If you can afford it, you should get the maximum total solar panel capacity that the roof can hold. For example, on my roof, I have 24 x 390 watt Jinko Tiger solar panels with a total solar capacity of 9.36kW (9360 watts).

The solar system has two parts: the panel and the inverter. Solar panels convert solar energy into DC (direct current) power. Your house uses AC (alternating current) power, so the inverter converts DC power to AC power so that your lights, electrical appliances, etc. can use it.

My Sungrow SG8K-D solar inverter that converts solar energy into these panels has a capacity of 8kW, so 8000 watts is the maximum power that my roof can generate in the middle of a day. Another good choice for this capacity class is the Fronius Primo 8.2kW model.

If you are not sure what 8000 watts is, it is enough to boil 3 2400 watt kettles (7200 watts in total) at a time, and still only use your own solar energy. This assumes that the kettle boils in the middle of a sunny day with the highest solar radiation.

In order to get the maximum solar capacity, you need solar panels to cover as much of the available roof space as possible, but they also need to be high output panels rather than low output panels.

Of course, Jinko is not the only affordable high-output panel at present. Another big player is Trina, which has a 405-watt Vertex S panel. Do your research because there are other options.

If I have a lower output panel, such as 330 watts, 24x 330w total 7.92 kW (7920 watts) is much lower than 9.36 kW (9360 watts), which will cause the solar power generation capacity on my roof to be much lower.

Why the capacity of the solar inverter I purchased exceeds 8kW will be explained in a later post. It actually makes sense to buy 1/3 more panels than the total panel capacity supported by the inverter, so if I had additional empty roof space, I would buy 27 panels for a total of 10.53kW (8kW inverter x 1.31625 ).

Back to why you should get the maximum solar panel capacity that the roof can hold... An important reason for this is that you have enough winter solar output.

If your solar system is not large enough, it will not be able to generate enough electricity to meet your electricity consumption during the coldest and darkest months of the year.

Solar panels only output their maximum rated power at noon on a sunny summer day, when the sun is above the horizon, and the panels are not blocked by clouds, trees, etc.

In the best winter, they will generate about half of their capacity, because the sun on the horizon is very low and there are far fewer sunny days per day.

On a winter day in Sydney on June 6, the image below shows that my panel output about 60% of its capacity at noon on an almost cloudless day.

Since I have a high-capacity solar system, except for the darkest rainy days in winter, my roof usually has enough winter solar power (orange in the picture) to use my own power for a high-power-consuming thing at a time Clothes dryer or heater (yellow on the chart). Any solar energy I do not use will be sent back to the grid (blue in the picture).

In spring and summer, your roof is filled with high-output solar panels, and your panels will be in their best condition. A few months later, you can see that my solar panels generated more electricity at noon on October 18th, accounting for about 91% of the inverter capacity.

This means that on sunny and cloudless days in spring and summer, if I need to run several high-power devices at the same time, I can start them at the same time in the middle of the day and still use my own electricity.

Ideally, during those daylight hours, even if your air conditioning system runs for many hours in the middle of the day, you would never use any grid power from the power company.

In the example below, I am running the dishwasher in a fast cycle, there are a lot of towels on the dryer, and I am heating up lunch in the microwave. When I took this screenshot, all of this plus the usual low-power devices (lights, modems, smart speakers, etc.) used a total of 5.94kW (5940 watts).

Since my solar panels produced 6520 watts of power at the time, I could run my entire house with my own solar energy and still have some remaining solar power that could be sent back to the grid.

So, if I choose a smaller capacity solar system on the roof, for example: a popular combination of 6.6kW (6600 watts) panels and 5kW inverters, what will happen?

Well, the maximum power generation at any given time is 5kW (5000 watts), but as we know now, this is only around noon in spring/summer.

In winter, it will produce peaks of 2.5-3kW (2500-3000 watts) at noon at most, and it is more like 1-1.5kW at noon in the morning and afternoon.

This is only enough to power the microwave oven, and much less than is required to run a load in a clothes dryer or perform a fast dishwasher cycle. This does not even mention running one or two heaters.

In this case, people in winter will have to use a lot of grid energy provided by their power company and a little of their own solar energy, which is not ideal.

A large, well-designed and placed solar system covering your roof with high-capacity panels means that whether it is winter or summer, your solar system usually produces enough electricity, so the total electricity consumption of your house at any given time Both are lower than the amount of solar power generated during most of the day.

All this is a good thing for owner-occupiers. What about renters? What about those who live in apartment buildings or apartment buildings? How do they benefit from solar energy?

If renters are concerned about climate change and reducing air pollution, one way they can benefit is to shut down coal-fired power plants early because there is too much solar power

Ausdroid is the only news media in Australia dedicated to covering Android, mobile and personal technologies.

We are independent. Although we work with big brands, we do not work for them; we share our views, not theirs, and this will never change.

Listen to the daily news from our talented writers and enjoy the best things Ausdroid has to offer.