… or how many watts? I dont use much electricity. I have on a couple of lights and a computer, sometimes the tv. Thinking about installing residential solar power systems, how many photovoltaic solar panels would I need to power those constantly throughout the day, and maybe charge batteries for night? The air, refrigerator and hot water heater I would still use regular electricity.

Solar panels produce DC electricity, not AC. So, you’d need an inverter to convert DC to AC. You need to find what your peak wattage is (consumption) and how long you want to run things for and work backwards from there. Suffice to say, if you are using the grid for the major drains, ie the air con, refridgerator, the microwave, the washing machine etc, then a roof-full of panels would be more than sufficient. A professional installer of residential solar power systems would give you the exact amount of watts required and work from there to tell you how many of which panels to buy.

 

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