Running Your Home on Solar Panels

Saving electricity helps both your wallet and the environment. Buying electricity from your local power company depletes nonrenewable resources, but there is a free renewable energy source right in your own back yard. Depending on where you live, the sun can give you enough energy to power your entire house with no electricity backup. There is an initial investment but there are no monthly bills and you can help save the environment. Solar energy has no pollution and allows you to live off the grid without dependence to a power company.

Solar panels work by collecting solar radiation from the sun and converting that energy into electricity. Solar panels are made of many different solar cells within the panel. Many factors can influence the amount of electricity you can get from one solar panel. Shade from a tree or building, weather patterns, the angle the solar panel is installed can all affect how your solar panel will perform. Special dynamic mounts can be purchased for your solar panels to allow them to rotate to follow the sun for the most exposure to the sun during the day.

To determine how many solar panels you will need, first you will need to determine how much power your house consumes. The easiest way to find out how much electricity your home uses is to collect a year's worth of electric bills. Find the kilowatt-hours used for the month and divide by the number of days in the cycle. If you don't know how many days are in the cycle assume there are thirty days. This will give you a monthly average of kilowatt-hours used per day. If you want to be completely off the grid you will need to make sure you have the capability to produce more than the highest number. If you want to be mostly off the grid, you can plan for somewhere in the middle. If your power company will buy some of your unused power, you may want to consider installing the higher end of your averages however this will be a greater initial investment.

Next you will need to determine how many hours of peak sunlight you will receive on your desired solar panel location. Take notes throughout several days of how much direct sunlight you receive. Or you can assume an average of five hours of usable sunlight per day. If you want to have no electricity back up, it is recommended you not use the average but try to determine how much direct sunlight your panels will actually receive.

After you determine how many kilowatt-hours you use on average per day and the amount of direct sunlight you will receive, you can begin to compute how many solar panels you will need. One full hour of peak sun will provide one kilowatt-hour per square meter of solar panel cells. Solar panels come in different sizes with a different number of cells, so you will need to compute the amount of kilowatt-hours per solar panel for the different sizes available to you.

If you want to be completely off the grid, you will need to assume you will need to plan on having enough solar panels to run at your highest daily rate. If you are still able to keep your house on the grid and want to use solar panels to reduce your monthly bills, you can always add more panels at a later time if you find that you need them. Check with your electric company as some will buy excess electricity from you and that can help with your investment of the solar panels.