I found a conveyance with slide out solar panels like I asked about for my RTS

[Kevin Warnock]

On March 18, 2011 I asked here if anyone had seen slide out solar panels on a bus conversion. Nobody replied that they had. Here's the post where I asked:

http://www.busconversions.com/bbs/index.php?topic=19437.0

I still haven't discovered a bus conversion with slide out solar panels.

I have discovered a $17,000,000 boat powered exclusively by solar electricity! It's currently circumnavigating the globe. It's attracting a lot of attention. I read about it in National Geographic magazine, where it got a full page writeup.

Here's my blog entry on this unique solar electricity powered yacht:

http://kevinwarnock.com/2011/04/02/solar-electricity-powered-yacht-circles-the-globe-features-slide-out-solar-panels-like-i-plan-for-my-bus-conversion/

Here's the official website for this solar electricity powered boat:

http://www.planetsolar.org/

It's easy to see in the pictures that some of the solar panels slide out from the top to expand the solar energy collection area.

This craft is impressive.

[rv_safetyman]

Kevin, when I first read this post, it sounded like you did not get any responses to your first thread.  Turns out you got some opinions. 

As you noted, it does not appear that anyone has done what you are suggesting. 

It sounds like you are wanting to get sufficient current by adding panels.  I am not an expert, but I have to wonder if you would be money ahead to manufacture a system to optimize collection of panels that will fit on your roof.

I have a friend who has 5 or 6 of the large panels (probably the135 watt units) and he says that he does not have to run his generator and he is not all the conservative with his electrical use.  He is very careful how he parks and has a fairly basic system to elevate the panels for maximum efficiency.   

As far as adding panels with slide out mechanisms, I see no reason why it can't be done.  The biggest issue will be wind loads and making the slides and mounting strong enough, as the panels seem pretty fragile to me.

Jim

[Kevin Warnock]

Yes, I got lots of replies to my original post. Thanks to all who replied. I didn't mean to suggest nobody replied.

[Iceni John]

I plan to (eventually) carpet my roof with PV panels, ideally at least 1,000 Watts, hopefully more if I can afford them.   I want to be entirely self-sufficient from solar power alone, without needing to normally ever run a generator.   My idea is to have a central walkway running along almost the full length of the roof, from my front roof hatch to the rear one, and from this walkway (probably made from 12"-wide diamond-plate aluminum) I will hinge individual panels on each side.   This way I can raise one side or the other to angle them to the sun, and hopefully gain a useful amount of efficiency by having most of the panels reasonably oriented to the sun, assuming I can park pointing East or West (so one side or the other faces South).   Fortunately my roof is curved more than most, so even the lowered panels will still be about 10 degrees from horizontal.   I have also thought about additional smaller panels that would slide out from under the main panels, then angle down at least 45 degrees;  these would act as sunshades over some of the side windows, plus they would catch low sun angles, such as in winter or at times of crepuscularity (!).

It sounds like you and I are thinking along broadly similar lines, albeit with differences in how it will be achieved in practice.   I'm planning on solar self-sufficiency even during winter, and this means angling panels to the sun as best as reasonably and practicably possible, plus having sufficient panels to still produce useful power even at lower insolation rates.   It will also require a strictly-controlled electricity usage, but I'm prepared to do that if it means I will have essentially free electricity for the life of the bus (after the initial investment).   Diesel prices will only increase in future years, making non-fuel electricity generation increasingly cost-effective.   (I topped up my tank today at $4.65 per gallon, and that may soon seem a bargain with the way things are now going.)

Now if only I could describe my bus as my primary residence  -  a friend of mine is getting her entire house completely converted to grid-tie solar, and it won't cost her a cent!   Apparently there's some federal rebate program she'll use, so she won't even pay the installation labor.   It sounds almost too good to be true, so I'll definitely be watching her project with interest.

John

[pickpaul]

Very cool article but I can't help wonder why they wouldn't embrace wind too. Two or three tall vertical windmills would look very cool and diversify energy need.

[duk231]

Aren't solar panels heavy?

[buswarrior]

ok, let's do a little pricing for this dream.

Can't make a foundation without a little cement?

AltE store is one of my more favorite places on the web for these matters. They have all sorts of related educational readings on the site as well. I bought my Trace 4024 from them long ago and far away...

http://www.altestore.com/store/Solar-Panels/c541/

Picking the Suntech STP280 24volt model on there for fun...

http://www.altestore.com/store/Solar-Panels/Suntech-STP280-24Vd-280W-24V-Solar-Panel/p7941/

Priced individually at $597.33 per panel.

77" x 39" x 2" and weigh 60 lbs each.

mounting them down the sides of the roof, long ways front to back, your 12 inch walkway will nicely leave you 3 inches to the sides of the coach on both sides, and 4 of these, 2 per side, for a length of just under 13 feet, will give you 1120 watts. Some care with your hardware and finessing the dimensions will do the job.

Raise the centre walkway to match the height of a traditional roof air conditioner, and hinge the panels to be able to fold up to catch the sun on the opposite side would be a neat trick.

Then an awning to shade the sunny side of the coach...

For a charge controller, for fun and future expansion, the Apollo 80 amp MPPT model for $661.00 and the remote for $164.00.

http://www.altestore.com/store/Charge-Controllers/Solar-Charge-Controllers/MPPT-Solar-Charge-Controllers/Apollo-Solar-Charge-Controllers/c1111/

So, a little over $3200 in hardware, minus the racking and some cabling.

And then a battery bank, but wait, this is backwards...

How did you arrive at the 1000 watts of solar panel decision?

How much power consumption per day, reserve capacity desired and size of battery bank determines these things.

See the educational articles here: http://www.altestore.com/learn/  for help in determining the size of your desires and needs.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[rv_safetyman]

Kevin, the following is ** NOT** intended to be a debate.  We have a university in Colorado (CSU) who has a good solar research program.  I remember going to presentations over 30 years ago where they presented data on three solar test homes they built (mostly solar hot water at the time).  Since that time, I have tried to stay somewhat knowledgeable about the subject.  I bought my system for the bus in 2007.  To this day, I question whether it was money well spent.

I bought 3 ea Kyocera KC130TM 130 watt panels and a Blue Sky SB2000E 25 amp 12 volt controller from Wholesale Solar.  I paid $620 per panel and $230 for the controller.  With shipping it came to $2175.  Those were pretty good prices at the time (2007) and Kyocera was considered to be among the best quality.  The spec sheet from Wholesale is:

http://www.wholesalesolar.com/products.folder/module-folder/kyocera/KC130TM.html

I looked at a couple of sites today and it looks like the KC130TM is discontinued but folks have it listed for about the same price.  It looks like newer Kyocera panels of the same capacity are available for under $400.

My experience is that these panels help very little in maintaining **MY** battery bank.  The big issue is that my bus is not set up to be energy efficient.  We have a house type fridge and a ton of electronic equipment equipment.  That said, the three panels typically yield only about 12-14 amps (12V)  in the winter on a good day – and a short day at that.  That is not much.

The boat you cite has over 90KW of , or the equivalent of 715 of my panels.  Even at $300 per panel, that would be $214,500 dollars and several thousand dollars for the controllers, not to mention the huge battery bank that would be required.  Of course, that is many times what you need,  but you get the idea.  I really wanted to get more technical information about that ship, but they only give general details.  It is absolutely a marvelous project.  

SAE has had contests in the past for pure solar powered automotive-type vehicles.  Our local SAE chapter followed the Colorado State University project  very closely.   It was an amazing project.  CSU has a very strong climatic curriculum and they dictated the course for the car each day of the competition so as to avoid cloud cover as much as possible.  I can't remember the exact course, but it was at least 1500 miles over many days.

These are interesting projects and advance the technology, but they are a very long way from being practical for commercial applications.

OK, what am I trying to say with all of this "blathering"?

First, solar energy is a very costly investment.  Secondly, to utilize the benefits of that investment, a person would have to very carefully design their bus systems around the unique characteristics of solar power.  The design would have to include a very large battery bank for storage, and very energy efficient appliances.  If your goal is to be self sufficient, then you have some options such as utilizing propane for the fridge.  However if your goal is to minimize your carbon footprint, propane is not a good choice.

You would also have to give up some creature comforts.  Air conditioning would virtually impossible.  Perhaps swamp cooling could be used, but you would have to be creative, since your roof would not have any space for that type of cooling.

I truly marvel at the ingenuity that folks display when camping off grid in places like Quartzsite.  It becomes a way of life and a challenge.

I hope that someone who has developed a self sufficient solar system will chime in.  Most of these threads conclude that the value of the system is not justified.

Jim

Well, I see that buswarrior posted as I was writing my response.  I think we are saying about the same thing.  

[Kevin Warnock]

Jim,

I'm hoping to prove air conditioning with solar is not impossible. My plan is to break the interior up into 3 livable rooms - the master bedroom, the guest bedroom with bunks and the living room/kitchen. The rooms will be very well insulated from each other, with insulated and weatherstripped house doors separating the rooms. Thus, one will be able to air condition just a room at a time. The master bedroom will by 7' long, the guest bedroom is 10' long and the living room/kitchen area is 15' long. The driver room is separate from the rest of the vehicle, and is separated again by a house style insulated and weatherstripped door. So I won't gain or lose much heat through the windshield area, since the driver compartment will be unconditioned space when not driving.

So, if it's super hot out, I will hang out in the 7' x 8' bedroom and work on my laptop in bed, and let the rest of the vehicle soak in heat (except that my fish tank will be conditioned water). The bedroom will be just 56 square feet, and there will be just one window, as the other will be insulated and covered over from the inside. I am doing this for energy savings and noise reduction while sleeping.

I hope that one 5,000 btu air conditioner will be able to cool the bedroom even on a hot day, and I will have enough solar panels to completely run such an air conditioner. This is a big experiment, and I will let everyone know the results here and on my blog.

I've purchased the air conditioner and have figured out how to adapt it to cool water... it looks pretty easy. I wrote this concept up here on my blog:

http://kevinwarnock.com/2011/01/04/kevin_warnocks_plan_to_efficiently_air_condition_a_bus_conversion/

Kevin Warnock
http://KevinWarnock.com - my blog about my bus conversion and the rest of my life

[rv_safetyman]

Kevin, I glad that you brought this back up to the top and discussed your AC concept.  I read your blog on the AC concept and it is quite an interesting concept. 

There are two reasons I wanted this thread to continue. 

First, buswarrior and I gave the typical answers to this concept.  I think our statements reflect prevailing wisdom for conventional bus conversion technology.  Many folks go off half cocked and don't understand the complexity of integrating all of the necessary technology to make these "off the wall" approaches work (and I use that term "off the wall" with a fair bit of admiration).  You and Theresa really are thinking outside the box and doing your homework!  That is FUN! 

Secondly, I was hoping that playing "devils advocate" would bring out folks who have made these systems work for their needs.  I sometimes play that role to get better discussion on the table.  Perhaps not the best way to stimulate folks and for that I apologize.

Please do not stop posting your concepts.  It brings fresh air to this forum. 

Jim

[happycamperbrat]

It's all about balance! I have so many hair brained ideas myself (and not just with the bus) that I often go seeking advice from people who have been there done that, know more about it all then I do, or just to shoot ideas around with. In the end I make my own decisions and suffer the consequences or reap the rewards.... that's life.

I too thought about running pipes both under the floor and under insulation on the roof for radiant type heat and cooling. The heat would be easy, just some pipes and plumb it to the engine compartment for warmth otr and a black hose or panel on the roof. Hot water and radiant heat both otr and boondocking. For extra good measure throw in a wood stove and route pipe through that as well. But the cooling part is the one that would be the hardest I think. It would be nice to route water through the refrigerator!

The main issue with doing all this heating and cooling from the water supply that I can see is the extra weight issue (how much would it all weigh?) and possible leaks...

I like your ideas Kevin! Please keep them coming!

[technomadia]

This way I can raise one side or the other to angle them to the sun, and hopefully gain a useful amount of efficiency by having most of the panels reasonably oriented to the sun, assuming I can park pointing East or West (so one side or the other faces South).   Fortunately my roof is curved more than most, so even the lowered panels will still be about 10 degrees from horizontal.   I have also thought about additional smaller panels that would slide out from under the main panels, then angle down at least 45 degrees;  these would act as sunshades over some of the side windows, plus they would catch low sun angles, such as in winter or at times of crepuscularity (!).

I totally love your ideas, and have similar solar aspirations myself. I did a 130 watt solar system for my Tab (16' clamshell trailer) and 200 watt solar system on our Oliver (17' fiberglass egg) - and both proved to be incredibly worthwhile.

One thing to be careful of though -- if you have panels at different angles to the sun wired in parallel, they will be putting out different voltages and that may cause an efficiency hit.  You might be better off with a different charge controller for each bank of panels. 

At the very least, some experimentation will be called for.

Awesome project!

   - Chris

[Ralph7]

     In March of 2011 I purchased 4 @ 210 watt/ 29V. Kyocera panels $485ea. & a Tristar C-60 controller $540 Plus freight shipping total $2700. The 135's were 400ea plus 45 UPS so to get 800 watts you need 6@135. I built my MC-8 as a 120V/30A. unit .  Has a house frig. need to up grade heat, but 2 small electric heaters and it was toasty with 30A camp electric at 24F in Tn. & Tx.  this past winter. Oh a 24in. apartment  propane stove fullsize oven, and 1ea 13,500 roof AC, an 3 Fantastic fans in roof. Also 6 golf cart batteries.   1ea 12V/50A. alt on engine and 1ea 24V./50A. also.  1 new style PS-2012 inveter/charger which I DO NOT LIKE.
    I hpoe to install the solar soon, oh a used 3000i as backup, need to figure how to vent exhaust( 3000i are different breed of cat) so any suggestions, no easy answers....