So you want to solar power your home for the cheapest way possible. So the first thing you need to do is to learn about solar panels.
Before you begin, you need to get the answer to the common question can one solar panel power an entire house. I am asked this question all the time. The person asking this question then usually follows the question with a list of things they have in their house that they would like to power with solar power such as a TV, an air conditioner, etc.
I hate to have to tell you that the answer is no. It is not possible to power your home with a single solar panel. I have been off the power grid for over 12 years now. I have seen solar panel technology come a long way. But even the most expensive solar panel can not power an entire house. You are going to need 15 solar panels and at least 10 deep cycle batteries. If you have to keep your air conditioning running often, then you are going to need even more solar panels and batteries for your battery bank. Remember that your air conditioner is costing you the most money out of anything else in your house.
The first aspect of solar power you must learn is that in reality, nothing is powered off of a solar panel. Your home is not like a solar power calculator where a solar panel built right into the face of the calculator can power the calculator (although in actuality a battery does exists inside the calculator that is charged by the solar panel). The only thing a solar panel does is that it charges a battery. You then plug whatever you want to run in your home into that battery by using a DC (batteries are all DC current) to AC converter or what is called an inverter. Now you don't just use one battery as that would drain the battery too fast before your solar panels had a chance to charge it back up. You wire a string of batteries together (very easy to hook them together in parallel) to form what is called a battery bank. You then run the appliances in your home off this battery bank and not the solar panels. You do this because the appliances in your home need to have a steady supply of current. Voltage spikes that come off of solar panels due to clouds passing in between your solar panel array and the sun are canceled out by the battery bank.
You should slowly increase the number of solar panels by plugging more and more of them into your battery bank as you take more and more things in your home off of the power grid. Don't move your air conditioner over to the solar panels at first. Instead, consider switching it to gas.
Also, if you work during the day, leave your air conditioner off. In this case, your solar panel system that is powering your whole house is generating power and making your meter run backwards as you are selling the energy during the day back to the power company. Then when you get home at night, you buy energy from them when you turn your AC on.
You should be able to cut your electricity bill by 65% or more as long as you don't live in the desert where you have to run your AC all during the night in order to sleep.
Before you begin, you need to get the answer to the common question can one solar panel power an entire house. I am asked this question all the time. The person asking this question then usually follows the question with a list of things they have in their house that they would like to power with solar power such as a TV, an air conditioner, etc.
I hate to have to tell you that the answer is no. It is not possible to power your home with a single solar panel. I have been off the power grid for over 12 years now. I have seen solar panel technology come a long way. But even the most expensive solar panel can not power an entire house. You are going to need 15 solar panels and at least 10 deep cycle batteries. If you have to keep your air conditioning running often, then you are going to need even more solar panels and batteries for your battery bank. Remember that your air conditioner is costing you the most money out of anything else in your house.
The first aspect of solar power you must learn is that in reality, nothing is powered off of a solar panel. Your home is not like a solar power calculator where a solar panel built right into the face of the calculator can power the calculator (although in actuality a battery does exists inside the calculator that is charged by the solar panel). The only thing a solar panel does is that it charges a battery. You then plug whatever you want to run in your home into that battery by using a DC (batteries are all DC current) to AC converter or what is called an inverter. Now you don't just use one battery as that would drain the battery too fast before your solar panels had a chance to charge it back up. You wire a string of batteries together (very easy to hook them together in parallel) to form what is called a battery bank. You then run the appliances in your home off this battery bank and not the solar panels. You do this because the appliances in your home need to have a steady supply of current. Voltage spikes that come off of solar panels due to clouds passing in between your solar panel array and the sun are canceled out by the battery bank.
You should slowly increase the number of solar panels by plugging more and more of them into your battery bank as you take more and more things in your home off of the power grid. Don't move your air conditioner over to the solar panels at first. Instead, consider switching it to gas.
Also, if you work during the day, leave your air conditioner off. In this case, your solar panel system that is powering your whole house is generating power and making your meter run backwards as you are selling the energy during the day back to the power company. Then when you get home at night, you buy energy from them when you turn your AC on.
You should be able to cut your electricity bill by 65% or more as long as you don't live in the desert where you have to run your AC all during the night in order to sleep.
About the Author:
By Lance Jensen. For more solar power tricks and advice including an interactive solar power calculator, visit solar power
1 comment:
Thank you for sharing valuable information.
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