Myths About Solar Panels

The push to increase the proportion of electricity and power generated by green methods such as solar panels – not to mention the lure of steady income provided to homeowners by the Feed-in Tariff to property owners who install solar PV systems – has raised a lot of questions for people who may have never considered installing solar panels before. A lot of myths are circulating about solar panels. Some of them have never been true. Others used to be true but consist of outdated information that’s been made obsolete by technological advances in manufacturing solar panels. If you’re considering solar panels for your property but have reservations because you believe one or more of these myths, the truth may help you make your decision.

Solar Panels Only Work In Areas With A Lot Of Sunny Days

While solar panels do require direct sunlight to generate electricity, they don’t need full sun to operate efficiently. In fact, in typical UK climate conditions, a solar PV system can easily generate up to 50% of the electricity used by a typical family. The reason is that solar panels generate electricity using  the same UV sun rays that can cause sunburn – and if you’ve ever been sunburned on an overcast day, you know that those rays reach the earth even through a cloudy sky.

If You Install Solar Panels, You Won’t Have Enough Electricity For Your Nighttime Use.

There is some truth to this myth – solar panels can only generate electricity directly during the daylight hours. However, that doesn’t mean you’ll have no electricity at night. There are two different ways to ensure that you’ll have power even after dark. The first is to install a solar PV system that has a storage battery. The battery will continuously store any electricity that is not used immediately and automatically draw from the battery when you need more electricity than the panels produce. The other – and more common – way is to install a grid-tied solar PV system. In fact, only grid-tied systems are eligible to participate in the FITs. With a grid-tied system, your home remains connected to the electrical grid, but you only draw electricity from it when you need more electricity than your solar panels are generating at the moment. Depending on your electricity usage, your solar PV system may provide enough electricity for your use during the day and you’ll only draw on grid power at night. The excess electricity your panels generate during the day don’t go to waste, though. Your solar PV system will feed any electricity you don’t use back into the grid and you’ll be paid for it through the FITs.

Very Few Homes Will Benefit from Solar Panels

In fact, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, about 85% of all buildings in the UK offer suitable sites to install a solar PV system. To find out if your home is one of them, and to learn how much you can benefit from installing solar panels, contact a local company that installs solar PV systems on homes in your region.