Learn how to read a solar battery monitor
Congratulations! You installed photovoltaic solar panels on your home or business. Now you need to know how to read a solar battery monitor. Not only can you determine your energy usage (and perhaps make some adjustments), but you’ll be able to determine when there are problems with your solar panel system, whether from energy production, or other issues.
We’ll go over the basics in this post, so you can sound just like an electrician – or at least, an educated consumer!
- Volts are a measure of a solar battery’s potential. If you have a newer, healthy battery, it should have higher voltage. Over time, it may lose voltage. In short, volts are affected by charge and discharge.
- Amps are used to determine the flow of electrons in and out of the “battery bank.” Amps are measured by the shunt, and can tell you both incoming charging current and outgoing discharging current. You can use the measure of amps to see if there are any loads that may be taking up more power than can be charged from your solar panels.
- Amp-hours (Ah)- take a look at this measurement to easily determine if your battery is fully charged. If you see a negative feature (i.e. -5 ah), you are that far away from a compete charge (i.e. 5 hours).
- State of Charge (SOC) – stated more directly, this is also known as the battery % full. This reading will tell you the net of energy deposits and withdrawals. More importantly, you’ll be able to determine the amount of remaining energy vis-a-vis the total capacity of the battery. You’ll just need to know the total Ah of your battery. Then when you see the SOC, you’ll be able to determine the total number of Ah remaining (for example, if you have a 800 Ah battery, and a 76% reading, you’ll have about 610 Ah left).
Still don’t get it? Let’s watch the following video, which should be of additional help!
Got the basics? We’ll go into more detail on how to read a solar battery monitor in the next post.
For now, please post any comments or questions below, and we’ll follow up. Thanks!
Tags: amp-hours, amps, how to read a battery monitor, solar battery monitor, state of charge, volts
June 13th, 2009 at 1:10 am
Really good information. Batteries are so essential for a good solar energy system.
August 26th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Great site and info. I’m continually trying to learn more about solar energy as well as other alternative sources. I keep looking for new systems that are easy to install and where the cost of solar panels keep going down. Thanks for your info.