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Many city homes feature complex roofs with multiple levels, gables and dormers that leave little room for 1 meter by 2 meter rectangular solar panels.  Increasing electrical use for air conditioning and the latest appliances and gadgets increases the number of panels needed to meet the power bill. Urban homeowners looking for solar to help pay the bills often face a shortage of suitable roof space.  The ground mounted systems available for farms and acreage owners are not an option in the city.  Solar panel manufacturers are striving to address this problem with higher output panels for the same footprint.

 

 

The solar panels on this Saskatoon home maximize the output on the south facing roofs, which are on two different levels and have 3 different non-ideal shapes.  The panels are 400 Watt high efficiency monocrystalline solar modules with an innovative design by LG Electronics.  These are coupled with inverters by SolarEdge who have developed 500 Watt DC optimizers for these higher output panels. The SolarEdge optimizers provide per panel internet monitoring to show system production, as shown below for the production to date.

 

 

This highly effective system made it possible to meet the electrical usage for the home with the roof space available.

The size of the solar power system you need depends on how much energy you use. The first step in designing a solar power system for your house is to figure out how much power you need to run the various systems and appliances.

Grid-tied Systems

If you are already connected to utility power, this is quite easy.  A look at your power bill will tell you how many kWh you are using in any one month. However, the amount of power you use at different times of the year will vary and so will the amount of power that can be harvested from the solar panels.  The total power you used over the year is a better number for sizing your solar array, and your usage over several years would give an even more accurate indication.

Off-Grid Systems

If you do not have utility power and it is prohibitively expensive to bring in, then a off-grid system may be a good choice.  Sizing this system is a lot more complicated.  You will have to make a list of all the appliances and other loads that you expect to use and determine the total power that will be needed.  

Types of Loads

Loads can be continuous (running 24 hours a day), or intermittent. Many loads - such as a refrigerator, toaster, or vacuum cleaner - use a large amount of power but only for short periods. The best way to figure out how much power your appliances need is to measure them with a power usage meter (the Kill A Watt meter is one example). Often, something that draws little power (such a standard light bulb at 60 watts) will use more power per day if left on all day than a very large intermittent load such as a coffee maker drawing 900 watts for 20 minutes. For example:

• A 60W light bulb, 60W x 24 hrs = 1440 Whr.
• A coffee maker uses 900W x 1/3 hr = 300 Whr.

It is also evident from this example that if you use energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs, which produce the equivalent of a 60W light bulb but consume only 13W, this bulb would use only 312 Whr in a day even if you left it on all day.

There are some loads that are not obvious and are easily overlooked when calculating load requirements:

• The inverter will draw a certain minimum amount of power.
• Anything that has a remote control (like the TV or stereo) draws some power at all times so that the remote will be ready to turn it on at anytime.
• Computers may also draw power even when they are not turned on.

These types of loads are called “phantom loads” because they are not readily apparent. They draw only a small amount of power. But even a small amount of power, if it is continuous for 24 hours a day, can really add up. These loads can be mostly eliminated by installing a switch, or a switched power bar, that turns off the appliances when not in use.

Once you know the energy loads you're using, the total amount of energy that you use and what the solar array will have to supply, can be calculated.

Calculating Your Total Load

Multiply the power used by each appliance times the hours per day that you use it – this gives you the total number of kWh per day for that appliance. Add up all the appliances and you will have the total number of kWh that you need per day. Adjust the total number for the efficiency of the inverter, typically 90%. Definitions:

• Power is given in watts (W) – a thousand watts is a kilowatt (kW).
• If you use a kW of power for one hour this is a kilowatthour (kWH). When you look at your utility bill you will see that the power you have used over the month is listed as some number of kWH.

 

An Example Load Calculation used for the Suncatcher Solar Prototype House

Notes:

1. The energy rating in KWh/year is based on 416 “Normal Cycle” operations per year and includes the energy required to heat the water. This is more than one load per day, which is not necessary for two people. The usage estimate has been adjusted accordingly.
2. This energy rating in KWh/year is also based on 416 operations per year. Our usage would be less based on fewer loads through the washer and we often hang the clothes to dry. Again, usage has been adjusted accordingly.

What's Next?

Now that you know how much power you use, we can design a solar power system tailored to your lifestyle.  Check out more information on grid-tied systems or off-grid systems and contact us for a free estimate.

To get the most out of your solar panels, your solar array needs to be angled appropriately to get the most direct sunlight, for as much of the day, as possible. So how can you generate the most electricity from your array? In a nutshell, face the solar array:

1. as close as possible to true south (not magnetic south)
2. towards an area where nothing will shade it
3. perpendicular to the sun's rays.

The first two depend on the space that you have available to you. The third depends on your location on the globe, and that is the topic of this post. The amount of electricity that a panel produces depends on the amount of sunlight reaching the panel. As you would expect, the panel receives the most sunlight when the sun's rays are striking the surface directly - at ninety degrees to the panel. A simple enough idea, if only the sun would stay conveniently in one place! Since the sun is constantly moving across our skies, you either need to mount the panels so that they track the sun, or you need to find a compromise that still gets good solar production. Solar trackers, although they sound like the perfect solution, take up space in your yard and are more expensive than buying a larger solar array to compensate for the lower production of a fixed mount. Optimizing a fixed mount solar array means looking at both daily and seasonal variations in the path of the sun.

Tilting Your Array for Seasonal Changes

Unless you live near the equator, the sun's position above the horizon will change from summer to winter. In the summer, when your part of the world is tilted towards the sun, you will see the sun rise in the northeast, then move high up across the southern part of the sky to set again in the northwest. Come wintertime, the sun rises in the southeast and barely seems to get above the southern horizon before it sets again - all too soon - in the southwest. The further north you are, the greater is the difference between the winter and summer sun paths. What is the best fixed angle for these seasonal variations? Let's take a look at an example home site in central Saskatchewan at latitude 52 degrees north. There is plenty of climate data available that will show you how much sunshine you will get at a particular latitude and solar panel tilt angle.

 

 

Looking at the bar graph of average annual sunshine hours for various tilt angles, you can see that a good compromise is to tilt your array somewhere between 37 and 60 degrees. These angles receive almost as much sunshine as changing your array every month to set it for the optimum angle for that time of year. Another interesting graph of sunshine hours over the course of the year for several different tilt angles shows that the biggest difference is in the summer.

 

During the dead of winter, there is very little difference between the various angles.  This means that if you are on a net metering system where you can store your excess energy from the summer for use in the winter you are better off with a lower angle that gives you better yearly production. So the bottom line is that there is not a huge difference in production between angles from 35 to 65 degrees. This means that if you have an unshaded south facing roof space at an angle somewhere in this range, a roof mounted array is the most cost effective choice for you.

Solar Array Angle for the Sun's Daily Path

The sun's path across the sky during the course of the day presents a much bigger challenge for keeping your panels pointed directly at the sun. Having ruled out a tracker for most applications, what's the best way to set up your fixed array?

 

Daily Solar Power

 

The sun is at its brightest at noon and at due south. If you face your array to the south you will capture the noon sun and also a large proportion of the morning and afternoon sun. If your array is facing more to the east you will lose some of the key noon hour advantage and some of the afternoon sun.  Similarly, pointing the array more to the west will lose some of the morning sun and some of the noon hour production maximum.

Homes with roofs facing east-west are still good choices for roof mounted arrays if enough south facing roof space is not available.  If you have a standard 4/12 roof pitch your panels will be angled at about 20 degrees and will still capture much of the solar production throughout the day.  An east or west facing array at this angle will still produce about 80% of the production of an array on a south facing roof at the same tilt angle. Steeper east or west facing roofs will lose a little more of the production. Now you can have a look at solar mounting options to see which one will give you the best angle on your property.

I built my off-grid solar home with my husband in 2003. The house was originally powered by a combination of solar and wind power. Living off-grid is an interesting experience.  Everything you do - cook lunch, have a shower, watch TV - it's all powered by the sun or the wind. A pretty cool feeling - most of the time. Let me introduce you to the GOOD, the BAD and the UGLY.

We experienced them all one January in 2006. January 23 was clear and cold. A bitter wind raged through the bare trees and whipped the snow into eddies and drifts.  But for us, it was still a good day because the sunshine and horrendous winds gave us a record day for power. Not all days are like that.

This is what that a good day looks like to us:

A Good Day for Solar and Wind Power

You can see the sun rise in the first chart, see it start to produce more and more power until solar noon, then decrease again till sunset - a nice uniform curve. The jagged dips are from wisps of cloud crossing the face of the sun. The second chart shows the wind power - it is recorded in short intervals and what you see here in red is the maximum and minimum power for each interval, with a line in the middle for the average. You can see how variable the wind is, compared to the solar - it's not the steady line or curve that you might expect.

That night the wind started to die down and the next day started out cloudy, with some clear sky later in the day.

A Bad Day for Solar and Wind

But this is not the worst it can get. Imagine a day with no wind and it's snowing. Here it is - the UGLY day.

An Ugly Day for Solar and Wind

Fortunately, we don't see many days like this - but notice, there is still some solar power, even when it's snowing.  It is for days like this that an off-grid system has a large battery bank to see you through. In January, however, that may not be enough to carry you through all the bad and ugly days so a backup generator is also part of the system.

This is what the whole month of January can look like (2006 had an unusually cloudy January).

Our Solar and Wind Power for January 2006

The yellow bars show the solar power we received, and the blue bars represent the wind power. Add the two together and you have the total power. You can see January 23, the GOOD day, as a very tall bar - we produced 12 kWh of power that day. We only need 5 kWh a day to run our house so we stored the extra in our batteries. The next day was the BAD day - you can see how short that bar is in the chart. The UGLY day was January 13 - a very short bar indeed.

This was the worst month of the year. Most months there is plenty of sun and wind to supply all the needs of our home. That is the story with off-grid homes - you can store power for a few days, but there is no way to store all the extra power from the summer for months like this. That is the big difference between off-grid and grid-tied systems. Grid-tied systems are connected to the utility grid and, where net metering is offered, you can use the utility grid to "store" excess power that you produce in the summer for the winter months. This is done by giving you credits on your bills for the extra power.

As I am writing this, we are having one of those ugly days. Our wind turbine is not turning and we are having our first snowfall of the season. But it's been a long and beautiful summer and fall. Like farmers, we have to work with the vagaries of the weather, but we enjoy the rewards of being self sufficient, environmentally friendly and never having a power outage.  

The Gardenview solar home is an example of  a passive solar home that fits on a city lot.  It was designed by Suncatcher Solar and built in partnership with Jaylin Homes in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

It features energy efficient building construction, radiant in floor heating and a solar power system.

Passive Solar Design

 

Living room in late October

The south side of the completed home, shown here, faces the back yard, where the owners are planning a large garden.  Normally the south wall is the long wall of the house but the shape of the house was constrained by the size of the lot.  Despite these limitations, however,  the home’s south windows are 9%  of total floor area.

 

Stone facing stores the winter sun's heat

Abundant sunshine into the house warms the home during the winter.  The roof overhangs keep the sun out in the summer, when the sun is higher in the sky, so that the house stays cool.  Thus, a passive solar home typically does not need air conditioning in the summer.  Stone facing on the fireplace and a granite countertop act as a thermal mass to store the winter sun’s heat for overnight.

 

Winter and Summer

 

North side of Gardenview home

 

The attached garage is on the north side of the home, with the bedrooms above.  Fewer windows are needed here, increasing the energy efficiency of the home.

Energy Efficiency Features

The bitter cold winters in Saskatoon, plunging to temperatures as low as 40 degrees below zero, make energy efficient building methods an important component of the passive solar design.

 

Upper floor landing

 

The Gardenview is built with wood frame construction with 2″ x 6″ walls and blown-in insulation.  Themal bridging – heat lost through the wooden framing members – is a major source of heat loss in this type of construction.  The Gardenview reduces this heat loss with 1″ foam board insulation applied to the inside of the exterior walls.  The inside of the foam board is faced with a reflective foil to reflect heat back into the home, cutting down on heat loss through radiation.  An air gap between the foil and the drywall is essential to make this method effective and can cut down on radiation losses.

Heating System

 

A woodburning fireplace provides renewable heat

 

Radiant in floor heating on all levels of the home supplements the passive solar heating.   The attached garage also includes in floor piping, but the temperature is kept considerably cooler than the house.  A wood burning fireplace provides extra heat and ambience on cool evenings.

The in floor heating is supplied by a Wiessman natural gas modulating boiler.  The system uses a sophisticated central controller to program the heat requirements of the home.  The in floor system has a continuous flow and is automatically adjusted based on the reading from an outside temperature sensor.  When the outside temperature goes down one degree the temperature of the in floor system is increased by 0.7 degrees or whatever the controller is programmed to.  This can be adjusted to suit the preferences of the occupants.  A fine tune control knob lets the homeowner make minor adjustments as needed.  The advantage of this sytem is that, once it is set, it usually does not need to be adjusted often and the continuous flow means that the boiler can operate at a lower level (typically 25% of its maximum output), thus saving energy.

 

Bruce explains the in floor heating system to the homeowners

 

The system was designed and installed by Bruce Kell of Solaero Energy.  When he was going through the system with the new owners he commented that at a previous installation the natural gas utility had come and changed their meter because they thought it wasn’t working properly.  But it was – that’s just how energy efficient this system is.

Solar Power

 

A solar power system provides renewable electricity

 

The homeowners were very excited when the day came to commission the 2.3 kW grid-tied solar power system that will offset some of the home’s electrical usage with clean, renewable power.  The system can be expanded in the future, once they have lived in the home for a few months and have a clearer idea of how much power they will need.  The system qualified for a rebate on the upfront costs and Saskatchewan’s net metering program means that excess power produced over the summer months can be fed back to the electrical utility for credits on future bills.

 

Click here to see the Live Display for the Gardenview

 

The solar power system features a monitoring system that lets you see – live – exactly what each of your solar panels is producing at any time, as well as your overall production per day, per week, per month and since you installed the system.  The webpage will also show what this means in terms of the environment, showing the greenhouse gases offset by the system.

The solar panels and Enphase inverters have a 25 year warranty and an expected lifetime of over 35 years.

Owners’ Comments

 

The Gardenview has a bright, sunny kitchen

 

After only a few days in their new home, the owners were already amazed by the solar heat coming through their south facing windows.

“The solar gain on sunny days is absolutely incredible – we turn down the fine-tune dial as far as possible in the morning and with opened windows in the afternoon, it’s still 24C on the main floor!”

Their in floor heating settings were tweaked to moderate the heat gain and heating costs have been very moderate for their first winter - under $300 for natural gas during the first year they lived in the home.

The second question customers often ask us at Suncatcher Solar is "How many solar panels will I need?".  The first question is usually "What will solar power cost?" but we need to answer the second question before we can answer the first.

Solar panels come in many sizes.  They can be used alone or combined to make up a solar array. To figure out the size of array you would need for your home you will need to know how much electricity you use and how much sunshine is available where you live.  Saskatchewan has excellent conditions for solar energy.

How Much Electricity Do You Use?

If you already have electricity from an electrical utility, this will be an easy question to answer.  Take a look at your utility bill and find the current and previous meter readings.  The difference between these readings is the amount of power that you have used between the two dates of the readings.  The amount of power will be a number of kWh.  Looking at the dates for which this reading applies, you can calculate what your monthly or annual electrical usage is.  Most homes use in the range of 600 – 1200 kWh per month.

If you don’t have electricity yet and are planning to use a solar power system instead of connecting to an electrical utility, you will need to estimate what you are going to use by doing a load analysis.

Now that you know what you need for electricity, it’s time to see how much power a solar panel can produce and how many of them you will need.

How Much Electricity Does a Solar Panel Produce?

Solar panels derive their power from sunlight.  The brighter the sunlight the more power the panel produces – up to its rated capacity, which is given in Watts.  When you buy a solar panel you will see that the panel size is given as, for example, 10 Watts or 100 Watts or 240 Watts.  Combining ten 100 Watt panels into one system will give you a 1000 Watt – or a 1 kiloWatt (kW) solar array.

If you have full sun shining on the array for one hour (1 Sun Hour), the array will have produced one kiloWatt-hour (kWh) of electrical energy.  This is the same unit as the electrical utility charges you for on your electrical bill.

The average number of sun hours per day for your area can be found on a global solar insolation map or you can focus more closely on a map of your own area.

 

What Size of Solar Array Do You Need?

Multiply the daily energy in kWh from the map by 30 days/month – this will give you the sun hours available.  Then divide the kWh per month that you are being billed by the electrical utility by the monthly sun hours available. This will give you the size of the solar array (in kW) that would generate enough electricity to meet your monthly bills.

The actual size of solar array you decide to invest in will depend on a few other factors as well:

1. how much space you have for panels - a large array can require considerable space and may need to be ground mounted if there is not enough suitable roof space available.  For a roof mounted system measure the dimensions of clear south facing roof space (length of the roof and height to the peak or to obstructions such as a row of vents.
2. whether you are doing a stand alone system or a grid-tied system– an off-grid, or stand alone system, will have to be large enough to supply all your needs, even in the winter, but a grid-tied system can be smaller since the electrical utility will supply any shortfall.
3. whether your local electrical utility offers net metering or feed-in tariffs – net metering is a program that credits you for extra power you produce against future bills from the utility.  The best size of system is one that will provide most of your electricity so that you effectively offset your electricity bill.  Feed-in tariffs actually pay you for the electricity you produce, usually at a premium rate, so for this type of program it may be worthwhile to invest in a larger system and use the production as a source of income.
4. your budget – sometimes it’s not possible to purchase the optimum size due to budget constraints, but you can always start with a smaller system and add on later as you can afford it.  In the meantime, the system you have installed will be saving you money.

Home Solar Power System

 

Producing your own solar power is exciting. You now have free renewable energy when the sun shines – and Saskatchewan is the sunniest province in Canada. But what do you do at night and on cloudy days? In the early days of solar power, you needed a bank of batteries to store the power for those times. Sometimes even the battery bank was not enough to survive weeks of cloudy weather so a backup generator was another necessity. Now net metering, a program offered in Saskatchewan by SaskPower, offers a much easier and environmentally beneficial answer to this problem.

5 Benefits of Net Metering in Saskatchewan

 

 

Grid-tied Solar Power System

 

Net metering is a program in Saskatchewan that allows you to connect your solar power system to Saskatchewan's utility system.  This means that you can feed back any extra solar power you produce to Saskatchewan's utility company for credit.

1. Financial Credit in Saskatchewan for Extra Solar Power Produced

 

 

A bilateral meter

 

You will receive a credit for your excess solar power at a rate determined by Saskatchewan's electrical utility companies, SaskPower or the local utilities in Saskatoon and Swift Current. When there is not enough electricity from the sun, the utility company will supply your electrical needs. You will pay only for the difference between the power supplied by the utility and the power produced by the solar panels. Typically, extra solar power that you produce can be banked for up to a period specified by the utility company. For net metering, a bilateral meter is installed that records the solar power you have produced and fed back to the grid as well as the power you have used from the utility. 

2. No Battery Storage System Needed

 

 

With net metering the utility company essentially “stores” your extra solar power for times when you don’t have enough. This means that you don’t really need an expensive battery bank, unless you want a small battery backup system for power outages. When you have a grid-tied system like this your power will go down when the utility power goes down. This is for safety reasons, to protect the repair crew who are not expecting any power generated in the lines when they go out to repair the problem.

3. No Backup Generator for when Solar Power is Not Available

Another expensive part of early solar power systems that you won’t need is the backup generator. Generators are expensive, noisy and need fuel (gasoline, diesel, natural gas or propane). The electrical utility in Saskatchewan is there as your backup when solar power is not available.

4. Seasonal Storage – Solar Power Produced in Summer Saves on Winter Costs

One of the frustrations of off-grid systems in Saskatchewan which are not connected to the utility is that the extra power in the summer months can’t be stored for the winter.  Battery banks typically store power for only 3-5 days. When the batteries are full there is no way to store the extra energy. But, with net metering, you are feeding back your power over the summer and you get credited for it in the winter – now you have seasonal storage, a huge benefit during the cold weather and short days of a Saskatchewan winter.

5. No Maintenance – Solar Power Without Hassles

 

 

With net metering, we have now eliminated the batteries and the backup generator – the two components of a solar power system that require maintenance and have the shortest lifetimes. The only components you need for a grid-tied net metering system is the solar panels, which produce the power, and an inverter that converts the DC power from the solar panels to the standard AC power produced by the utility. Neither of these components requires maintenance. The solar panels, which have a 25 year warranty, are made from a semiconductor material and usually protected by a tempered glass front. The inverters, some of which also have 25 year warranties, are solid state and also maintenance free. A grid-tied net metering system gives you the advantages of producing your own clean renewable energy without maintenance hassles and with very durable components.

"I want to go off-grid and use solar instead of bringing in SaskPower!" The desire for independance prompts many a call to Suncatcher Solar from people who want to be self sufficient and hope that solar power holds the answer to that dream.  But what does that really mean? What's the difference between "off-grid" and "grid-tied" and what kind of lifestyle does each one entail? What Does it Mean to Go Off-Grid? Going off -grid means going it on your own. You have to produce and store all your own power and if you run out you start up the backup generator. There is no power utility to fall back on. On the other hand, neither is there a power bill.

Off-Grid Solar and Wind Power System

An off-grid system needs a storage system for the electricity that you produce so that it will be available for times when there is no source of electricity. This storage system is one of the main features that distinguish an off-grid system from a grid-tied system. The other is a backup generator for long periods of cloud or calm. The figure at the right shows the basic components for an off-grid system. A solar array and an optional wind turbine provide electricity to run the appliances in your home. Whatever you don't need immediately is stored in the battery bank. Since you are completely reliant on your own resources the battery bank must be large enough to see you through at least 3 days without any solar or wind charging. This typically means very large battery cells forming a bank that requires a space that is a minimum of 2' wide by 4' long and 3' high.

Remote Solar Power System

You will need to plan your energy use using a load analysis so that the charging system and battery bank is large enough to meet your needs. Heating your home in a cold climate will present some challenges. Some heating systems are difficult or prohibitively expensive to operate with an off-grid system. For example, you cannot run a geothermal system with off-grid power - the power requirements for the pumps are too large. Passive solar design and an in floor heating system are usually the best options for off-grid systems.

What is a Grid-tied Solar Power System?

Grid-tied Solar Power System

A grid-tied system is connected to your electrical utility company's power "grid". The utility is now your backup generator. There is a basic monthly cost for a grid connection (usually around $25) but this is much less expensive than the $6000 or more for a generator and the fuel that the generator uses.  You can see the utility meter and subpanel for the large solar array shown in the photo on the right.

Grid-tied Solar Array

A grid-tied system often includes a net metering agreement. This means that when you produce extra power you can feed it back to the grid and receive a credit on your power bills for those times when you use more than you produce. Some utility companies may also pay you for your excess power, or buy power from you at higher than the going rate (this is called a Feed-In Tariff ).

Grid-tied Solar and Wind Power System

The grid now also becomes, in a sense, your battery bank. Because you feed back your excess power for a credit, it is effectively "stored" for you until you need it. Usually this means that you feed back extra power in the summer and then use the credits in the winter when you need the power for your heating system. This is much less expensive than buying and maintaining a battery bank. Looking at the figure on the left you can see that the grid-tied system is the same as the off-grid system but without the battery bank and its charge controller and without the emergency generator.

A Cost Comparison

This means that it is much less expensive to set up and maintain a grid-tied system. It also means that most of your money is going to what you really wanted to buy in the first place - solar and/or wind power. The inverter system, which converts the DC solar power to normal household AC power, is the only other expense for materials. Installation is also less expensive if there is no battery bank, charge controller and generator to install. This typically makes a residential grid-tied system at least $15,000 less than an off-grid system. So why would you want to invest in an off-grid system? Off-grid systems are still cost competitive if you live sufficiently far from the closest grid connection. If you need to have power brought in it may cost you at least as much or more to connect to the grid as to pay for the batteries and generator required for an off-grid system. If it will cost you $20,000 or more to bring in power, for example, the off-grid system quickly pays for itself, especially since there will be no ongoing power bills.

A Benefits Comparison Off-grid System Pros and Cons:

Off-grid Battery Bank

Pros:

- ideal for more remote situations where power is expensive to bring in. - no power bills. - no power outages. - self sufficiency on a clean, renewable energy source.

Cons:

- batteries and generator are expensive and require maintenance. - lifetime for the batteries and generator(10 - 15 years) is less than for the solar array (35 years) and wind turbine (20-25 years). - no seasonal storage. Batteries can only store power for a few days and have a maximum capacity. When they are full, the rest of the power is wasted unless you can find an immediate use for it. - power use must be carefully planned.

Grid-tied System Pros and Cons: Pros:

- easy backup from grid power. - eliminates need for expensive batteries and generator (which also requires fuel). - provides seasonal storage if a net metering or Feed-in Tariff program is available. - maintenance free for a solar power system (wind requires some maintenance and repair). - internet monitoring available with inverters designed to be used for individual solar panels (Example). - you are providing clean energy to the grid.

Cons:

- power outages. When utility power goes out your system also goes out unless you invest in a battery bank. This is a requirement by the utility company and is for the safety of those repairing the system. - you still have to pay the basic utility bill, just not for whatever power you've produced. - you are still using non-renewable resources when there is no solar or wind.

Making the Choice

Choosing the power system that's right for you depends on your building site and the lifestyle that you prefer to live. Contact us and discuss the options with us.