Solar Panels for Home Solar PV Systems

Solar panels are the single most popular alternative energy choice for household use. While there are a couple of choices for alternative energy generation, year after year, most people who install an alternative energy generation system for home use choose a solar PV system over wind, water or another option. Why should you choose solar panels for your home?  There are a number of excellent reasons.

Most rooftops in the UK are suitable for generating electricity with a solar PV system.

One of the first questions most people ask when considering solar panels is whether a solar PV system will generate enough electricity to be worthwhile. The Department of Energy and Climate Change wondered the same thing, so they ran a study. According to their figures, about 85% of the buildings in the UK – including most residential buildings – are situated in such a way that solar panels could generate enough electricity to make up about 50% of the electricity used by the household.

Sunlight is Everywhere

Wind turbines are the closest competitor to solar panels for small household use. The problem with wind turbines is that far fewer locations in the UK get enough consistent wind to provide electricity consistently. And while you might think that the UK doesn’t get enough sunlight to consistently provide electricity for your needs, DECC notes that Germany, which has a very similar climate to the UK, has the highest adoption rate for solar panels of any other country in the world. The fact is that you don’t need bright, direct sunlight to generate electricity with solar panels. All you need is the UV rays, which easily penetrate cloud cover.

Solar PV Systems are Easy to Maintain

Once your solar panels are installed, the only maintenance they’ll require in the normal course of operation is a good cleaning once or twice a year. The system isn’t completely maintenance-free, of course. The inverter, a device that converts the direct current (DC) from the solar panels into alternating current (AC) that your electrical appliances can use, will probably need replacing after about 10 years. At current prices, that costs about £1,000.

Solar Panels are Low-Profile and Silent

Most solar panels can be installed directly on your roof where they won’t change the profile of your house at all. And unlike wind turbines, solar panels have no moving parts and make no noise at all in operation.

Solar panels are an excellent way to reduce your electrical costs, decrease your dependence on the electrical grid and cut your carbon footprint. When you choose a solar PV system to supplement the electricity you draw from the grid, you’ll be joining a growing number of people who use clean, green energy that doesn’t put additional stress on the planet.

Do You Need Planning Permissions for Solar Panels?

If you’re considering a solar PV system to supplement your electricity supply and reduce your power costs, you may need to get proper planning permissions before starting the installation. According to the government’s planning portal, fixing solar panels to your roof is likely to be considered “permitted development” under planning law, and you won’t need any special permits. There are, however, some important exceptions and rules that you may have to observe. A company that installs solar panels will know which planning permissions are necessary for your specific case, but an understanding of the basics can help you make your decision.

Obviously, if you don’t own the property on which you want to install solar panels, you will probably need to get permission from your landlord, management company or freeholder.

As much as possible, solar panels should be sited to minimise their effect on the building’s appearance. They should also be sited, as far as is practical, to minimise the effect on the amenity of the area. If you stop using the solar panels for generating electricity, they should be removed as soon as possible.

Solar Panels Mounted on Walls and Roofs

Solar panels should be installed below the ridgeline and should not project more than 200mm from the surface of the wall or roof.

If your property is a listed building, you will probably need to apply for listed building consent before installing solar panels even if you don’t need planning permission. In addition, if your property is in a World Heritage site or in a conservation area, you’ll need planning permission if you’ll be fitting the solar panels on the principal or side elevation walls if they are visible from the highway. If you’ll be installing solar panels in your garden or on the grounds, they shouldn’t be visible from the highway.

Standalone Solar Panels

In some cases, you may decide that a standalone solar PV system is a better choice for your property. If so, your solar PV installation will have to abide by certain limits, many of which are similar to those for roof or wall-mounted solar panels.

Standalone solar PV installations should be no higher the 4 metres and be located at least 5m from any boundaries. The solar panels array should be no larger than 9 sq m (3m wide by 3m deep). If your land is within a World Heritage Site or a conservation area, the solar installation should not be visible from the highway, and no standalone solar PV installation should be within the boundary of a listed building. You can only have one standalone solar installation on your property.

As noted, an experienced local installation company will be able to tell you which permitting regulations will apply if you choose to install solar panels on your property and arrange for any inspections and permits that must be obtained to register your solar PV system.

Are Free Solar Panels Worth the Investment?

At first glance, it looks like a great deal. A company representative comes knocking on your door and offers to install solar panels on your roof for nothing – that’s a £10,000 savings that’s bound to pay off in lower electric bills for the rest of the time you live in that building. All they ask in return is for you to sign over your payments from FiTs, the feed-in tariff scheme that pays homeowners for every unit of electricity generated by their solar PV systems. Don’t jump on the deal too fast, though, a solar energy expert told the Guardian last summer. You may be giving up far more than you realize.

What You Lose When You Opt for Free Solar Panels

According to the Guardian article, which was published in August 2010, the FiTs is worth anywhere from £900 to £1,425 a year, guaranteed for 25 years. Those calculations were made using the 43.3p per unit tariff rate that was current at the time and still is. The government is working at lowering that rate for people coming into the program in the future in order to keep it within budget, but even at the lower rate of 21.1p per unit, you’re still looking at about £450 to £720 per year, and that rate will be guaranteed for 25 years. That’s a total of £11,250 to £18,000 you’d be giving up.

What You Get When You Buy Your Own Solar PV System

When you opt to install solar panels that you own, that money will go into your pockets instead of into the pockets of some investor – and it’s the cherry on top of the cake rather than the cake. In addition to the FiTs payments, you’ll also realize £150 to £275 of savings on your electric bill each year – and that doesn’t stop after 25 years. In fact, there are solar panels that were installed in the 1970s and 1980s that are still operating at peak efficiency. When you add up the savings and the payments, you’re looking at £15,000 to £25,000 in earnings from your £10,000 or so investment.

Of course, your mileage may vary. The actual savings and earnings from a solar PV system depends on how much electricity you use and how efficient your solar panels are, as well as on how much you pay for your solar PV system and installation. Overall, though, most experts agree – if you can put together the cash or get a loan for the cost of installing solar panels, you’re far better off doing it that.

Solar Panels Don’t Work in the Winter and Other Myths

You may have heard someone say that solar panels don’t work in winter because it’s too cold, or that the UK is a poor environment for solar PV systems because there isn’t enough sun. Both of those statements are based on a misunderstanding of how solar panels work. In fact, heat has nothing to do with generating electricity from the sun – it’s the light that does the magic – so cold winters make no difference at all in the generating capacity of solar panels. As far as the UK climate goes, it has a very similar climate to Germany, which has generates a higher percentage of its electricity from solar PV systems than any other country in the world. According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, about 85% of the rooftops in the UK are capable of generating up to 50% of their household’s electricity from solar panels.

Those are just a few of the myths floating around about generating electricity from solar panels. Here are a few more questions and myths floating around the Internet about solar electricity.

If You Switch to Solar Panels, You Won’t Have Electricity at Night

Solar panels only generate electricity during daylight hours, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t have electricity after dark. The most common solar PV systems are grid-tied systems – a system in which your home has both solar electricity and electricity from traditional sources. During the day, your home draws on the solar panels first for electricity. If you need more than your solar panels are generating at the time, your system will draw from the grid. At night, you’ll get your electricity just as you always have. There’s an additional bonus to grid-tied systems. Any electricity generated by your solar PV system that you don’t use gets fed directly into the grid and is added to the electricity available to others.

You’ll Never Recover the Costs of Installing Solar Panels on Your Roof

In the UK, people who install solar panels on their roofs can qualify for the Feed-in Tariff scheme, which will pay you for the electricity you generate. If you qualify for FITs – and most home solar PV systems will – the government will pay you for every kWh your system generates, even the electricity that you use in your own home. With the FITs, DECC estimates that you’ll recover the entire cost of installing your solar panels within 8 to 10 years.

Solar PV systems are an excellent way to reduce your dependence on traditional sources of energy. For more information about how solar panels can impact your electricity costs and improve your self-sufficiency, contact a local solar panels installer.

Shining a Light on Solar Panels

Solar power is here to stay – and it’s about time. While solar panels had been around for a while, solar PV systems first became popular as an alternative to traditional energy sources during the Middle East oil crisis in the early to mid-1970s. There was an initial burst of enthusiasm as governments around the world – the UK and the US in particular – enacted legislation to offer rebates and subsidies for manufactures and buyers of solar panels and solar PV systems. Unfortunately, as so often happens, when the immediate crisis passed and oil prices returned to more reasonable rates, people lost interest in solar power and alternative energy sources.

For the most part, interest in green energy remained low until the rising evidence of climate change focused attention on the adverse effects of carbon-based electricity generation on the environment. Now, driven by the dangers to the planet and the again-rising costs of oil for energy production, solar panels and solar PV systems are back on the front burner. The UK is even paying people to put solar panels on their roofs and use the free electricity generated by their own solar PV systems.

The pay-for-play scheme is attracting many property owners and businesses who would normally not have considered solar panels before. The Feed-In Tariff scheme is meant to encourage as many people as possible to adopt alternative energy sources for electricity generation. It pays a tariff to property owners for each kilowatt hour (kWh) generated by their solar panels or other qualified microgeneration systems, including the electricity that is used by the homeowner. There’s an additional bonus tariff for any excess electricity produced and fed back into the electrical grid for others to use. The tariff rate is set by the government, and once your system is registered, you’re guaranteed to receive those payments at the agreed-upon rate for 25 years even if future legislation lowers the tariff rate for new participants.

There are also several different levels of tariff, based upon the size of the solar PV system – essentially, the larger solar energy systems receive a lower per kWh tariff, while smaller family-sized solar PV systems receive the top rate available.

If you’ve considered solar panels for electricity generation, you can learn more about what’s involved and about qualifying to receive payments through the FITs for the electricity you generate. Just call a local solar PV installation company in your area and schedule a consultation to learn if your home qualifies for the program.

Resolve to Go Green with Solar Panels

As the New Year begins, consider making a New Year’s resolution that’s good for the planet as well as your wallet. Installing solar panels on your home will provide you with a clean, green source of electricity while saving you money – and even generating income for you year after year. If you want to do something really wonderful this year, consider these benefits of investing in a solar PV system this year.

Save Up to 50 Percent on Your Energy Bills

Based on typical use, the average family in the UK can generate up to 50 percent of its usual electricity use with solar panels. The exact amount of electricity your solar system generates will depend upon its size and where it is located, as well as on how much electricity you actually use. If you’re typically at home and using electricity during the day, you’ll save more money than if you work all day and use most of your electricity at night when your solar panels aren’t generating electricity.

Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

The Department of Energy and Climate Change estimates that solar panels are among the least “expensive” of energy sources when it comes to carbon expenditure. Even when you consider the energy and resources used to produce solar panels and the energy used to transport them from manufacturer to installation, you’ll still be putting significantly less carbon units into the atmosphere when you choose a solar PV system.

Increase Your Self Sufficiency

Solar panels generate electricity completely independent of any other energy source. Once your solar electricity system is installed, you don’t need to feed it anything to keep getting power from it. Electricity generated by your solar panels will be there if there’s an outage on the electrical grid or if wires go down and leave you without other sources of electricity – and you won’t need gasoline or any fuel source to power up a generator.

Generate Income with FITs

If you choose a grid-tied solar PV system, there’s an excellent chance that you’ll qualify to register for the government’s Feed-in Tariff scheme, which pays you for every kWh of electricity that your solar panels generate. The price you’ll receive per kWh is determined by the government and is based on the size of your solar power system and its use. While the government may change the tariff amount going forward, once you’re registered as a participant in the FITs, you will continue to receive the amount set when you registered for 25 years. In other words, if the government is paying 43p per kWh when you register, you’ll receive 43p per kWh for every kWh your solar panels generate for the next 25 years even if the government decides to pay 23p to new registrants going forward.

Interested in learning more about solar panels and their benefits for you and the planet? Dial up a local solar installation company and schedule a consultation to find out whether your home is a suitable candidate for solar panels.

What to Expect from a Solar PV Consultation

The first step in having solar panels installed on your roof is a consultation with a company that installs solar PV systems. REAL, the industry watchdog member organization, warns that this is the place where cowboy solar installers take advantage of unwary homeowners and push them into buying solar panels that may not be appropriate for their needs. That’s a waste of your money, and may end up disqualifying you from participation in the Feed-in Tariff scheme that pays you for generating electricity that you use. Knowing what to expect can help you evaluate whether this is a company with which you want to do business. Here’s what to expect when you schedule an appointment with a company that installs solar PV systems.

The company will send a salesman orconsultant to your home. Reputable companies will send a knowledgeable installation expert who will take the time to ask you about your typical electricity usage and examine your property to make sure it meets the requirements for solar panels. The appointment should take about an hour and certainly not more than two hours, and most of that time should be taken up with the inspection of your property and an explanation of the best solar PV system size and type for your use.

What is the Solar Panels Installer Looking For?

There are a few requirements to ensure that your property is actually suitable for a solar PV installation. Remember, solar panels can be installed on any property, but only about 85% of properties in the UK will actually benefit enough from a solar PV system to make it worth the installation costs. The solar panels company representative will be checking the orientation of your roof – a south, west or east facing roof surface is necessary – as well as its pitch, to determine whether or not you have a suitable roof for solar panel installation. In addition, he or she will be looking for objects such as buildings, trees and other structures or landforms that might overshadow your roof for part of the day. Those obstacles can seriously reduce the efficiency of any solar PV system.

The consultant will also sit down with you to discuss your typical electricity usage, and should explain to you how much of your current electricity your solar PV system can reasonably be expected to replace. He or she will ask you questions about the times of day you typically do things like laundry, run televisions and use other electrical appliances. Those things will all affect how much you can save by adding solar panels to your electricity sources.

He or she should not use any high pressure sales tactics or tell you that you must make a decision today in order to get a special low price. Those are typical ways that cowboy companies force sales and cheat people.

One way to be sure that you’re dealing with a reputable company that installs appropriate solar PV panels is to check with REAL to find out if the solar panels company is listed with them. REAL requires that its member companies adhere to certain standards that guarantee you are working with a legitimate company and not a fly-by-night company whose only purpose is to take your money.

Five Reasons to Invest in Solar Panels for Your Electricity

With the government’s big push for greener energy, it’s hard to avoid hearing about solar panels and solar PV systems for electricity generation. If you’ve been considering investing in a solar PV system for your home, these five reasons may help you make up your mind.

The Sun’s Energy is 100% Renewable

Unlike most forms of energy, electricity generated by the sun doesn’t consume any natural resources. It relies on something of which there is an almost limitless supply – light from the sun. When you choose solar panels, you don’t have to worry about using up trees from the forest or coal or oil from the ground. Even making solar panels consumes less energy than sourcing other types of energy. And since solar panels last, in theory, 30 or more years, they eventually pay back the energy and resources used in their making.

Solar Powered Electricity is Free

Once you’ve paid for your solar PV system and installation, the actual electricity is as free as the sunlight that powers it. Even better, you’ll save money with solar panels because every watt that your solar system generates is a watt that you don’t have to buy from the electricity supplier. Depending on your usage, you can save up to 50 percent of your monthly bill when you supplement your electricity with solar power.

Your Solar Panels can Generate Income for You

The government is determined to increase the use of electricity generated by microgeneration – solar and wind energy primarily. To help accomplish this, they’ve instituted a Feed-in Tariff scheme that will pay you a fixed amount for every unit of electricity your solar panels generate, including the electricity you use in your own home.

Solar Panels Make You More Self Sufficient

Solar PV systems don’t depend on the energy grid to provide electricity for your use. Even those systems that are tied into the energy grid – the most common type of solar panels installed – don’t require anything from the grid to produce electricity. Your solar panels will generate electricity during the day even if there’s a power interruption or outage.

A Grid-Tied Solar PV System Gives You the Best of Both Worlds

Generally, the typical household can generate about 50 percent of the electricity it needs for daily use from the standard size solar PV system, but can only generate electricity during daylight hours. Electricity from the grid doesn’t rely upon daylight – but is prone to interruptions and outages – and costs you money. A grid-tied solar system gives you the savings and green factor of solar energy and the reliability of the grid when there’s not enough sunlight for your power needs.

Learn more about the benefits of solar panels and solar PV systems from a local solar installation company. Most will be happy to schedule a consultation to explain the benefits and tell you if your home is a suitable candidate for a solar electrical system.