC-input LPS. So IME it's a mixed bag to use battery power, but what you do get is good consistent performance, and if you optimize the device I think it could be better than most AC.

I've heard Stromtank PS are really good but haven't tried one myself. I could see it being a huge advantage at audio shows where power quality can be really poor.

https://stromtank.com/

mikeeastman · « **Reply #15 on:** 14 Jan 2021, 01:11 am »

I had an audio system that I ran off its’ own batteries, separate from my solar systems batteries. In my case it wasn’t any cleaner or sound any better than my present system running off my inverter, but it sounded just as good. The only reason I switched to A/C is the speakers I wanted needed A/C.

JLM · « **Reply #16 on:** 14 Jan 2021, 12:38 pm »

In my case, because of the incentive we're under, all solar produced power goes to the grid. (We have two meters, one for incoming power being used and one for outgoing power we've generated).

Before solar I tried Red Wine (Vinnie's first company) battery powered integrated amp (7 wpc) and DAC. The amp did a remarkable job at driving my loudspeakers but ultimately was underpowered. The DAC could run off battery or AC. In our then new house (with improvements made for audio) it made no difference.

IMO the advantages of power conditioners are location and time dependent. Older appliances in the home, how power might be shared with the same transformer, older factories that share the same substation, utility distribution systems, even the substation itself can all generate power aberrations (the correct term for dirty power). My previous house was 50 years old, the wiring had been amateurishly redone a number of times, and had older appliances yet a power conditioner had almost no effect. My current place was built in 2005, has it's own transformer, all 20 amp/12 gauge or better circuits/wiring, all then new appliances, and as mentioned a couple of improvement for the audio system. So have no complaints about power.

MtnHam · « **Reply #17 on:** 15 Jan 2021, 03:50 am »

Having a grid tied 6.5 kw system for the last 8 years, I believe it adds no noise. Being in the boonies, at the end of the local grid, my power has always been very quiet. Nonetheless, I do utilize various Shunyata power devices and cables. Try system is extremely revealing and the noise floor is very low.

The solar system has paid for itself and I would not hesitate to do it again.

R. Daneel · « **Reply #18 on:** 19 Jan 2021, 08:04 pm »

Quote from: roscoe65 on 11 Jan 2021, 09:28 pm

Ideally you’re not running on solar. You are running on your battery/controller. The quality of your inverter will determine the quality of your power. You need to think of of the discharge rate of your batteries.

Absolutely agreed. The inverter quality is crucial. It is what produces the AC sinewave. Power generation will be highly dependent on the system you choose as well as geographical parameters of your location and panel orientation. There is much to consider. Some of my electrical engineering friends do this for a living and it's all they do. One other thing to consider is feasibility of such a system. When is it going to pay off. Unless you can get a government grant, in Europe it is usually not feasable at all, unless we're talking about Megawatt solar plants.

Also, I've seen some ridiculous videos online about building your own panels. Forget about it, it can't be done. Well, unless you're happy with 1-3% efficiency. It is low as it is with commercially available and high-quality panels. They still haven't found a way to minimize the transfer loss at a mass-market level.

Cheers,
Antun

jules · « **Reply #19 on:** 20 Jan 2021, 01:15 am »

quote GE

"Does anyone have experience in running high quality sound systems/Bryston on solar produced power?"

I've been off-grid with batteries for about 30 years now and can highly recommend it. You should not have any problems with a good quality inverter and a good solar input regulator. The only time I've had any problem was with a regulator that should have been ok but caused all sorts of interference with radio reception for some reason.

The only slight caution I'd suggest is that when you're using a battery/solar system you do need to keep an eye on your total power consumption, especially if you get odd events like a week without sun. I've never found that an issue but it could be for some people.

What's the power consumption of your Bryston system in total?