Among the difficulties facing solar PV owners is making sure that their system is running effectively. An essential part of this is guaranteeing that you use any excess electrical energy efficiently.
Solar PV systems produce their electrical power throughout the day. For lots of houses in the UK, the day is the time when you make use of the least amount of electrical power. You can take some actions to use this surplus electrical power efficiently. For example, use house appliances like a dishwasher or laundry machine during the day. Nevertheless, for lots of people, an additional system will provide the finest efficiency.
For the bulk of solar PV systems, the excess electrical energy is used back to the grid as part of the Feed-in Tariff (FIT). Nonetheless, the approximated payments from the FIT are based upon the production of your solar system. This means that you can use electrical power from your photovoltaic panels without impacting your FIT payments.
There are two different sorts of system that you can utilise to use the electrical energy from your solar panels efficiently. The first is an electrical immersion heater or storage heater, which will take surplus energy and alter it into heat. The second option is to use house batteries to conserve the electrical power.
1. Electric heating unit systems
One choice for using electrical energy generated from your solar panels is to have an electrical heating system fitted. These systems will sensibly use any surplus electrical energy and store it as heat, which is released throughout the night.
There are two primary kinds of electrical heating system that you can use for this function. The first is an immersion heating system which will heat up a hot water tank. This can give you enough hot water to use in the evening. It can also conserve your energy by not having your gas boiler warm up a whole tank of hot water.
A second choice is an electrical storage heating unit which will just change the excess electrical power into heat and store it. It can then be released much like other sorts of electric heating units.
Both of these systems can be used to divert excess electrical energy and store it in your personal home, rather than utilizing it back to the grid.
2. Home battery systems
House battery systems provide more flexibility than heating units. A home battery stores the excess electrical energy so that you can utilise it to power your home in the evening and overnight.
The obvious benefit of these systems is that you will use even less electrical power. By doing this, you can appropriately harness the power of your solar panels. However, you may still discover that you need to utilise electrical power from the grid. Home batteries usually do not keep sufficient power for high load home devices like kettles or electrical showers.
Both of these systems are a significant financial investment. However, they can conserve you money over their lifetime, because of that it’s vital to look carefully at their return on investment. Utilising these systems will let you make use of as much electrical power as possible from your solar panels to power your house.