Comments on: How many solar panels do I need to run a 1500w ceramic heater?

By: ishootbirds2

ishootbirds2 — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:33:59 +0000

far too many. what you’re supposed to do is to get 1-2 150w each solar panels and store generated energy into a bank of batteries. use an inverter to get he voltage to 120 volts to power a 1500w heater. first, if you had a 12 volt 1500 watt heat you’d need extremely thick cable that is extremely expensive, inflexible, and heavy. a 120v 1500 watt heater can be used with romex 14/2 wire and a 2000+ watt inverters, so it won’t be burned by an overload or something.

for batteries you can’t just use any battery, you’re supposed to use deep cycle batteries, designed for solar power installations. probably 16- 1.5 volt deep cycle 1700VA batteries wired in series to produce 24 volts to invert to 120 volts. these batteries can be charged using 2- 150 watt or 300 watt panels.
References :
solar power setup is expensive. it might be cheaper to use a propane heater or something. the setup as described above would be about 8 to 10 thousand dollars.

By: curious george

curious george — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:18:59 +0000

fred k is right – far too many. and you probably need to buy an inverter too – a 1500w one isn’t cheap, also need to buy more batteries. A much more efficient way to use solar to heat you house is to use solar heat collectors (they are more efficient than PV cells). But then you would need some kind of mass to store the heat in until you needed it.
References :

By: fred k

fred k — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:13:59 +0000

Easy answer, far too many!
You need to work out how long the heater has to run each day?
A large 1580 x 793 x 50mm (5' x 2'6" approx) panel provides 150watts
so you would need at least 10 of them (UK price £800 each) in real time plus more and also large storage batteries for the night time.
Also you would need to ensure the heater is appropriate voltage to work with the battery/solar cell voltage
References :

By: JOHN L

JOHN L — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:57:59 +0000

you need two panels
References :
an electrical engineer