How Do You Know If You Have Enough Solar Panels For Your Consumption?

Solar panels are an investment in renewable energy that saves you from high utility bills throughout your lifespan. Thus, you must purchase enough solar panels that can power your entire home or electric vehicle. To make sure you are buying the right amount of solar panels, you can use the following guidelines.

Get a Power Audit

Power audits from electricians or power company employees give you a complete view of your overall energy consumption. Utility receipts give you a rough power audit estimate. However, professional audits make sure you have the correct power total.

How Much Power Will You Need?

Helpful solar panel installation specialists in Littleton, CO, such as Roper Roofing and Solar, can give you a rough materials and labor estimate for your project. Thus, they can provide you the correct number of solar panels to power the entire house free of charge.

Sunpower has an excellent post about solar energy estimations. Read more about it below.

How many hours of sunlight can you expect in your area?

The peak sunlight hours for your particular location will have a direct impact on the energy you can expect your home solar system to produce. For example, if you live in Phoenix you can expect to have a greater number of peak sunlight hours than if you lived in Seattle. That doesn’t mean a Seattle homeowner can’t go solar; it just means the homeowner would need more panels.

The Renewable Resource Data Center provides sunlight information by state and for major cities.

Now multiply your hourly usage (see question No. 1) by 1,000 to convert your hourly power generation need to watts. Divide your average hourly wattage requirement by the number of daily peak sunlight hours for your area. This gives you the amount of energy your panels need to produce every hour. So the average U.S. home (900 kWh/month) in an area that gets five peak sunlight hours per day would need 6,000 watts.

What affects solar panel output efficiency?

Here’s where solar panel quality makes a difference. Not all solar panels are alike. Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels (most commonly used in residential installations) come in wattages ranging from about 150 watts to 370 watts per panel, depending on the panel size and efficiency (how well a panel is able to convert sunlight into energy), and on the cell technology.

For example, solar cells with no grid lines on the front (like SunPower ® Maxeon cells) absorb more sunlight than conventional cells and do not suffer from issues such as delamination (peeling). The construction of our cells make them stronger and more resistant to cracking or corrosion. And a microinverter on each panel can optimize power conversion at the source, in contrast to one large inverter mounted on the side of the house. (Full Article Here)

You can always use Roper Roofing & Solar’s services for all your solar panel installation needs in Littleton, CO. Our years of experience and knowledge guarantee that you’ll always get the best results for all your project needs.