In these days of high electricity consumption, it has become possible to save money on electric bills as well as increase the value of one’s home and also make the world a little bit cleaner by using a home solar power system to meet the electricity needs of the home. It involves setting solar modules on or near the home to collect free and clean as well as safe energy from the sun and converting the sunlight into electricity which is instantaneous in the case of the home solar power system, since there are no mechanical parts involved. To convert the DC power into AC power one would need an inverter and the home solar power system sends excess electricity to the local utility for credit and the home electricity meter actually reverses when the home solar power system generates more electricity than is consumed by the home. Reputed manufacturers are selling their own home solar power systems and finding one should not be a problem what with big names such as BP making such products. Using such systems means that the solar power system is automatic – very much like the savings it affects.
Sunwize Residential Grid-Tie Systems
This home solar power system supplies reliable power for the home using top quality UL listed products and includes solar modules, UniRac SolarMount mounting structure, inverters, cables as well as all necessary hardware and electrical components. These systems are modular and so one can combine multiple units together and the SunWize grid-tie systems are NEC code requirement compliant that meet US safety standards and come with a twenty year warranty on power output as well as a five year system warranty.
Before deciding on a home solar power system, one should determine beforehand how much power is required to be used in the home and for this one may need to list all the loads that are planned to be run, along with the amount of voltage and the daily hours of operations. Once these parameters have been arrived at and quantified they can be compared with the different home solar power systems to determine which would be most suitable. Using a home solar power system would greatly reduce the power bills as well as help in keeping the environment free of pollutants and very often, it helps in generating excess electricity that exceeds the electricity needs of a home and is thus an economical solution to high priced utility services.
Residential Solar Power System: Three Main Types
There are three different types of residential solar power systems that can be integrated into the home or business and these are utility-tie, utility-interactive as well as stand alone systems. The first type of residential solar power system, which is called the utility-tie or Grid-tie, is a system that does not have a battery or battery related equipment and only has a single function which is to feed all electric power that is produced by the solar panels through a synchronous utility-grade inverter and it offsets the amount of electricity that would normally be consumed from the utility company.
Depending on what time of the day it is as well as the present load and size of the solar systems installed, this type of residential solar power system would slow, stop or reverse the utility meter. Since such a system does not have any batteries that need to be replaced and such a system costs less than other types, it is an extremely popular residential solar power system that essentially wakes up in the morning and shuts off at night. Such a system is most suitable for where there are not many power failures or if one has a backup generator and they cost about $4,500 for a small entry-level system and the cost for larger ones could run into tens of thousands of dollars.
The Utility-Interactive Residential Solar Power System
The utility-interactive system does have a battery as well as additional controls and is able to both feed into the utility meter to slow or even reverse in case of excess power as well as providing backup during power outages. These systems are very much like those that are used in homes that are totally off-grid and depending on the size of the residential solar power system used as well as the appliances or devices that require power, such a system may support the complete home or only those items that need necessarily be powered up, during a power outage. Because such a residential solar power system uses batteries as well as additional controls, they cost more and depending on the amount of battery reserve these systems may be thirty percent costlier than the utility-tie systems. However, in places that have many power failures, such a system which is automatic and silent are a great advantage. The cost of such a residential solar power system begins with a price tag of five to seven thousand dollars that would be enough to buy a small but expandable solar power system.
The stand alone residential solar power system is normally used where there is no public utility power available and it may be supplemented with a fueled generator for short term support or for shaving peak loads and otherwise such a system is completely independent of the power grid and has no interaction with the public grid at all. They cost anything from five to seven thousand dollars though small cabin-sized systems may only set one back a couple of thousand dollars.