Solar Charge Controllers
The components of a solar power system are fairly straight forward. You’ll need one or more solar panels which will be wired directly into a solar charge controller. The charge controller is then wired into a bank of batteries. It serves two purposes. The first is to insure that the batteries do not get overcharged. Solar panels by themselves cannot sense when the batteries are fully charged. Therefore, it’s extremely easy for solar panels to overcharge a battery bank. This will quickly destroy the expensive batteries. A charge controller, can sense the state of charge of the battery bank. When the batteries are low, it allows for full current from the solar panels to flow into the batteries. As the battery voltage increases, the charge controller slowly begins to limit the flow of electricity going into the battery bank.
The better charge controllers actually mimic a modern “smart battery charger”. It regulates the charging process so through three charging stages. They are bulk, absorption, and float. During each stage, the amount of current going into the batteries is closely regulated to ensure optimal charging of the battery bank. This scientifically proven charging process charges the batteries faster than they would normally charge. It also prolongs the lifetime of the battery bank by regulating the current that is going into the batteries at critical charging times.
Good charge controllers can also put the batteries through a process called “equalization”. During this phase, the voltage going into each battery is higher than normal. The purpose of the equalization process is to make sure the voltage of each battery cell is the same.
The second thing that a charge controller does is to act as a blocking diode. This is necessary since a solar panel can actually draw electricity from the battery bank at night time during the dark hours. This is quite counter productive if you spend the daylight hours charging the battery bank and the dark hours loosing power faster than you are consuming it.
Solar lighting fixtures each contain small charge controllers to protect their rechargeable batteries.
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In: General Technology, solar · Tagged with: Absorption, batteries, Battery Bank, Battery Cell, Battery Voltage, Current, Daylight Hours, Diode, Flow Of Electricity, Lifetime, Night Time, Smart Battery Charger, Solar Charge Controller, Solar Charge Controllers, Solar Panel, Solar Panels, Solar Power System, Solar System