Photovoltaic Panels

Residential Solar Panels are here to stay.

As a professional home inspector we have the opportunity to help our clients purchase their homes intelligently. It has been increasingly more popular to have photovoltaic (PV) solar panels mounted on our homes. These take the sun’s energy and convert it to usable electricity in our homes. While there is a cost to the installation of these systems the sunny’s energy could help pay for that cost in the form of rebates and electricity savings.

There are two basic systems installed on homes today. One is a usage system that produces electricity and puts it directly to use and the other is storage system that will store electricity in a battery for use later. Both are effective but the latter can be more expensive.

Regardless of the system installed on the home the most effective use of the PV electricity created is the ability to sell it back to the utility. This surplus electricity has the ability to flow back to the grid when the power generated is greater than the supply needed. This could be all day while the sun is out and you are at work. Very little electricity is consumed but the sun is generating surplus power and the homeowner is getting the credit or rebate to their account.

The PV system is a very basic system. There is a collection panel that captures the solar energy. This energy is DV current. An inverter changes the DC current to usable AC current and this is distributed into the power supply in your home. If you wish to store some of this energy for times when the sun is not out or the grid is not active then a battery pack is installed prior to entering the house power supply.

Any one part of these systems can fail or have issues. Your The BrickKicker inspector understands these systems and can help insure the proper operation or installation. Please never hesitate to ask us any questions you might have. If you would like to know more about the various incentives for installing PV systems please go to: www.dsireusa.org