Residential Solar Energy Systems
Residential Solar Energy systems are comprehensive systems to
allow you produce electricity at home using solar energy. They are designed to interconnect with our existing
electricity utilities. The primary reason for using a residential solar energy system is environmental as well as
economic. Some houses want to cut off green house emissions and some want to lower their electric bills. The type
of system you want to use depends on the type of setup you want to implement. Residential solar energy system and
passive solar energy systems are different from each other but most of the people do not know it. This article will
help you to determine which system is useful for your situation.
Residential
solar energy systems are what they refer to us. That means they are basically used in our homes only and their
installation depends on our requirements. The type of residential solar energy setup will depend upon our
preferences and our home itself. Solar energy systems feature solar modules, plug and play wiring and power
electronics.
Working of Solar Energy System
Solar
modules present in this system consists of solar cells. These modules are mounted on the roofs of our houses and
cells present in them convert sunlight into direct current (DC). As most of our appliances work on alternating
current (AC) so a converter is used for this purpose which changes DC into AC. This system is connected to our
utilities at home and if our system produces more current then our need then extra current is saved in batteries
which provide power for our critical loads in the times of power failure. One of the drawbacks of this system is
that they work only in sunlight and during night this system stops working. Therefore our batteries must be charged
enough to meet our electricity requirements at night.
In cloudy
weather the efficiency of this system is lowered down to half i.e., they produce half power in cloudy weather as
compared to full sunlight. It uses solar roofs known as arrays to catch sunlight and convert it into electricity.
The array size we need depends upon our average electricity use, climate, roof angle, shadowing problems and many
other factors. The amount of power this system produces depend upon the height of house, location, weather, time of
the day and season of the year.
Home solar
energy system comes with variety of capacity. A typical 3.6 W system can provides half electric power for an
average home whose annual consumption is 10,000 kWh in varying sun conditions. Prices and expenses of these systems
vary due to several factors. These systems have no moving parts and require little maintenance. They should be
cleaned periodically to keep them dirt free and their panels should be kept clean and dirt free. There is only
danger of damage by severe weather conditions like storms, rains and wind.
Along with
advantages these residentials solar energy systems have various disadvantages as well. They do not provide
electricity during outages. They use photovoltaic cells and these cells are not useful for some of our home
appliance such as electric ovens and electric home furnaces. We need to have an extra roof for installation of this
system and this will increase the cost of this system. They are not effective in the areas where weather conditions
are mostly severe and harmful for arrays. Severe storms and winds can be serious threat to these
systems.
Regards,
The Solar Heating Systems Team
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