Can I have a 100% fully solar power home without making any compromises on energy usage?
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Just being pro-active since I live a block away from an earthquake fault in the foothills of Southern California.
Question by J.V: Can I have a 100% fully solar power home without making any compromises on energy usage?
If I build a house or convert an existing house, even if i have to fill the whole roof with solar panels, is this possible? I mean, heating, hot water, TV, appliances, Washer, Dryer, PC and all the electricity I need, even floor heating, absolutely zero compromises and zero usage of any other source but solar panels, even if I want to put floor heating in the whole house, is this possibly or is it just me dreaming?
Can you help? Leave your own answer in the comments!
12 Responses to Can I have a 100% fully solar power home without making any compromises on energy usage?
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Nope, a.c and fridge are some serious energy hogs.
Barry C
August 16, 2011 at 3:32 pm
no
Whatsittoya Bob
August 16, 2011 at 4:13 pm
I have PV panels and I don’t get 100% but if on a reasonably sunny day you plan your appliances usage you can maximise the savings i.e, Dishwasher, followed by washing machine and then dryer etc, etc, the savings are very significant. If you face south, west or east go for it, even if your borrow the money say at 7% your return will be at least 12% tax free.
Rover
August 16, 2011 at 4:54 pm
In theory, yes – on a clear day we get around 1000W per square metre in the UK so a large enough array of solar panels for both electricity and heat, plus a massive storage battery system, could run a house.
In practise, the cost would be astronomical as you have to guarantee sufficient storage capacity to run the house for days at a time during bad weather, and have enough generation capacity to recharge the system quickly as well as running everything.
Most energy efficient buildings use mains electricity and use the grid as the ‘storage’ system; you are paid for power you produce when there is excess, which offsets the cost of electricity when your (small) storage system is depleted.
Re. the underfloor heating: The best system is an integrated air conditioning/heating system using a reversible heat pump setup with an underground ‘heatsink’. You dump excess heat several metres underground from the air conditioning, then pull it back for heating.
You get roughly 3KW of heat transfer for 1KW of power to the heat pump.
Robert J
August 16, 2011 at 5:13 pm
No not 100%.But let us keep in mind that mother nature has been compromising our encroachment for generation !
akta_me
August 16, 2011 at 5:23 pm
No, you cannot.
There are people in the US who do this, and go completely off the electrical grid.
But they have to buy special refrigerators and washing machines. They can’t use a dryer, and rarely use a TV or computer.
And they don’t heat their home with electricity.
Peanut Butter
August 16, 2011 at 5:25 pm
yes if you have enough money
tom
August 16, 2011 at 5:30 pm
No, solar panels do not hold a charge for common use during the night.
Sam
August 16, 2011 at 6:10 pm
Even the most energy-efficient homes would have to have extra solar panels that are off of the roof. That’s possible if you’ve got a fair amount of space to work with.
If you scale back on your energy usage, then it starts becoming possible.
Michael
August 16, 2011 at 6:12 pm
Of course, if you are on the grid so it can give you the 24/7 power you must have. You simply look at your total KWH usage over a year, then install a system that will collect that much power during the sunny times. The system will be very expensive, especially if you live where you have a lot of cloudy/rainy/snowy days, but it can be done as long as you have enough area for the panels.
For example, here in my town the sun shines like almost every day, and we hardly have a real winter, so it is probably one of the cheapest areas to do this. A system for my 2000 sq. ft. home to cover 100% of my usage will cost about $ 40,000-$ 50,000, depending on type and area of roof and mounting requirements. If I make a lot of money and pay a lot of taxes, I can get $ 10,000 or more in tax credits (That is I get to use some of your hard-earned your money to pay for my system????), and my electric company will also give me some rebate. My total electric costs for a year is about $ 2600. As you can see it will never pay for itself because the equipment will need replacing long before I get my money back not even counting for any cost of interest on my money, but if you are wealthy you can do it for the good of the earth. Of course if you live in an area where the days are not always sunshiny, then the cost will go up because the system must be larger as the days /hours of sun are increased. Cost also may go up if a very cold area.
You need to be on the grid because in most areas the electric company will “Buy Back” or “Credit” you with all the power you produce over what you need during sunny times. This offsets all the time you are using power from the grid. Nights and cloudy days. Don’t even consider an “Off-Grid” system with batteries for storage because the system must be even larger and more costly, or you must be willing to not have AC or Heat on it.
GABY
August 16, 2011 at 6:58 pm
I would think that you would have to have a huge house and not use a large part of it. I would put a bunch of panels in your yard. That will kill two birds with one stone. Your kids can invite the neighbor kids over an play hide and seek in your yard. Lets just hope that they don’t run into the panels with their ATV or bicycles or something. That might electrocute them depending on how the panels are wired up.
Mr.357
August 16, 2011 at 7:26 pm
You would need a couple of types of solar. Solar water heating is an efficient way to make hot water directly from the sun, rather than making electricity and using that for heat. With enough storage, you can store the heat in a large tank and use that heat in your radiant floors even on cloudy days and night time.
Then you can use solar panels to charge batteries to power the rest of the appliances that run on electricity day and night.
Don’t get me wrong, while it is possible, it will be very expensive to do it without cutting back on your usage. Generally people who go off grid, they cut back their usage to make it more cost effective.
Amy
August 16, 2011 at 7:35 pm