Prepping for Solar Power

Prepping for Solar Power
By John Voket

Well, 2012 may be the year I take the plunge and add a solar water heating or electrical generating system to the old homestead. During a preliminary search for information, I ran across residentialsolarpanels.org, a useful site.

While hosts of the website will be glad to send you specific information in exchange for your email address, they also provide some basic information for free on sizing up your home for solar power.

According to the site, there are five things you need to do in the process of preparing to 'go solar.' We'll begin covering them here, and continue in the next segment along with taking a look at how you might be able to sell surplus power back to the grid.

First, the folks at residentialsolarpanels.org say you have to calculate the potential solar radiation power you need. For most parts of the United States, an average of 4-5 kilowatt hours per day can be achieved, though in some regions it is possible to achieve up to 8.

To find the output for your area, refer to a map on the website for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Resource Assessment Program.

Next, you need to determine your average energy use. Once you know how much energy you can expect to get from the sun, you can determine about how much energy you will need based on your current monthly energy consumption.

If you don’t have copies of your last 12 bills, you can view the state by state averages, as published by the Energy Information Administration. According to the chart, a consumer who lives in New Jersey, for instance, will use an average of about 730 kWh/month in electricity, while one in Alabama may use as much as 1,300 kWh of energy per month.

Now that you know how much solar radiation is available and how much of it can actually be utilized by a solar panel, you can calculate how many photovoltaic solar panels you will need in order to replace your current source of electricity.

Stay tuned for more on sizing up your home for solar in our next segment.
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