System Overview

A birdseye view of an alternative energy system goes something like this:

Energy is created in Solar Panels, a windmill or a small hydro generator, and transported through cables to a charge controller. The charge controller monitors the state of charge of the batteries, and when neccesary allows the energy to be passed on to the batteries. The batteries supply energy to an inverter, which converts the energy stored in the batteries into regular 'house current', and another cable transfers this house current to the main breaker panel of the house.

A number of safety measures include ground rods to ground the solar arrays, the windmill tower and the main switchboard. Surge arrestors protect sensitive electronics against high voltage spikes and circuit breakers allow an operator to disable part or whole of the system and protect against currents higher than rated through the cables.

For increased efficiency solar panels may be mounted on trackers, devices that make the panels follow the sun as it traces it's path across the sky.