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What Size Solar System Is Right for Your Home

Solar energy

By William SandfordPublished 5 years ago 4 min read
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When we take a look at the previous decade, we can unanimously agree that there have been many good things going on in the field of consumer-accessible solar energy. Today with the prices of the home solar systems dropping about 70% from their initial value and with various government rebates making the acquisition of these systems easier than ever, we can say that the next decade will prove to be even more fruitful.

Keeping that in mind, it is hard to deny that the general public is still very ill-informed about the true power and limitations of home solar systems. Determining the average household consumption and finding the appropriate panel setup still represents one big unknown.

Let us try to fix this issue and take a look at how you can easily determine what size solar system is right for your home.

Determining the consumption

Being able to properly identify the power requirements of your households makes one of the necessary prerequisites for choosing the appropriate panel system. This issue can be addressed in two ways.

If you are planning to power up the entire household, you would probably have to contact your electricity retailer and ask for copies of the bills over the last 12 months to get a general idea about the average consumption.

If you, on the other hand, want to use the solar energy to supply only certain electrical items, the best thing you can do is to go through all of them and find out each one's wattage. This information is usually printed on the label you can find at the bottom, or on the back of the common household appliances.

Roof space and orientation

The other important factor that will drastically affect your final purchase decision is the size and the orientation of your roof. Speaking in terms of orientation, different parts of the house experience peak sunlight during the following parts of the day:

  • Eastern roof—The best choice if you schedule most of your activities (e.g. preparing the kids for school or doing laundry) early in the morning.
  • Western roof—Western roof makes an ideal choice for the working families where most of the members are out of the house until the late afternoon hours.
  • Northern roof—The strongest exposure comes from mid-morning to early afternoon hours. Putting the panels here makes the most sense for stay-at-home parents and retirees.

When it comes to the available space, you should know that solar panels come in various efficiency classes with most of them ranging between 150w to 345w per panel. If we take a 250w panels as some average value and take into consideration that most of the panels feature the measures of 1.70m x 1.00m, we will see that one average 2kW system takes up an area of an area of 13.60m x 8.00m.

Calculating the size of the system needed

Now that we know how much power your household consumes and have some clue where you are going to place the panels based on the consumption, let us calculate the size of the system you will need.

So, for instance, if your average consumption clocks at 25,000 daily watt-hours and you get good sun exposure for five hours a day, you will need a capable 5kw solar system to completely meet the consumption. Taking once again 250w panels as an average, that leads us to the number of 34m x 20m of necessary space.

Of course, these numbers are purely theoretical and can be drastically affected by lowering the consumption, powering up only some of the appliances, or investing in more efficient panels (e.g. 750w).

Other factors that affect the efficiency

Finally, let us take a quick look at some of the other important factors that can have a great influence on the efficiency of your future solar system.

  • Material—Currently the most efficient home solar systems are produced from Monocrystalline silicone. Polycrystalline silicone takes the close second place in this regard. Thin-film panels are considered the most affordable, but they also take up a lot of space due to poor efficiency and feature subpar lifespan.
  • Shade—Positioning your panels so that some object or plant casts a shadow over them can rob your system of hours upon hours of good sun exposure. Keep this in mind when choosing the panels’ location.
  • Lifespan—Much like any other device, solar panels see the drop in performance as time goes by. Most of the manufacturers, however, guarantee the 80% output even after 25 years of use.
  • Maintenance—The panels can easily get covered in dirt or bird droppings, which can take a toll on their overall performance. Be sure to properly maintain your system in order to get the optimal efficiency.

Conclusion

We hope these few guidelines will make your considerations regarding solar energy if just a bit easier. Taking into account all the current reliefs and benefits, the time for investing in renewable energy seems better than ever. You just have to make sure you do not end up underpowered or stuck up with the overpriced system you won’t ever be able to properly utilize.

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About the Creator

William Sandford

Will Sandford is a Sydney based wood architect, blogger and contributor on interior design and ecology blogs. Besides that, he is also interested in home improvement and green technology. In spare time, he enjoys surfing and rock climbing.

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