The Rainbow Hostel is located close to Golfito, Costa Rica. This forming community intends to serve as a learning center for social sustainability. The Rainbow Hostel is run completely on solar energy, system described below.
There are six Sanyo 120 watt panels that generate 720 watts at peak generation.
The solar energy is collected and stored in the batteries as a DC current. The Xantrex inverter changes the DC (direct current) to AC (alternating current) for use in standard household appliances. The controller box manages the charging of the batteries from the solar panels to the batteries.
The Batteries are 6 volt Rolls brand. There are 2 rows of 4 batteries wired as a series in parallel. This gives us a 24 volt system. 4 batteries x 6 volts = 24 volt
There is also a 6,500m KW Honda backup generator just in case!
See Appropedia's Solar PV page to learn more about solar photo-voltaic systems.
