We get this question frequently from our customers or would be customers, in this post, we will address this question. for the fun of it, s well as for easy understanding, we have broken it down into bits.
1.Reduce the electricity consumption of the building.
For you to save on electricity costs – with or without PV (photovoltaic)– you should first eliminate devices and appliances that use too much of it. These include standby devices, incandescent light bulbs and water heaters. The lower your overall consumption, the greater the part of it that you will be able to cover using solar PV.
2.Install LEDs instead of light bulbs!
Usually the largest single cost factor is lighting. Obsolete light bulbs only use about ten percent of the electricity to make light. 90 percent are lost as heat. They produce heat rather than light, because they are based on a glowing filament made of tungsten. Modern LEDs use almost all of the electricity to make light. You can clearly notice this from the fact that they stay cool, i.e. there is much less loss. A good LED needs about a tenth of the electricity to produce the same amount of light. And because it does not heat up so much, it lasts much longer. And: The price of LEDs has come down so much, that exchanging them for regular light bulbs pays off within one or two years. The same is true for industrial lighting systems which often use mercury vapour lamps. These, too, use up a lot of electricity and can easily be replaced by LEDs.
3.Turn off standby mode.
Many electrical devices (kitchen appliances, TVs, computers, game consoles, HiFi systems) also consume electricity when they are not in use and on standby. Considering the number of electrical devices in a normal house, the standby consumption can really add up. For that reason, such devices should – when not in use – be physically separated from the circuit by using switchable sockets.
4.Run high-consumption devices during the day.
Those appliances in the household with the highest electricity demand are the dish washer and the washing machine. These can easily be equipped with timer switches, so that they run during the day, when the solar generator on the roof is producing a lot of output, which can be used directly. A high-wattage stove might be a challenge for PV by itself. In this case, a large storage unit (solar battery) can be used as a buffer for short-term load peaks. Because it is not just the number of kilowatt hours on the roof that has to be sufficient, but also the currents made available at short notice. This determines if a storage unit is designed for capacity (in kilowatt hours) or output (in kilowatts).
5. Energy storage increases efficiency.
Between early 2014 and 2017, the price of stationary lithium batteries has fallen by more than 40 percent. This trend is expected to continue. Furthermore, the end of February saw the introduction of a new funding programme that will continue until 2018. These are good reasons for investing in a solar battery. What size to choose depends on the building’s electricity demand and the size of your solar generator.
Hope nothing is left out?
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