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How many solar panels does it take to charge a 150 AH battery?

By AtulHost in Consumer Electronics, Solar Energy ⋅ January 25th, 2020
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If you’ve been planning to install an off-grid solar energy solution, it is an obvious thing one can ask: How many watts of solar panels do I need to charge a 150 AH battery? Or how much time it takes to 600 watts of the solar panels to charge a 150 AH battery full?

Solar Panels
150 Ah Solar Battery

In this article, we’ll explain the basic calculation of the solar panels’ capacity or wattage requirements to charge a battery bank.

First, let us calculate the battery watts. Inverter batteries come in 12 Volts capacity, let’s say you have a 150 AH battery bank then multiply the battery’s AH with its Volts to calculate the total battery wattages.

150 AH * 12 Volts = 1800 Watts

Battery AH * Battery Volts = Battery Watts

Second, in how many hours you want the battery bank to charge full using just solar panels. Let’s assume to charge a 150 AH battery full in just 4 hours. So divide the watts of battery by charging hours.

1800 Watts / 4 Hours = 450 Watts

Battery Watts / Charging Hours = Watts Required

So, we would require more than 450 watts of solar panels to charge a 150 AH battery around 4 hours under a clear and sunny sky.

But no inverter will charge the battery with such a high current.

A 150 AH battery rated with C10 will be charged with 10 Amps of current. Thus, for battery’s long life you should not charge it more than that. Even inverter won’t not do that even if you supply more than required current, rather the inverter move those addition energy to direct output for day load.

Let’s adjust the formula little bit:

100 Watts of solar panel will give you around 5 Amps of current. Similarly for 10 Amps you need about or more than 200 Watts.

1800 Watts / 200 Watts = 9 Hours

Battery Watts / Watts Required = Charging Hours

You just need 200+ Watts of solar panels to charge a 150 AH 12 V battery in 9+ sunny hours. This may take more than one and half day to charge completely. So, at the end, just add 30% extra solar watts if you stick to minimum, as there are some current losses in electricity conversion.

Smart Note: Better use MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) solar charge controller over PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation) to extract the most from solar panels. Power losses are negligible in MPPT and over 97% efficient, whereas, PWM lose around 20 to 30% of its energy.

When we are talking about a clear and sunny sky, things are not bright always. Weather conditions like clouds, rains, and winter season also affect solar energy generation, we need to take such conditions in the account as well.

If you’re relying completely on solar power, then add more watts of the solar capacity. This way you can rely on solar power in the day time and use the battery bank power at night time.

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Content is tagged with battery, inverter battery, solar battery, solar energy, solar panels, solar power.
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Published by AtulHost

Atul is a creative blogger who loves to do experiments with the latest business initiatives and tech trends like automation, artificial intelligence, cloud and edge computing, data science, hardware as well as networking, and the internet of things.

Comments and feedback

  1. Satheesh says:
    November 21st, 2020 at 7:34 PM

    Can I charge 2*12 Volts 150 AH battery (two batteries same time use) with 12 Volts and 540 Watts solar panel?

    Reply
    • AtulHost says:
      November 21st, 2020 at 9:25 PM

      Hello Satheesh, you can charge 2 batteries at the same time while they are connected in parallel. Whenever we connect 2 batteries in parallel we achieve double ampere and same voltage. About charging with solar, yes it will be affected. Since the battery AH has increased to 300 AH (150 AH * 2) the charging time will be double, so the backup will be double.

      If you haven’t bought anything, I’ll recommend 24 volts setup, it will give you higher output.

      Reply

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