| Determining the power requirements of your | | | | televisions and other electronic equipment on |
| home is the first step in the planning phase for a | | | | power strips so they are not always drawing |
| new home solar system. It is important to install a | | | | power. Contact your Power Company and see if |
| system large enough to take care of your needs, | | | | they can help you with an energy audit. Most |
| but if your system is too large, you are wasting | | | | utilities are only too willing to help since they can |
| money since the power company may only issue | | | | avoid the capital investment in new plants if they |
| credit up to the amount of your annual usage. Of | | | | can help customers save electricity usage. |
| course, if you live on the grid, you can just look | | | | Calculate Watt Hours Usage for Your Home. |
| at your utility bill and find out how many kilowatt | | | | If you are planning a battery back-up or off grid |
| hours of electricity you used for the month and | | | | system, you must tighten up your planning even |
| divide by number of days to get your daily usage. | | | | more because the additional cost of battery |
| I suggest you go a little further than that because | | | | systems makes it even more important not to |
| you are making a big investment in time and | | | | over build your solar system. The best way to do |
| money to get this project done. Most people | | | | this is to make a table listing all electrical items in |
| have never taken the time to analyze their | | | | your house, the number of hours of usage and |
| usage, and generally waste a lot of electricity. You | | | | the watts per hour consumed for each item. |
| really must look at ways to save energy because | | | | Thus you can calculate the watt hours of energy |
| it may be possible to significantly reduce the size | | | | consumed for each item and find the total watt |
| of your solar system. | | | | hours required for your house for a day. Building |
| Save Energy and Money by Installing the Right | | | | this list will also help you in your energy audit since |
| Size System. | | | | it will highlight exactly where you are using |
| Now is the time to analyze each appliance and | | | | electricity so you may make some additional |
| your lighting to see if you could improve your | | | | changes to your usage. |
| usage numbers. Your refrigerator may be older | | | | Once you have arrived at the final figure for watt |
| and not an Energy Star version. Is your air | | | | hours usage, you must adjust it for the |
| conditioner or dryer older? It would be cost | | | | inefficiency of a solar system. since batteries will |
| effective to replace these and not plan for their | | | | only operate at 95% efficiency, and inverters |
| current energy use. You might even consider | | | | operate at a 90% efficiency. Once these |
| switching some of your appliances to natural gas | | | | adjustments are made, we are ready to go to |
| since this is a much cheaper source of energy. | | | | the next step which is to calculate how many |
| Have you switched your lighting to the new | | | | watts of power your solar system will produce in |
| compact fluorescent bulbs and put your | | | | your location. |