With more people trying to learn more about off-grid living, it’s time to share a little information about how solar panels work. This form of energy can help heat your home, the water you use, and provide your homestead with a sustainable energy source.
Today we’ll explain how solar panels work and why they’re an excellent option to provide energy in your home. This information is useful if you’re trying to reduce your carbon footprint or planning to live off-grid in the near future.
Solar panels are also known as photovoltaic (PV) panels. Photovoltaic refers to the act of converting sunlight into electricity. Each cell is made of two pieces of semiconducting material that help create the electricity to go from the panels into your home from the sunlight.
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Solar panels are placed on your roof or another area on your land. From here, the panels collect sunlight that generates a DC electric current.
The electric current will then flow to an inverter that converts the DC electricity to AC which is what most of us use in our homes and other areas to make electric appliances, and so forth work.
From here, the AC will travel from the inverter into a breaker box. At this point in the process of how solar panels work, you’re at the breaker box. This breaker box is the same place where the wires are put into your home to bring electricity from the electric company into your home.
The breaker box will then take that electricity in the AC form and bring it to the devices in your home to provide your house with energy. This will run through electrical wiring that is done by an electrician, typically, to write your heaters, appliances, and outlets inside the house.
Any energy or electricity that’s been conducted by your unused solar panels will travel out of the home to the grid. This grid is where your electricity will be stored for later use. Some people sell the electricity back to the electric company’s grid to keep their electric bill lower or in the negative.
This is done, selling the electricity back to the grid, when a region doesn’t allow people to live completely off-grid. There are many regions in the world where you cannot live off-grid completely and must have an account with the local electric company, even though you’re mostly running your home off these solar panels.
Why is it good to have solar panels?
There are some disadvantages to having solar panels, mostly a large upfront cost. Solar panels and the system needed to convert sunlight into electricity does carry a large upfront cost. The investment with your solar panels may not pay off for quite a few years after you’ve installed them, so you’ll want to determine if having solar panels will work within your budget.
A few reasons why it’s good to have solar panels are that it’s good, clean, sustainable energy. This sustainable and clean energy will help reduce your carbon footprint, thus helping with global warming. Man people have cited that using this sunlight for your electricity is also an excellent way to help with public health.
If you haven’t started using solar panels yet, it’s well-worth the time to look into this sustainable form of energy.