Alternative lighting

[ctrljay]

Is it possible to power your house lighting circuit with a Leisure battery through the consumer unit.( I would replace light bulbs with the new led ones that use less power and voltage?

Or is there a better way? Just wondering during power cuts we can be clever! I know cant power the whole house but lighting maybe?

[dead-man-walking]

highly doubt you can as your domestic lighting is 240 volt, leisure batts are 12

if you used a power inverter maybe but would have to be a biggie imho
it should be possible as most emergency solar installs ive seen on youtube have a switch over box etc

[tigs]

just get a back up generator

[Plymtom]

What would certainly have been an issue with tungsten lighting would have been the cable size (Cross sectional area) 1 or 1.5 mm used in lighting circuits would not handle the increase in current that the decrease in voltage to maintain a reasonable wattage of lamp would involve, worst case scenario cable catches surroundings on fire, it's a specialist job requiring a safe changeover switch from mains to generator (or any standby power) too, this is where your sparkie really does come into his own.

[TorNicho]

Running a 12vdc system into/around your house for lighting is probably your easiest bet.
I have just started to do this in my place. Two new leisure batteries arrived today (100Ah each).
Have a 60w solar set-up which will certainly cover the power it takes to light the house.
Also part the way through building a wind turbine which I estimate at another 50w.
Just have a completely different power ring for the 12V
With an inverter, you could run a laptop, charge phones, all kinds of low power stuff.

[daylen]

Pulling your lighting ring to a new, battery powered circuit is certainly doable. I'm planning on just that myself. Then as time goes by and I add more capacity, I'll add a ring main for essentials like the freezer and such like.

Have a separate unit for off-grid and on-grid. I wouldn't even consider trying to add the battery to the main consumer unit unless you really know what you're doing!

I'd recommend using an inverter and sticking with 240v. Running 12v circuits that draw any serious current requires some pretty thick cables to avoid overheating and fires. Also if your house is big you may well have issues with efficiency as power loss is proportional to the current.

[VSAINT]

Hi , I am currently instaling a solar power system that will provide both 12v for exterior led illumination as well as 240v through an invertor .The 240 v side having an extension lead ( 3 pin plug at both ends ) from invertor to my consumer unit ( fuse box ) I am instaling a fly lead ( short extension wire with the socket on ) from the out put side of the lighting circuit so that if power is lost i can plug the invertor into the fuse box after isolating the unit and the return from the grid .This will allow us to use our std 240v low energy lights without having to install new wires etc . The solar panels i have bought are only 18v 20w units but the 5 i have will charge our 100amp lorry battery easily . I could have bought a single 100w unit but by utilising 5 , if 1 or 2 get damaged then we will still have a useable power supply .
Also by using extension leads , the new wireing regulations wont be broken ..

[simonB]

K, so this talk about battery systems is exactly what I was researching last night.
As a newbie, I found there is a lot of badly explained theory to this, but piecing together info from various websites I (rightly or wrongly) worked out that ...

It would cost me absolute THOUSANDS of pounds.
like 10,000 + !!
For something to run me 500w for 5hr a day.

I'm curious if my calculation are correct, or wildly out of proportion, so if anyone out there can say if this 'sounds' right or not ?
(Key factors listed below).

If it is true, then there's a lot of dodgy mis-selling going on all over the internet.

Would be nice to see an article form someone honest and down to earth who could lay out some simple facts and guides on the subject and blow out the myths.
There seems to be a lot of assumptions that you simply grab a panel + battery and off you go ... without taking into account some very serious technical facts/limitations.


---------------------------------
The December Sun hours for UK is around 0.97
Maximum charge that an FLA battery can handle is 33a.
Maximum available Controller rating is 80a

All the above with fudge factors for inefficiencies and planning for 20% depth charge.

Required Energy 500 watts @ 5hr a day
battery 48v, capacity of 12.5 KWh , 260 Ah.

[dango1uk]

We have just had solar panels fitted for free, enough to light whole house and run a heater, have a look at ashadegreener for details, main thing is it didn't cost a penny

[nickdutch]

Is it possible to power your house lighting circuit with a Leisure battery through the consumer unit.( I would replace light bulbs with the new led ones that use less power and voltage?

Or is there a better way? Just wondering during power cuts we can be clever! I know cant power the whole house but lighting maybe?

If you wanted to use the existing wiring, you would have to buy all appliances at 12V and make sure that you dont have ANY mains electricity going through the system otherwise the entire load will go on fire.

OR you can use a inverter. i think I have heard (so dot quite me) that there are some inverters that can turn off the moment that they detect mains power coming back on, however I have never seen one that can do this. If they exist they are probably quite high end.

Are you going for total off grid or are you planning on still using on grid power?

If its just for power cuts then If I were you, id make up a separate 12 V system.