Understanding Your Solar Needs
No solar project may proceed without understanding how much you’ll need to meet your home’s energy requirements. First, you’ll need to understand how much energy your household consumes. Thus, the first thing to do is to find your bills for electricity for the past year.
Divide the resulting number by 12 to gain an understanding of how many kilowatt-hours you’ll need a month. In the U.S., most households will require between
900 to 1000 kWh a month. This number can vary substantially based on the size of your home, its location, and how many people live in it.
Considering Your Usage
Additionally, some of your energy consumption may be more relevant than other components. For example,
heating and cooling may use up to 50% of your household’s energy consumption. Explore your daily tools and utilities as well as their monitoring devices, such as the energy monitor, which can give you real-time data on the impact your utility may have at your location.
Seeing If You Have Enough Light
Perhaps most importantly for your plans, however, the average number of daily sunlight hours isn’t a factor you have any power over, and will vary between different areas of the U.S. The U.S. Energy Information Administration offers maps showing the average level of solar radiation across different regions.
Arizona and New Mexico will get 6 or more peak sun hours a day, while the Pacific Northwest will get less than 4. Measure the optimal ration of sunlight to size your panels.
Solar Goals and Efficiency
First of all, it is important to determine your solar goals. Do you want to produce enough energy to become net-zero or simply to reduce your utility bills? This will be a key assumption to build the size and design of your system. In this regard, it is important to mention the
solar panel efficiency, which varies between 15% and 22%. An important point is that
the higher efficiency of the panel, the less space you require on your roof. As such, your goals and the available space and budget should be aligned in the most appropriate system.
Carefully thinking through all these points, you’re not just installing panels; you’re investing in greener future.
This scaffold was designed to allow you understand all the crucial points of your solar journey. These are the aspects of evaluating your energy behavior, realizing the solar potential of your region and matching them to your goals.
Carefully considering the system before its construction, you’re not only facilitating the transition to solar energy but also ensuring years of benefits following this transition.
Estimating the Size of Your Solar Array
The beginning of your journey to solar energy is the time to estimate the size of your solar array. In other words, it is the point, at which you determine the size and power generation of your potential system. There are two key aspects of this topic:
your average monthly consumptions and the solar potential of your region. As an illustration, the average American household consumes roughly
900 kWh of energy per month and resides in an area with an average of
5 peak sun hours per day. Under such conditions, your system is likely to require around
6 kW of energy. The formula is fairly simple:
divide your monthly consumption of kWh in a month by daily peak hours and multiply by the number of days. The preciseness of this calcification will determine the effectiveness of your system.
By dividing your annual energy usage found on your electricity bills by 365, you will gain your daily average. The available sunlight hours for your particular location are found through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Multiplying this number by your daily average will indicate the total number of solar power energy recoverable. It means that the more sunlight hours you have, the more energy your solar system produces. However, only a fraction of this energy is put to use. So once you have determined your energy wants and the possible sunlight input, it is time to think about the necessary solar panel wattage.
The size of your array will depend on the watts of the solar panels you choose as well as the summed wattage of the panels. You can either decide them depending on their size or simply estimate the panel wattage you need when attempting to install a system that will produce 100% or more of your electricity.
Solar panels usually range from 250-watt panels to 400-watt ones. If you choose to use higher-wattage solar panels, you may need fewer panels overall to be able to cover your electricity production. Ultimately, the number of panels you will use to do this will depend directly on the ivy size of your chosen panels.
The last step you should take is rather forceful, for you will have to examine the physical attributes of your chosen panels: their size, as well as weight. This is important since you are going to put these solar panels onto your roof or possibly create a solar grid independent of your house.
The average solar panel size for home usage is about 65 inches long and 39 inches wide. Each panel weighs approximately 40 pounds and generates a power of 60 to 72 watts. At this point, contact a professional who will estimate the capacity of your panels in relation to the size of your roof area.
Conclusion
If you approach each of these steps systematically, you will lay one strong stone to the garden of your solar project. Every facet of your energy needs and your roof ability to take on such weight is necessary to succeed in solar power transition. Considering these steps, you will prepare yourself for a usual and smooth installment process, while also perfectly optimizing your investment to get the most out of it.
It will certainly pay to make a bit of research on your future energy source.
Solar Panel Selection and Efficiency
Choosing the best panels is like making a choice of heart in your body; efficiency should be your major concern.
Efficiency of a solar panel is the measure of how well the specific panel can turn sunlight into electricity. The factor in question usually ranges somewhere from
15 all the way to 22%. Buying panels with higher efficiency means that you will be needing less of them to get all the power you want to produce. For roofs with little space, that can be a deciding factor. However, it is vital not to forget about the balance with their efficiency; the better it is, the more expensive solar panels become.
There is a premium price you pay for a smaller space they cover and potential production of more electricity than the low efficiency alternatives.
Comparing Solar Panels: Quality and Output
The quality and output are two tightly connected categories that you should consider when buying panels. Regular, higher quality panels not only boast of higher efficiency but also fare better against the environment, offering a longer life and better electricity output over time.
The right panels have proof of being made by a reputable manufacturer and come with a revision and performance warranty of at least 25 years in extreme cases. Compare the amount of electricity in a kWh that every panel can offer.
The higher the output, the better the panel.
Both Your Roof’s Size and Solar Panel Fit
On the one hand, it is clear that the amount of power that can be generated by your solar panels is contingent on the size and layout of your roof and, by extension, the number of solar panels that can be fitted on it.
A standard residential solar panel is about 65 inches by 39 inches. Starting with these basic measurements, one can estimate that one needs about 100 square feet of roofing for every kW of the panels’ capacity. On the other hand, the efficiency of your system would depend on your roof’s shading and orientation. Obviously, the theoretically most efficient position is a no-shaded roof that faces south. However, this is yet another oversimplification, as it turns out that east or west orientations would be acceptable and would only require some minor changes in terms of system design. The same goes for minimal to moderate shading.
Clearly, the hypothetically optimal solution is not always realistic, so, again, careful measurement and consideration are vital. Solar Panel System Cost and Budget
On the one hand, one should remember that multiple factors could impact the real cost of a solar panel system. Specifically, the average U.S. prices for a solar panel system varied from
$2.50 to $3.50 per watt in April 2021. As for an average 6 kW system, one could expect to pay from $15,000 to $21,000. However, these are the prices before various incentives. Thus, the most important consideration would be your budget, and, by extension, the incentives available in your area; their total cost would have to moderate and reassess the final prices. Specifically, the available incentives could cover around 24% of your total spend, including the Federal tax credit, local or state incentives and the cost of Solar Renewable Energy Certificate, and various rebates. The final and no less important consideration may be the advice to not rush: get several quotes and estimate your exact needs.
Helping to pay for your system and assuredly will not compromise its quality.
Finalizing your solar panel count: a critical step that combines all previous assessments into a final plan. You need to take your total annual electricity usage, divide it by the annual output per panel, and adjust for losses. Say, your household electricity is 10,800 kWh per year, and each panel in your chosen setup will produce 300 kWh yearly. Simple division will give you a base count of 36 panels, but you need to add at least 10-15% for efficiency losses due to shading, orientation, and wear and tear. This way, you will be sure that the final number of panels will provide you with electrify year-round.
Personalized roof assessment: do not just rely on rough estimations. Make sure you learn as much as possible about your roof in particular: the material it is made of, the load it can carry, the angle, and the direction. Ideally, the roof of your house should face south in the Northern Hemisphere to receive the most of sunlight. Roof on the east or west side of the building is also an option but will require a different panel to the roof layout. Make sure that there will be no excessive shade from trees, other buildings, or structures, as this can cut down on the efficiency of your system drastically.
Exploring Net Metering and Energy Credits
The penultimate step is exploring net metering and energy credits. These solutions can have a significant impact on the financial returns of your solar investment.
Net metering allows homeowners to sell excess electricity generated by their solar panels back to the grid, often at the same rate they would pay for electricity. Thus, individuals may achieve substantial savings or even earn money on their energy bills, depending on the output of the installed system. In addition, in some areas, local and state governments provide energy credits for generating solar power.
To find out all the options, individuals need to study local laws and utility company policies. However, even though this step might be complex, it may greatly affect the solar project’s economics.
Consulting with Professional Solar Installers
The final step is consulting with professional solar installers. These specialists can help by providing insights into the specifics of the installation, such as the optimal placement of the equipment on the roof and the right solar panels to select.
A good installer would also consider property owners’ electricity consumption dynamics, roof parameters, and financial interests. To this end, they will develop a design, which would typically provide a certain rate of return. Furthermore, solar installers can offer useful information regarding the available tax credits and financial incentives.
To ensure that the service provider is reliable, individuals should request quotes from several companies and ask for references. Overall, by paying attention to the final steps in a systematic manner, customers are not just completing the preparatory phase but are taking necessary actions to make the whole transition as safe and beneficial as possible.
