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Hey what’s up guys I’m Luke with Super Simple Solar. This video goes over all the parts that you need to setup a solar system. Most videos like this will start off by saying “we’re going to look at a basic diagram of a solar system” then show you something that looks like this (complex diagram) and then start using words that only an electrician would understand. There’s a lot of interesting stuff to learn about solar -- and it’s great if you want to look into it -- but you shouldn’t need to become an electrician just to figure out what you are looking for.

There are three main parts to a solar system. Your solar panels that produce electricity by catching the light from the sun, your batteries that store the electricity so that you can use it whenever you want, and your charge controller which basically takes the power from your solar panels, and puts it into your batteries. Let’s put this into a diagram. Solar panels create electricity. They take that electricity and send it to your charge controller. Then your charge controller adjusts it to be something that your batteries can use, and sends it over to your batteries where the electricity will stay until you are ready to use it.

It’s really that simple. Create the power, convert it to something useable, and store it for later use. Not too complicated.

Now what if you want to power something off of your batteries? You’ve got the power stored, in the batteries, but how can you access it? Well first you need to understand that there are basically two different kinds of electricity. At least that’s what we are going to call it for this video. You’ve got AC power, and DC power. Even if you don’t really understand the difference between the two, that’s fine. You just need to know that there is a difference.

Anything that you would plug into a wall outlet runs on AC power, and anything that you would plug into like your laptop or your car runs on DC power. You can turn either kind of power into the other kind of power. If you have AC power and want to make it DC power, you use something like this (hold up phone box) or this (hold up power brick). These are called converters and they are built into a lot of different power cords. Like for example, my laptop runs on DC power but since the manufacturer knows that my home is going to have AC outlets, they built a converter into my power cord, and that converter takes the AC power from my house, and converts it into DC power for my laptop. A device that turns AC power into DC power, is called a converter. On the other hand, a device that goes the other way and turn DC power into AC power is called an inverter. So AC to DC is a converter. DC to AC is an inverter. The point is just to get the electricity to be the type of electricity that your device needs to work properly. The power stored in your solar systems batteries is stored as DC power. So if you want to run something like this (hold up lamp) or anything else that would plug into a standard wall out, you need to get an inverter to just take that DC power and make it AC power so that you can use it. So let’s go back to our diagram: Solar panels create the power, the charge controller translates it into something that your batteries can use, your batteries store the power, and to get the power out of your batteries you use an inverter which will give you a normal outlet that you can plug something into. (OPTIONAL: Let’s take an example here. This is a $20 inverter from Target. Blah blah maybe put somewhere else in the script.) Those 4 pieces are everything that you need to have a system that can create the power that you need, and make it available for use. There are a few other optional pieces that can be nice to have, but you don’t need them for your system to work.

One optional upgrade is a battery monitoring system so that you know how full your batteries are, how much power your solar panels are creating, and how much power you are using. You don’t need it for your system to work, but it’s really helpful to have. (some batteries have this built in???)

Another optional upgrade is to go with an inverter charger, rather than a normal inverter like we already talked about. Remember, an inverter takes the DC power from your batteries and puts out AC power to give you a usable outlet. An inverter charger does the exact same thing because it is an inverter, but it’s also a charger. It gives you the option to charge your batteries from an external power source. So if your solar panels aren’t producing enough for some reason, you can run a generator to create the power to charge your batteries, or get an extension cord and plug into an outlet somewhere to charge your batteries. Most of the time your solar panels should be making enough on their own to power everything, but an inverter charger gives you kind of a backup option. Imagine if you had a week of rain with almost no sun. Your solar panels are not going to be producing nearly as much electricity as they normally would. If you are using more power than your solar panels are creating, eventually you are going to run out of power. Having an inverter charger gives you the backup option to be able to fire up a generator and use that to charge your batteries to make up for the difference in the power that your solar panels aren’t producing. An inverter charger is one of the easiest solutions, but of course there are several other solutions too. One would be to have way more batteries. That way even if your solar system isn’t producing much power at all for several days, you can just run off your stored power until the weather clears up and everything is back to normal. The problem with that is, the batteries are the most expensive part of your solar system, so for many people doubling or tripling your battery capacity isn’t an option. ‘ Another option would be to add way more solar panels so that you are charging your batteries faster. Let’s say that instead of your solar panels making *just enough* to fully charge your batteries each day, you produce enough power to charge your batteries two times over each day. That way you are producing way more power than you need so even if there isn’t as much sun you might be okay. The problems with that are that solar panels take up a lot of space so doubling the amount that you have might be more than you want to do, and if you are producing a bunch more power, you are going to need a more expensive charge controller, not to mention the cost of the panels themselves. So now you understand what all the parts are in general, that’s the first step. The second step is figuring what matters about each part. For example, for batteries do you want to go with flooded lead acid, or lithium ion phosphate? Do you want an MPPT or a PWM charge controller? For your solar panels do you want to go with mono crystalline or polly crystalline, and what wattage should you get? Different things are better in different situations, and it doesn’t make sense to teach you everything you would need to know to setup a solar system for a house, if you are just looking to add a few panels to a van or RV. Just like it wouldn’t make since to give you tips on how you can charge your batteries from your vehicles alternator as a backup option, if you are looking for a system for your house. This is the first in a playlist of videos just like this, so to save yourself time, go to our website SuperSimpleSolar.org and select what type of system you are wanting to build. That way we can direct you to just the information that is exactly what you need and nothing else extra. Is it for an off-grid house? A van? An RV? Once you select what your unique situation is, you’ll get taken to step #2 where we’ll discuss what’s specifically relevant to your situation. So if you haven’t already, go to SuperSimpleSolar.org, we’re a free service and our goal is just to simplify solar systems so that anyone can understand how they work and what they need. We’ve got it broken up into different sections and once you finish each section, you can just click “Next” to go on to the next part and we’ve also got helpful links and power usage calculators, and stuff like that.