NMS044 Reference Manual
Understanding NMS044 Power Consumption
8
Making the Most of Your Sunlight Hours
For best results, we encourage you to take advantage of the most daylight and direct sun
for the area of deployment. The EU Science Hub’s Solar Radiation Tool, can provide an
estimate of how your system performs in a particular location based on radiation data
gathered for that location in the recent past.
Step 1.
Visit the European Commission EU Science Hub’s
website.
Step 2.
Select the Solar Radiation Tool, then select a location on the map.
Step 3.
Choose the
Off-Grid
tab, enter the following parameters, then click
Visualize
Results
.
•
Installed Peak PV Power
(
100 W
or
60 W
, depending on your solar panel)
•
Battery Capacity
(BAT021, LiFePo battery =
540 Wh;
(BAT 019, SLA battery =
420 Wh
)
•
Discharge cutoff limit
is
10%
•
Consumption per day
= 80 Wh (typical), but convert the result of your
from watts to watt hours, and use this value.
•
Enter the
Slope
of the solar panel, and the
Azimuth
. To find the azimuth, do
the following:
a.
Open this link for the
NOAA ESRL Solar Position Calculator
b.
Enter the
City
or the
coordinates
of the NMS system and click
Calculate
Solar Position
.
c.
The
Solar Azimuth
value – 180 =
Azimuth
. Enter this value
in the Solar
Radiation Tool.
Step 4.
Select the
Performance
view. The result should have no red bars (days
with no battery power). Select the
Battery State
view. A desirable result
shows the battery is not fully discharged at any time.
Step 5.
To adjust for better results, adjust the
Slope
of the solar panel, or adjust the
system location and
Azimuth
.
Recommended next step:
•
