Solar Panel for electic fireplace

 I am putting in an electic fireplace into my home.  The unit provides about
4,500-5,000 BTU on 1,500 Watts.  I would like to power it with an array of
solar panels.  The panels would be exclusive to the fireplace.  How do I
calculate how many panels I would need to rune the fireplace unit?  I am
assuming free heat during the day and not being able to run the unit at
night.

Thanks

  walker61 wrote:

1500/panel wattage = # of panels + 1.

Will run your heater in full sun.

But of course you may only have full sun for a few hours a day in winter
and not every day.

Then you will also need an inverter.

I suspect that you will be cold a lot.

This is just the simple view. The real requirement would be more complex
(read expensive).

Simple answer 1500 watts is 9 - 165 watt panels. Even at a dollar a watt
  that is $1500.00. Real life $5.00 watt $7500.

Free heating?

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Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

 Sit in front of the window when the sun shines. You will feel better
with the light on your retinas also. The rocking chair is a gimmie
anyway

 

This is a fiscally silly approach, as solar thermal would be FAR more
cost effective. So you've done zero research into this, or you're a
troll. "The panels would be exclusive to the fireplace" sounds very
trollish, or else you're one of those people who use $100 bills for
toilet paper, in which case you can just hire some nice person to waste
your money figuring out how many panels, and installing them for you.

So, no storage, no heat when the sun don't shine.

Figure inverter efficiency at 90% (could be worse, probably won't be
better), so you need about 1700 watts of panels to provide 1500 watts to
the fireplace. Will set you back $7,500-$9,000 at prevailing prices just
for the panels, without wiring, required safety equipment and inverter
costs, which will add another $2-4,000.

A quick search of available commercial solar air heating panels
indicates that you can get twice as much heat (9,000+ btu/hr) from a
single thermal panel for less than $2000, under the same conditions (ie,
heat only when sun shines).

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