Solar Panel Systems for Your Home

Saving energy, saving the planet

You don't have to live in sunny Madrid to take advantage of free solar energy. The surprising thing is that harnessing solar energy for your home here in the UK is still useful, even with our long cold winters. You can install a solar panel system for your house that will provide up to half of your home's annual electricity, saving energy and reducing your carbon footprint.

A photovoltaic (PV) solar panel system converts free sunlight into electricity. Because you need power, even when there is no sunlight, any PV system you install for your home will either be set up to augment your existing mains power, or will have batteries that are charged during the day to provide electricity at night. Only the most expensive PV system will be able to provide all of a home's electricity so most PV systems that are not tied to the mains are augmented with some other type of microgreneration system such as generators.

A PV system costs £4000-£9000 per peak kW produced (kWp), and the average home requires 1.5-2 kWp to provide half it's annual electricity. There are a wide range of companies that are certified by the Department for Business, Enterprise, and Regulatory Reform (BERR) to install PV systems. Most of these companies will also help you to determine the type of PV system that best suits your needs and will also help you with submitting any paperwork to your local council for building approval, if necessary. Your installer will also help you to submit an application to BERR for a low carbon building grant worth up to £2500.

To maximize the energy savings of your PV system, you will want to think about how you use electricity in your home and try to match peak usage with the sunniest part of the day. Things like putting your dishwasher or washing machine on a timer so that it runs in the middle of the day, when your PV system has its peak output, will reduce the amount of mains power you use and increase your energy savings.

Maintaining your new PV system can be as simple as keeping debris off the solar panels for a grid-tied system. For PV systems that utilize batteries, more maintenance and occasional battery replacement is required. In the end, your PV system will pay for itself in terms of energy savings and carbon footprint reduction. And with the added value to your home that a PV system brings and the BERR grant, a PV system can quickly pay for itself.

In the following pages, you'll find a comprehensive guide to providing solar energy for your home. Not all solar energy systems are created equal and not everyone needs a fully solar powered home completely off the mains. So learning about photovoltaics and finding the right PV system for you is the first step.

Next: How Solar Panels Work