Firstly we have it on their authority that the panels will supply up to 60% or our electrical needs and when we are not at home or when all the household appliances are sitting unused (excepting the fridge) our new solar panels will actually put electricity back into the grid and we will get credits for this reducing our overall bill each month. Of course the more panels you fit the greater the input and benefits and there are some households who have up to 20 panels which will cover all their electrical needs day in and day out.
We also had our care of the planet in mind however being perfectly honest there had to be a buck in it for us to make the change yet even so our concern over the carbon emission issues which threatens the planet with climate change was fairly high in our minds. My wife and I are in our 70's so we won't see the ultimate damage that may come to our grandchildren and so with that sort of concern we also made our commitment to buying solar panels for our old homestead.
We did our research on the solar panels before making the plunge and discovered there are panels and there are panels. To put it more plainly some panels do not have the same efficiency as others and if you are considering buying solar panels be aware that the cheaper panel is not necessarily the best way to go. We had two companies offering to do our fit out and the price was considerably different however we chose the higher cost in buying solar panels because in the long run it was clear it would be better and cheaper.
The deciding factor was the model chosen would produce electricity at near 90% of its efficiency even in shady conditions and the other models, which were cheaper, were down to 20% efficiency on the shady winter days.
It was important to my wife more than myself that the panels looked good. As a mere male the design look on the rooftop didn't concern me greatly. I was more interested in how well they would work. Of course your position on the rooftop needs to be on the best sun catching location and the northerly exposure was essential. We found in discussion with our company fitting the panels that they could make them aesthetically pleasing and would fit in with the house design.
There is also the option when buying solar panels to go the extra expense and have a solar tracker fitted, which means the panels, will position to the best sun exposure throughout the day. However for us this was not a consideration as we are blessed with constant sunlight throughout most of the year but for those in the more wintry climates with lesser sun exposure it's worth considering the sun solar tracker and the extra expense may well be worth the outlay.
We also checked out the guarantees that came with our solar panels and while there will be some small decline in efficiency over time the solar panels we have had fitted they have a guarantee of twelve years to still be working at about 80% efficiency at the year twelve.
Of course there will be new developments over the next twelve years and even now there is modeling for a paper thin cheap roof covering that will deliver the whole electrical needs of the family and there is also talk about a solar paint that you can simply paint on the roof at a tiny cost compared with buying solar panels today. These new ideas are not yet commercially available but they will be in a few years. However for my wife and I we will be in our late 80s by then, if we survive that long, and so buying solar panels now and not the technology of tomorrow was our main concern.
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