Can you power your house using Solar Panels ?

Question

How many would you need ?

How effective would they work on cloudy, foggy days ?

Asking those who know ?

Answer 1

Sure you can, absolutely, but they must be sized correctly for what you want to accomplish.

The size of a solar panel system depends on a variety of things: how much energy you use, your geographic location, roof ridge line orientation, shading factors, angle of installation, efficiency of chosen panel, average rain fall in your area, etc...

In order to have electricity at night or during a storm, you would either need to connect the panels to the existing electrical grid and use it as a battery backup or install a battery backup (or hydrogen backup) system.

But to answer your question, yes you can definitely run an entire house on solar.

Answer 2

thats not nice what the guy above me said!! you CAN live with solar panals to make some electricety, but not all of it

Answer 3

I DONT KNOW,   SOME TIME  BACK A AUSTRALIAN INVENTED A UNIT THATS PUT ON TOP OF YOUR HOME. ONCE OPERATIONAL IT COMPLETELY MAINTAINS YOUR WHOLE HOME AND ANY EXTRA POWER RETURNS THROUGH THE POWER LINES TO THE POWER SOURCE AND THE POWER COMPANY SENDS YOU A CHECK FOR THE EXTRA POWER, BY LAW. LAST I HEARD OF THIS IT WAS BEING PRODUCED IN NEW JERSEY. OR YOU CAN CHECK WITH AUSTRALIAN INVENTORS IN AUSTRALIA

Answer 4

If you're looking for costs and benefits associated with solar panel installation, check out http://www.getsolar.com , the site has some great information..

Answer 5

You can power your house using solar panels. The number of solar panels depends on how much sun you get.

The further North you live the more panels will be required.

The more fog and cloud the more panels you will require.

Nothing green about solar. The manufacture of photovoltaics involves very toxic materials and lots of energy. Storage batteries are made up of toxic electolytes and toxic metals such as lead.

Answer 6

I could, yes.   I don't use huge amounts of energy like most houses do in the US.   If I go above 100kwh per month, its unusual.   Would need a few batteries to store energy for nite use or rainy days, but that wouldn't cost much.

Answer 7

If you like eating cold food from a real 'ice box' while sitting in a dark room wrapped in blankets to keep from freezing to death, sure.

Go for it.

Answer 8

While I strongly favor solar for electricity by the utility company, I fear that solar for individual homes has a few serious problems unless the home was designed to include solar. For example, right now, most of us cannot afford to add enough panels to our roofs to make a big difference. Then there are your neighbors' trees that were only 4 feet when they were planted but are now 50 feet tall and completely shade your panels much of the day. They need total sun for much of the daylight hours.

I'd sooner see us average people cooperate with their local utility in such a way that the utility buys, installs and maintains the panels on the rooftops of businesses and unused shopping malls. We would invest in several (or as many as we could afford) of those solar panels from the utility and from that point forward, we would share in the profits by either having our electric bill lowered or a check. The businesses would provide the roofs and get a share as well. This way, solar would not be so prohibitively expensive for any one person. This would also reduce the need to build very large centralized nuclear or coal power plants.

So, to answer your question, I really think solar homes are beyond most common folks ability to afford at this time. On the other hand, if you have the right land and can install them yourself and really know what you are doing ... and your community will let you add them ... do it and show others how you did it. Then brag loudly and proudly.

Answer 9

There is all kinds of ways to use solar panels.  To cook no problem You can live the good life.. with solar power.

Presto Griddle takes 1300 watts to run 120vac

If you wanted to run it all day you would need at least 2000 watts of panels and a 1700 watt inverter Price tag of around

$9000. Now you will need to store the extra power. Battery's

1500 amp hours Mine are Panasonic with a price tag of $1800  

You won't be running the Griddle all the time but it make for a good starting point. When not in use you have the rest of the house.

I have only 900 watts of panels at this time and can run for 4 days with the grid power

Answer 10

yes it is possible to power ur whole house using solar panels. but i don't suggest powering ur entire house just by using solar panels. use solar panels for some of ur electricity needs, not all. it'll be like a hybrid house! solar panels are pretty expensive, and i'm not sure wat the cost would be to get them installed. it also depends on where u live. obviously living in an area that has sun most of the year will allow u to make using solaar panels worthwhile, vs. putting them up in an area where it is normally dark for longer periods of time. and i'm not sure about the cloudy foggy days thing...i think it works as long as u can se the sun?!? not sure...

i think it's great that ur considering having solar panels, cuz they can greatly help our environment!

hope i helped xD