PV panels for heating

[Eric Nelson]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone could share a link or some search bait. I noted here in the forums and in the PDF manual, mention of using PV panels as heating panels.  I am reviewing solutions for heating and thought it seemed like an interesting option to hang a panel on a wall or ceiling. I haven't yet been able to wrap my head around the wiring though. Can anybody spare a few minutes for some words or diagrams on the subject?

Alternatively any other good ways to provide heat to my 3x4 meter well insulated shed? I thought about underfloor heating, but so far all the commercially available kits for that want AC mains. I suspect I could work something out for DC. I did approach a company in Germany I believe, their system uses DC, but they were disinclined to sell me anything without their AC to DC transformer.

Keeping in mind I am doing this as a hobby not necessity and have access to mains. At this point I am not using an inverter but I have been changing devices from AC > DC to DC > DC as most of my devices want direct current anyway. And I am still building up a battery bank slowly over time.

Thanks!

[Dacian Todea]

Hi Eric,

You can read my post about heating with solar PV panels https://electrodacus.com/solarforum.html?place=msg%2Felectrodacus%2FncACW0N63Sk%2FcpWWR9F4AAAJ
My test involved just two 60 cell PV panels where 20 cells from each panels where deactivated by shorting that section with a piece of wire (details in the above linked post).

Each panel is connected directly to other two 60 cell panels that are outside and supply this one panel with energy directly nothing else is involved and the system will naturally work at or very close to max power point.

Main problem you will have is that solar is not always available so it may get to hot in your shed during the day but then cold at night if you do not have enough thermal mass storage.

Battery is a very expensive way to store energy and while there is no other choice for supplying electronics it will be way to expensive for heating.

PV panels well below $0.02/kWh in therms of cost amortisation.

Best LiFePO4 battery an order of magnitude more $0.2/kWh

Thermal storage can be as low or even lower than $0.01/kWh 

[Eric Nelson]

Dacian,

Thank you that post looks good, I guess I missed it. That gives me something to test. Yeah as much as this shed does have good insulation, it doesn't have good thermal mass. At least not as much as the walls of the house which are made of cobb and about 3 feet thick. That's thermal mass.

I'll be using something plugged into the mains for heat this winter and may have to stay that way. Though our winter temps are typically above freezing we don't get many sun hours either. Still worth testing some options. Thanks again!