Solar Panels to Power Houses

Off the Grid

• Taking your home off the electric grid requires some planning. Contact your electric power supplier for your total kilowatt-hour usage for 12 months. Divide this total by 12 to obtain your average monthly power usage. You need this figure whether you intend to power your home solely on solar power or just use solar power during peak usage times to lower your monthly bill. The average family in the U.S. uses about 750 kWh per month. The average cost for an off-the-grid solar system with installation is about $50,000, but it all depends on location. For instance, homes in sunny Arizona require fewer solar panels than homes in the less sunny state of Washington.

Grid-Tied

• A grid-tied solar panel system sends excess electricity back to the electric company. During this process, your electric meter runs backward, giving you a credit on your bill. When the sun does not provide enough power, electricity feeds back into your home from your meter. With the amount of credit accumulated with your electric power supplier, your bills may be $0 for quite some time. A grid-tied solar system requires only solar panels; no power storage system is needed, which greatly reduces the system's cost. Your electric power supplier has information regarding maximum wattage for solar panels to be tied to their system.

Solar Panels

• A way to choose solar panels is dollars per watt. Each solar panel provides a predetermined number of watts of power. Solar panel prices become lower each year but are still quite expensive for an initial investment. Of course, solar panels pay for themselves over time. Once you have your off-the-grid system up and running, no monthly electric bills haunt your budget and renewable energy tax credits come in handy. Solar panel kits are available for the do-it-yourself enthusiast. Build-your-own solar panels are simple to construct and save you hundreds of dollars per panel.

How Solar Panels Work

• Solar panels collect solar radiation emitted from the sun and convert it to electricity. The panels contain individual cells connected together through a series of wires. A reflective glass box encases the cells to protect them from corrosive elements, such as rain. The end of the wire connecting the cells leaves the glass box and surges to your electric meter, as with a grid-tied system or to a series of solar batteries. Solar batteries store panel-generated electricity for current or future use. The batteries can be connected to a generator to provide back-up power during outages or they can be hard-wired to your breaker box to power your home at the flick of a switch during peak power times.