Solar Power Systems | Gather the Home Information You Need

Solar power systems ... As solar power becomes more and more a popular and new applications for its use come about, so a number of companies have introduced complete solar power systems onto the market. Until recently it has been up to the layman or the small town artisan to design and install solar power systems, sometimes with results that needed much to be desired. For example I had a friend who hade a solar hot water system installed a few years ago and who became very disillusioned with the whole system within just a month or two of it being installed. When I went to visit him about six months after the installation I found out that the company who had installed it had put the solar panels on a north-facing roof (in the Northern Hemisphere the panels must face South or towards the equator). No wonder my friend was unimpressed. The solar panels were working at about 1% of their efficiency! They were in the shade essentially. In fact the angle of incidence is actually very important and ideally this should be able to be changed depending upon the season but the tracking systems are expensive.

There is any number of complete power systems on the market today, and the companies marketing them are for the most part highly professional and well qualified in what they do. Obviously the system that you need is going to depend upon the equipment and services you use, and these can vary a great deal from house to house and family to family. Many of the companies supplying solar power systems start off by getting you to fill in a number of different forms. One of the most important of these is a listing of the equipment you have, how often it is used, which items are using power simultaneously and so on. I believe that it is a good idea to add a percentage onto your apparent maximum load so as to cater for any future equipment you might acquire.

A typical form will ask for a list of all the items you use - most of these will require AC power. Don't forget to include the hot water geyser, unless you intend to have a solar hot water system as well. You will need to list the wattage of each appliance as well as the number of hours per day that each item is switched on. From these figures the supplier will be able to work out the total number of watts-hours you use each day. If several items are often used simultaneously then make a note of it on the form. This will give the supplier a good idea of the size and number of batteries needed