Solar Nerd articles about: System Design

If you’re exploring home solar for the first time, there’s probably a lot of terminology that’s new to you. One that confuses a lot of people is the concept of solar offset. Simply put, a home solar system reduces the number of kilowatt-hours of electricity that the utility company bills for. The amount of reduction is the solar offset, and it’s usually expressed as a percentage of the home’s annual electricity usage.

If you live in the Northern hemisphere, solar panels will receive the most sunlight if they face south. (This is reversed in the Southern hemisphere, so if you live in Australia the preferred direction is north). If you’re a homeowner interested in solar, you might not have this option: maybe the south-facing part of your roof is interrupted by vents, skylights or gables, or is shaded by trees. West is usually the next best option (which generates electricity during the evening peak) followed by east.

If you have a home with a solar array, it’s pretty common to find yourself using more electricity than you did when the solar panels were first installed. Solar homeowners tend to be interested in other green technologies such as electric vehicles, heat pumps, and induction cooking. If you installed solar panels years ago and then, say, bought a Tesla, you may find that your solar panels no longer fully cover your electric bill.

If you have a very large house, you probably have high electricity usage too, possibly making your home a good candidate for solar. If you’re curious about solar and want to find out how many solar panels you’d need for your home that is 4,000 square feet or larger, the most accurate way to find that out is to get a professional solar installer to perform an analysis. A quick but somewhat less accurate way is to read your monthly electric bill and use our solar calculator to determine what your power generation and estimated system price would be.

The average size of a home solar installation in the United States is around 6 kilowatts, which is about 17 high efficiency premium solar panels, or more if you go with a cheaper panel. That many solar panels takes up a lot of space, and you would need a large available roof area to accommodate them. But sometimes, your roof might not be ideal for solar. It might be oriented east-west (which generates less power than a north-south orientation) or, more commonly, you might have shading from nearby trees or buildings.

Homeowners who are interested in going solar often want to know how many solar panels it will take to power their house. The most accurate way to find that out is to get a professional solar installer to perform an analysis on your home. A quick but somewhat less accurate way is to read your monthly electric bill and use our solar calculator to determine what your power generation and estimated system price would be.

Homeowners interested in going solar often want to know how many solar panels it will take to power their house. The most accurate way to find that out is to get a professional solar installer to perform an analysis on your home. A quick but somewhat less accurate way is to read your monthly electric bill and use our solar calculator to determine what your power generation and estimated system price would be.

Are you thinking about going solar, and you’re wondering how many solar panels you’ll need for your 2,500 square-foot house? The most accurate way to find that out is to get a professional solar installer to perform an analysis on your home. A quick but somewhat less accurate way is to read your monthly electric bill and use our solar calculator to determine what your power generation and estimated system price would be.

To generate the maximum electricity from your solar panels, you want them pointed south (if you live in Northern Hemisphere), but sometimes you don’t have much of a choice. Most homeowners mount their solar panels on their roof and consequently only have a couple orientations to choose from. (This is also known as azimuth, where 0° means pointing north and 180° is south.) Solar panels will work if you face them east: on average, east-facing solar panels will generate about 80% as much electricity as they would if pointed directly south.

Homeowners who are interested in going solar often want to know how many solar panels it will take to power their house, and what the cost will be. The best way to find that out is to reach out to professional solar installers in your area. Be sure to get multiple quotes to get a range of prices and equipment choices. If that’s more involved than what you want to do right now and you’re just “window shopping”, you can instead read your monthly electric bill and use our solar calculator to determine what your power generation and estimated system price would be after incentives.