I am in the market for buying a home. There is one for salke that actually has solar panels on top. How are they used? Do you need to pay for gas and electric still. Does it really light up the house and keep it warm. WHat about the AC keeping hte house cool in the summer does it work for that too? Please explain in solar for dummy terms. I haveno clue about solar panels other thatn the fact that it needs sunlight to run.
Okay--here it is (without the techie buzzwords!) Solar power has a start up cost--the panels and related equipment. But the amount it cost to operate is virtually zero--pretty much jsut servicing th equipment o keep it working properly--much as you do any other appliance. How much electricity you will still have to buy depends on four things: a) how much your system can produce. If you have a 4000 watt system, you'll still buy a fair amount of power. Abigger one--and you will need less from the power company b) how efficient you (your home and appliances are). The more efficient, the less electricity you use. Obviously, things lie CFL bulbs are very helpful here c) Are you willing to invest in a battery storage system to store electricity from the system for use at night? Right now, that's still pricey. But these are starting to come on th emarket more. If you aren't ready to do tha tnow, you can always add it in later. d) can you sell excess power back to the power company.? In California, the law requires utilities to do this--but its not a universal yet, so it depends on where you are. How this works: you are still hooked up to the power company. Any time you need more power than the solar system produces, yur system jst draws it off the power grid--jsut as always. But--any time you are using LESS than the amount of power your system is producing, the excess automatically feeeds back into the electric grid and a special peter credits you with the power. There are cases wwhere people have goene on a long vacation in California and when they got home, the power company owed them several hundred dollars! You'll need to do some research, price thngs, take your own lifestyle into account, and decide what the best choices for you are. It sounds complicated--and to an extent it is. But the reason is tha tyou have a lot of choices tha tyou can make work to your advantage, instead of jsut writing a fat check to the power company every month!
well see a house can totally depend on solar energy (solar panels) but u will still have to pay the electricity bill because if the solar panels dont work u will have a back up,eg like in winters when it snows , it can cover the solar panels or during the winter seson when it is cloudy or snowing the sunlight can not reach the solar panels because of which they can not charge. but on the other hand because of the solar panels the bills will be decresed and u will have to pay only a small amount. I HOPE I WAS HELP FULL
I think that rustoria67 bumped his head on some thing. There are thousands of homes using only solar panels to power their homes, and it no way near an acre of them. With the right setup Kw of panels will work. Remember one can't bring a boat to an airplane race and hope to win. Look at this link.
No standard home can operate on solar panels alone unless there is about an acre or more of them. Plus, they require lots of batteries and complicated switching devices. And, they are very expensive, so rarely pay back their up front cost. Right now, more of a gimmick than a practical solution to power needs in the home. The house you're looking at may use it to power emergency lighting in case the grid went down. Or maybe a small fan to exhaust heat out of the attic. Who knows. Just have to ask.
