Do you need to pay for electricity if you have solar panels?

Question

I am in the market for buying a home. There is one for salke that actually has solar panels on top. How are they used? Do you need to pay for gas and electric still. Does it really light up the house and keep it warm. WHat about the AC keeping hte house cool in the summer does it work for that too? Please explain in solar for dummy terms. I haveno clue about solar panels other thatn the fact that it needs sunlight to run.

Answer 1

well see a house can totally depend on solar energy (solar panels) but u will still have to pay the electricity bill because if the solar panels dont work u will have a back up,eg like in winters when it snows , it can cover the solar panels or during the winter seson when it is cloudy or snowing the sunlight can not reach the solar panels because of which they can not charge. but on the other hand because of the solar panels the bills will be decresed and u will have to pay only a small amount. I HOPE I WAS HELP FULL

Answer 2

You only have to pay if you are connected to the power grid and you use more power than you generate. If you generate more than you use you get paid by the power company for helping them out with a little extra juice.

Answer 3

It depends, there are different kinds. Some only supplement the electricity in the house.

Answer 4

More than likely these solar panels will be used to heat your water only, and will not supply any power to your home. I'd ask .

Answer 5

I'm not sure. i think you just pay for the panels when they're replaced. But there mite b another charge. You know what the government is like these days.

But solar power is just metal panels, they absorb the heat from the sun and the magnetism somehow produces energy. \i dont know much about it either.

It's very good for the enviroment though.

Answer 6

all i know if is that if u produce more energy then u use they either pay u or u just get credit.

Answer 7

It depends if your solar panels generate more or less power than you use

Answer 8

actually YOU get PAID from the electric company every month because your house is feeding the electrical grid

Answer 9

Solar Panels are generally placed on a south facing roof that is slightly angled to get the most light.  

If you live in certain areas, the power company allows you to put power back onto the grid.  This means that when the sun is shining and your solar panels are getting more than enough power to run everything electric in your household, you can actually reverse your meter reading.  You become your own power company for your neighborhood so to speak.  At night you will most likely need to pull from the grid again, but that should be offset by your daily solar panel production.  Often times electric companies will average this out for the year and some people actually get a check in the mail at the end of it based upon their support the the system.

You generally will want to purchase enough solar panels to contirbute that average monthly Kilowatt Hours for your household needs.  If you have gas appliances currently they will still need to have a supply of gas.  You can replace those appliances, but that is often costly and unnessesary.  There are options for people to purchase water heaters that run entirely on solar power as well but again that generally takes another purchase.

Other options if your area does not allow putting power back onto the grid there are storage systems that store up the excess power and give it back when you need it but those can also be very costly.

For example in Southern California I recently requested a quote for my home of approx. 2800 square feet and they quoted me $48,000 for the grid system which after State, Federal and other rebates would cost me around $25,000.  Now understand that this varies based upon your appliances gas and electric, their energy efficiency and even your homes quality of insulation.

There are more and more solar companies out there and technology is always changing so keep an eye out.  Also, contact your local power company to see what they offer and who can install or fix the system if it breaks.  You should also, find out how old some of the current systems are that are attached to a property as maintenance can sometime be costly.

Hope this helps!

Answer 10

Okay--here it is  (without the techie buzzwords!)

Solar power has a start up cost--the panels and related equipment.  But the amount it cost to operate is virtually zero--pretty much jsut servicing th equipment o keep it working properly--much as you do any other appliance.

How much electricity you will still have to buy depends on four things:

a) how much your system can produce.  If you have a 4000 watt system, you'll still buy a fair amount of power. Abigger one--and you will need less from the power company

b) how efficient you (your home and appliances are). The more efficient, the less electricity you use.  Obviously, things lie CFL bulbs are very helpful here

c) Are you willing to invest in a  battery storage system to store electricity from the system for use at night?  Right now, that's still pricey. But these are starting to come on th emarket more.  If you aren't ready to do tha tnow, you can always add it in later.

d) can you sell excess power back to the power company.?  In California, the law requires utilities to do this--but its not a universal yet, so it depends on where you are. How this works: you are still hooked up to the power company.  Any time you need more power than the solar system produces, yur system jst draws it off the power grid--jsut as always.  But--any time you are using LESS than the amount of power your system is producing, the excess automatically feeeds back into the electric grid and a special peter credits you with the power.  There are cases wwhere people have goene on a long vacation in California and when they got home, the power company owed them several hundred dollars!

You'll need to do some research, price thngs, take your own lifestyle into account, and decide what  the best choices for you are.  It sounds complicated--and to an extent it is. But the reason is tha tyou have a lot of choices tha tyou can make work to your advantage, instead of jsut writing a fat check to the power company every month!

Answer 11

No standard home can operate on solar panels alone unless there is about an acre or more of them. Plus, they require lots of batteries and complicated switching devices. And, they are very expensive, so rarely pay back their up front cost.

Right now, more of a gimmick than a practical solution to power needs in the home.

The house you're looking at may use it to power emergency lighting in case the grid went down. Or maybe a small fan to exhaust heat out of the attic. Who knows. Just have to ask.

Answer 12

I think that rustoria617 bumped his head on some thing.  There are thousands of homes using only solar panels to power their homes, and it no way near an acre of them.  With the right setup 1Kw of panels will work.  Remember one can't bring a boat to an airplane race and hope to win.  Look at this link.

Answer 13

in Holland the government used 2 encourage people 2 buy solar panels, you had tax returned and you would use your own energy........there is always enough energy...the energy what you collect during the day will be storaged, and you can use that energy during the night time...that's all i know