Residential solar panels manipulate the energy of the sun to power household electrical items. Installing residential solar panels will allow you to get rid of (or at least rigorously reduce) your electric cost and you will also be doing your bit on behalf of the environment by not purchasing energy from providers whose power generation facilities contribute to the planet's stock of greenhouse gases.
Whilst the cost involved with installing residential solar panels and the associated payback interval has been too expensive in the past, these days solar panels are much more reasonably priced and indeed better looking. The cost of making limitless electricity from photovoltaic (PV) panels has dropped considerably in recent years, thanks to economic incentives such as installation rebates, improved production efficiencies and increased energy capability, making them a much extra attractive proposition for the average household.
Contemporary residential solar power systems are basically a plug-and-play technology that having been installed, require little participation on the part of the homeowner. With so much attention paid to keeping things green and our energy habit to a minimum, it makes fine sense to install residential solar panels for our home's energy needs.
Typically installed on the roof, solar panels (also called photovoltaic panels) convert sunlight immediately into DC electric. An inverter next converts this DC current to AC electric for all or a number of of your day after day energy needs, depending on your home's daily power consumption.
Installing a solar power system into your own household is a big step and one that involves a lot of forethought. Consideration should be given to things such as your house's location (is your residence shadowed by a row of large trees or else a neighbor's mansion?); the size of your residence (you need 200-250 feet of rooftop oriented towards the sun's curve for the project to remain viable); and the size of discount on offer for residential solar power installation (rebates will vary from state to state).
Systems will as a rule have a payback point of between 6-12 years - and will almost certainly have paid for themselves well ahead of their 20-25 year warranties run out. The exact payback point will depend on the home's electrical use, the electric rate schedule and the cost of your system.
Systems that are not grid-tied commonly have battery back-up storage. This means to facilitate systems that are not connected to the grid should overproduce all through the day and accumulate the energy in a battery. Installing your own solar power can cut off your exposure to rising electric rates since the portion of your usage that is generated on site will no longer be subject to increased in electric rates.
Installation of solar hot water heating has develop into the norm in countries such as Australia, Israel and Greece, somewhere there is an wealth of solar radiation, and even in Japan and Austria where there is considerably less. The increased take up of solar power as a domestic energy source has been aided by the increased international awareness of global warming and government incentives such as rebates in support of the installation of residential solar powered systems.
