In message , Another Dave
writes
On 07/04/2011 15:42, root wrote:
On Thu, 07 Apr 2011 09:23:02 +0100, Another Dave wrote:

A bloke called Ridley was claiming in The Times the other day that it's
feasible to floodlight the PV array using off-peak electricity and still
turn a profit at 3am!

While it sounds like a nice idea, I call bull on that. The efficiency
of floodlights is quite low and the efficiency of solar panels is, too.
Even if the PV converted 25% of incident light into electricity, AND
you had lights that converted 25% of their power into usable light,
you still end up with 0.25 * 0.25 - 1/16 th of the power out that you
put in.

I didn't say he was right :-)

I agree with you that it's not feasible - but with the FIT being 8-10
times that of off-peak electricity it's not that much of an
exaggeration. There are LEDs which are nearly twice as efficient as
standard fluorescents, although only in the lab.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_lig...nal_parameters


Would LED lamps work with a PV panel?

Me and eldest daughter were playing around with a kit she was given that
had small PV panel in. We were measuring the output voltage, as it
wasn't driving the motor in the kit, IIRC the LED maglite torch we tried
on it didn't produce anything really
--
Chris French