When designing your home solar power system, always begin by doing an energy audit and find out how much electricity your home is consuming.

Next, decide how many electrical appliances you want to connect to the solar power system. That figure will help you to decide how many deep cycle battery you will need for the battery bank.

The batteries can be arranged in different ways to get the voltage you’ll need for your power inverter. If you are using a 1000 watt at12 volt power inverter, you will need 2 units of 6 volts batteries connected in series to come up with the 12 volts.

The most dangerous part of this process is the liquid in the battery. The liquid is sulfuric acid that will seriously burn you. As a safety precocious, always have some baking soda nearby to neutralize the acid in case you spilled some on your body.

You can check the acid in the battery by using a hydrometer. A hydrometer is what you use to measure the actual specific gravity of the acid inside.

On the hydrometer, you can see several discs floating. For example, if you see 3 discs floating with one at the bottom, you’ll know the battery is about 75% charged.

Here’s another safety tip. The gasses that come off from the battery, hydrogen gas (H2), can be hazardous as well. It is highly flammable. Make sure you work with the batteries in an open space and no sparks or open flame nearby.

DIY Home Solar Power Guide

Are you planning to build your own home solar power system? If you are, check out Michael Harvey’s Earth 4 Energy guide.

Michael’s e-book comes with step by step instructions on how to make a DIY solar panel with minimal cost. Check out my review of Earth4Energy on this blog for more information.

==> Click here to visit Earth4Energy now!

If you are planning to use solar energy to reduce your home power requirement, one of your largest investment would be on the battery bank.

The bank will be used to store the power generated by the solar panels. The number of battery needed will depend of your power requirement.

The type of battery most suitable for a residential solar power system is the deep cycle type. Since you will be investing a large amount of money on the battery, it makes sense to take good care of them.

The following is a list of 5 tips to keep your deep cycle batteries in tip top condition.

1) Depth of discharge.

If possible, do not discharge the battery to a very low level. For example, a 100 percent discharge is when the battery is totally dead.

If the battery is discharged to 50 percent everyday it will last twice as long as it would if it’s cycled to 80 percent discharge.

2) Recharge the battery quickly.

The life expectancy of the battery is also depends on how soon a discharged battery is recharged. The sooner it is recharged the better.

This may be a challenge during cloudy days with a solar power system. A solution is to recharge the battery bank using power from the grid.

3) Avoid undercharging.

Undercharging is a result of the battery being repeatedly discharged and not fully recharged between cycles.

If a battery is not recharged the sulfate material that attaches to the discharged portions of the plates begins to harden into crystals.

Over time this sulfate cannot be converted back into active plate material and the battery is ruined.

Sulfation is the number one cause of battery failure.

4) Avoid overcharging.

Overcharging mean charging the batteries even thought it reached its maximum charged capacity. The result in severe water loss and plate corrosion.

5) Use a bigger battery bank.

When you are setting up a battery bank, have more battery units than what you’ll need. With a bigger battery bank, it will reduce the amount of power discharged before recharging.

If the weather at you home has more cloudy days, you may not have sufficient charging time. A large battery bank will provide sufficient power for your requirement.

Deep Cycle Battery Maintenance Guide

When you have invested a large amount of money on the battery bank for your residential solar power system, you want to make sure you spend some time maintaining it.

Not everyone knows how to maintain a battery properly. I did the research on the web and the best manual that I found on deep cycle battery care is the “Electric Golf Cart Battery Guide” from www.golfcartbatteryguide.info.

It also offers the best value for money. The e-book is selling for only $19.95!

If you are keen to know how to take care of your deep cycle battery bank, check out the manual from the link below.

==> Click here to visit the Electric Golf Cart Battery Guide now!

The battery storage for solar panels is very important to the overall home PV system. There a few reasons for that, but the main one is cost.

The batteries can be one of the most expensive components of your entire home solar power system!

So you want to pay close attention when building the battery bank. To help you in the construction process, here are 3 tips you can use.

1) Stay away from automotive battery.

When you are building a battery storage bank for your PV system, do not use car battery! If you use them, you will be wasting your money.

Automotive batteries are not designed for residential solar power system because they are not made for the deep cycle usage that occurs in PV systems.

Car batteries are used for short time interval when you need a large power surge, for example, the high voltage needed to start an engine.

It is then immediately recharged by the vehicle electric alternator.

It does not need to be discharged over a long period like batteries that are tied to a PV system.

Solar system needs battery to discharge small amount of power over a long period of them. The battery will then to be charged on an irregular basis because we can’t be sure if there’s a clear sunny day to charge the Photovoltaic cells.

An automotive battery under these conditions will die after only a couple of discharge and charging cycle.

2) Have more than you need.

The recommended energy discharge for a home solar system battery bank is about 50 percent. So when you have calculated the power requirement needed for the PV system, multiplied it by a factor of 2. Next, build the battery bank based on that figure.

You don’t want the batteries to discharge all its power just to keep up with your home power needs, therefore, have more battery units.

3) The lower rate of discharge the better.

If the batteries are properly sized and maintained, the life span for a PV system battery can be anywhere from 3 years to 10 years or longer. However, the life span will depend on how much you discharge the battery.

For example, if you have a battery that is being discharged at 30 percent of its discharge capacity versus another battery that is discharged at 80 percent, the battery with a higher discharge rate will die much sooner compared the one with lower discharge rate.

To solve this issue, again, it is best to have a larger battery bank than required by your PV system.

DIY Home Solar Power System Guide

Do you want to build your own home solar power system and start reducing your monthly electricity bill? If you do, you will need a DIY residential PV system guide.

For an easy to follow home renewable energy guide, check out the Earth 4 Energy program from Michael Harvey. The program comes with a step by step guide to building a homemade solar panel and 7 High Definition (HD) instructional videos.

For more information, read the Earth 4 Energy review post on this blog.

==> Click here to visit Earth 4 Energy now!

Related web pages:
1) Earth 4 Energy Scam – Is Michael Harvey’s Earth4Energy A Fraud?

2) Green DIY Energy Review – Reviewing the GreenDIYEnergy program