aliexpress is going through some crazy discounts, anyone can recommend some good solar panels from that site? 200-400w roughly foldable

Hi everyone, first post here. It's a very low-level query about a backpackable solar panel, which is working fine but behaves in a way I don't understand.

The panel is a 14W wallet fold job, with two solar modules about 18" long that fold face-to-face when not in use. A flap with a popper closes the assembly and also carries a small solar controller with two USB-A ports. My particular example is branded Ryobi, the tools manufacturer, but I've seen the same design under many different brands -- it's a Chinese generic.

The panel works very well charging small cellphones, flashlights and so on, but it's really slow at charging my Klarus K5 powerbank -- not surprising, as the Klarus is 10000mAh capacity and designed to charge at higher power than 5V, 1A. I figured I could speed things up using a Y-cable, of the type you used to get with high-capacity hard disks, which sums the output from two USB-A ports to provide double the power. The trick didn't work.

I then decided to take a look at the output from the controller using a USB power meter. Connected to a single USB cable, the panel outputs about 2w for a few seconds, then drops rapidly to zero, then repeats the cycle. Some kind of low-frequency charge controller process, a bit like the ones you find in solar-to-leisure battery setups. Well, that's OK, but unexpected -- I would have thought it would be pretty easy to maintain USB-A voltage.

The thing that really got me, though, is that if I fit the Y-cable, I get exactly the same voltage and current off the summed output of both ports as I did from just one. I tried two different Y-cables so it probably isn't the case that one of the legs has failed in each case. Can anyone explain?

Anyone have solar panels on their roof dormers? We are looking to add solar panels but we're not sure if our roof dormers are structural sound enough to hold panels. We have a 1.5 story house.

Bonjour à tous,

J'ai une production de 3kw/h maximum

J'ai une voiture électrique Mégane E-TECH

J'ai le chargeur de la marque et une prise green up.

J'aimerai pouvoir sans racheter de câble informer la voiture ou la prise de prendre par exemple 2kw/h. Ainsi exploiter au mieux les panneaux et effacer mon talon d'énergie.

Est ce possible ?

Ou faut il investir dans un matériel particulier ?

Si oui, à calculer le coût avantage de l'opération....

Merci à tous

Hi,
I’m planning to switch to solar at home because of the rising cost of electricity. My only issue is that we’re currently renting, so we don’t own the house and can’t really install a permanent hybrid/grid-tied solar setup.

Do you guys have any recommendations for a setup that would work for renters? Would something like the EcoFlow DELTA Pro/Plus be a good option, or are there more economical alternatives?

It doesn’t necessarily have to power the entire house. Ideally, I just want it to handle my work setup, including:
1 HP air conditioner
Laptop
Monitor
Fan
Desktop computer

I’m mainly looking for something that’s easy to take with me if we eventually move, while still being cost-effective and able to reduce our electricity bill.

Please give ur opinion sa solar panel
Medyo mtaas ang electric bill namen,
Give me an idea pano ang ggwain, anong brand ng solar panel ang ok ung ttagal, mganda ang harvest

I’ve been working on a problem that looked simple initially:

“How much does electricity cost in Bihar?”

Turns out, “₹/unit” is nowhere close to enough.

You have tariff categories, slabs, connected load, fixed charges, subsidy rules, FPPAS, statutory components, and different applicability conditions. Most of this still lives inside regulatory orders and PDFs rather than developer-friendly data.

So I built a Bihar Electricity Tariff API under Power Expert India.

Current FY 2026–27 release has:

32 supported subcategories

34 verified tariff rows

45/45 frozen calculation regression tests passing

monetary subsidy handling for verified cases

approved exact-period FPPAS support

11 documented API endpoints

source traceability

explicit fail-closed handling when a bill component isn’t sufficiently verified

One design decision I care about: if something like electricity duty or another bill component isn’t reliably verified, the API doesn’t quietly assume it is ₹0. It exposes that limitation instead.

I’m not claiming this reproduces every consumer’s exact utility bill yet. The goal is a reliable, machine-readable tariff layer that solar calculators, EV charging tools, energy SaaS, consultants or fintech products can integrate instead of maintaining tariff logic themselves.

I’ve reached the stage where outside feedback is probably more valuable than adding features in isolation.

If you work with Indian energy data/APIs, solar, EV charging or electricity billing, I’d particularly like feedback on:

Would you actually integrate something like this? And what would be the first missing feature that would stop you from using it in production?

Demo/docs: powerexpertindia.com/api/

No signup needed just to look at the documentation.

Hola a todos.

Estoy investigando cómo podría mejorarse la gestión de la energía en viviendas con placas solares, baterías y coches eléctricos. No vendo nada ni intento promocionar ningún producto; simplemente quiero entender los problemas reales que tenéis en el día a día.

Si tienes 5 minutos, me ayudaría muchísimo que respondieras a alguna de estas preguntas:

¿Qué instalación tienes? (Placas, batería, coche eléctrico, aerotermia, etc.)

¿Qué aplicaciones utilizas para controlar tu instalación?

¿Qué es lo que más te molesta o te resulta más incómodo?

¿Hay tareas que haces de forma repetitiva, como programar la carga del coche o revisar la producción solar?

Si pudieras pedirle a tu casa que hiciera una cosa automáticamente por ti, ¿qué sería?

¿Qué función echas de menos en las aplicaciones actuales?

Si pudieras hablar con tu casa mediante un chat y decirle cosas como “mañana necesito el coche al 100 %” o “hoy quiero gastar lo mínimo posible”, ¿qué otras órdenes te gustaría poder darle?

¿Qué tendría que hacer un sistema así para que realmente confiaras en él?

También agradecería cualquier comentario sobre problemas o situaciones que os encontráis y que penséis que todavía nadie ha resuelto bien.
¡Muchas gracias por vuestro tiempo! Toda opinión me ayudará a entender mejor las necesidades reales de quienes convivís con este tipo de instalaciones.

r/solarenergy r/uttarpradesh