power your home on the sun
Solar panels are one of the best ways to reduce your energy bills. Put simply, solar panels convert the energy from the sun during daylight hours into electrical energy. After running through a device called an inverter, connected to your solar panels, this electrical energy can be used to power your home.
Every kilowatt-hour or ‘unit’ of electricity is equivalent to one that you’d buy from your energy supplier. That means you can use units of energy from your solar system for free when it’s generating clean power, instead of paying your supplier. If you’re not using the energy that’s generated, you can sell them back to your supplier under the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG), or store them in a solar battery system, to use later on.
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Ultra green source of energy
Minimal maintenance requirements
Hundreds of £’s of annual savings
How it works
1) Solar panels installed on your roof use the photovoltaic effect to convert the energy in photons carried in daylight into an electrical current
2) A solar inverter converts the direct current (DC) power generated from the solar panels into alternating current (AC) power suitable for powering appliances in your home
3) Energy consuming devices in your home use the power from your solar inverter instead of buying in electricity from one of the big energy suppliers
4) Any solar energy that you don’t use gets sent back into the grid and you can get paid by your energy supplier with the smart export guarantee (SEG)
Solar panels of old used to have a navy blue hue, with white grid lines throughout, surrounded in a silver frame. It’s fair to say they weren’t the most aesthetically appealing panels. However nowadays, you can install all black sleek looking panels, which add a modern aesthetic to your home. You can even now get solar integrated roof tiles, although they don’t perform as well as standard panels.
Most modern solar panels are warrantied for at least 12 years and have a guaranteed performance for as long as 30 years, meaning you’ve got great protected long term results. When considering solar, you should also consider the warranty on other components such as the solar inverter, which harnesses the generated energy and makes it usable in your home. Most inverters come with a 10 year warranty.
No, sunny weather isn’t needed for solar panels to generate energy. Modern photovoltaic (solar) cells can generate energy from ambient daylight to power your home, meaning you can generate energy all year round. The amount of energy is impacted by the amount of light, so bright sunny weather does give the best performance, but it’s not critical for your solar panels to be working.