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People learning about solar power - Image via flickr
Whether you’re planning to go totally off-grid or just want to meet part of your energy needs there are important factors you need to keep in mind when choosing solar panels and equipment for your home, shop, or property.
It can be a daunting task to choose the right equipment and best location on your property to get the most energy and ROI out of your solar power system.
However, we would be happy to help you with your choices as well as suggest creative and inspiring ideas to harvest energy from the sun in the least expensive ways possible.
Allright, without further chit-chat let’s suggest ideas for solving energy problems as well as sort out what you need to know and how to plan your solar power system.
How Much Power Do You Need?
The amount of power you need depends on whether you want to take your whole house off grid or you simply want to have running water fountain in your yard without putting in plumbing and electrical conduit. Or maybe your power needs are somewhere in between these two extremes.
The first step is to add up the power requirements of those devices you want to run with solar power. Most consumer appliances like TVs, DVRs, and computer equipment list their power requirements on a backplate or in the user manual. Power is reported in units of Watts, make sure you’re adding up the Watts not the voltage.
For lighting, add up the wattage of each light. Be careful in the case of compact fluorescent lights be sure to use the actual wattage rather than the “equivalent” power. Many CFL packages state that the bulb puts out as much light as an incandescent of a higher wattage.
As a little side note, you should definitely be using energy efficient compact fluorescent lighting everywhere possible. Find out more about CFLs role in conservation.
Sometimes you just don’t have the power consumption data available for some appliances. In this case there are inexpensive meters, like the Kill-A-Watt®, that let you safely measure how much power a device actually uses.
Permanent Installation or Portable Power?
You have different decisions to make that depend on whether your solar power system will be a permanent part of your home or property, or if you need a power source that you can easily move from place to place.
For a permanent installation where will you put the solar panels? Clearly they need to be mounted where they can “see” the most sunlight possible. Very often this is on the roof of your home. However, you also want to think about the ease of installation and maintenance. It’s important to keep your panels clean for best efficiency, this is much easier (and safer) to do if you don’t have to climb onto your roof.
For a portable or emergency power system you need to decide on the type and capacity of the batteries you will use. We cover batteries in depth in another article, but the basic factors in battery selection are cost and where the batteries will be kept and charged. Sealed batteries are slightly more expensive but can be safely charged indoors. Flooded batteries are usually less expensive but care must be taken to charge them in a safe, well ventilated environment because they give off hydrogen gas as part of the charging process.
Got Sunlight?
The amount of sunlight you get at your location directly impacts the viability of a solar power system. A solar panel located in Phoenix Arizona will produce a lot more annual energy than the same panel located in Seattle Washington. The reason for this is weather, specifically the amount of cloud cover at your location. Clouds block the sunlight from reaching your panels which reduces the amount of energy they can produce.
In full sun, at mid latitudes the amount of sun falling directly on the Earth’s surface is about 1000 Watts per square meter. However, a one square meter solar panel will not generate 1000 Watts of electrical power because of factors like the direction and tilt of the panel and also the efficiency of the panel in converting sunlight into electricity.
In another article we’ll show you how to use online tools, like PVWatts, to calculate how much energy you can expect to get from your solar power system, taking into account your location, climate, and system efficiency.
DIY or Hire a Solar Installer?
If you are handy with a toolbox or your solar installation is a fairly small project then you can probably handle it yourself. You’ll get a lot of satisfaction from completing a solar power project and start harvesting your own energy.
Even for some higher power systems, you can buy complete do-it-yourself kits with solar panels, batteries, inverter and interconnecting cables.
On the other hand if you are a little hesitant to start drilling holes in your roof for solar panel mounting systems or are not able to wrestle with solar equipment, like batteries which can be quite heavy, then you should contact a qualified contractor to do the hard part of the installation for you.
Shopping For Solar Power Systems Online
Are you apprehensive about buying solar power stuff over the internet? Check out our partners, we scour the web to find merchants that offer quality products, great customer service, and special deals to Solar Home Power readers. We only partner with merchants that take your privacy and online security seriously.
Enjoy your exploration of solar power and let us know if we can help. We are committed to helping you use solar power around your home and property to save money, enjoy the technology and increase your energy independence!