Solar panels provide clean, green electricity for your home or factory. They can also charge your electric car.

Solar panels that generate electricity are known as solar ‘photovoltaic panels’, or solar PV panels for short.

With solar panels on your roof, you have two electricity supplies. The first is your normal connection to the national grid. The second supply is your solar panel system.

A solar panel system is an ideal companion for an electric car. During daylight hours, the panels generate electricity which flows into your home. If your electric vehicle is plugged in, some of the free solar electricity will go into your car’s battery.

If your EV is away from the home during the day, you can install battery storage. This will capture surplus solar electricity generated while the sun is shining. You can then use that stored energy to partially charge your car when you get back home, or power devices in your home, or both.

Solar panels are very robust. They can generate electricity for years to come. That’s why NASA sends them into space to power satellites, probes and rovers. They also don’t need servicing. Just a clean now and again if they get dirty.

Read more by below two topic:

1.How a Solar Panel system works

2.Ten Reasons to install Solar Panels

1.How a Solar Panel system works

Here is a simple explanation of how solar panels provide electricity for you to use in the home:

Solar Panels

• Solar panels are fitted to your roof, or sometimes mounted on the ground.

• The panels automatically convert sunlight into ‘DC’ electricity.

• Your house runs on ‘AC’ electricity.

• The DC electricity from the solar panels therefore needs to be converted to AC electricity before you can use it.

• N-Topcon technology for Solar Panels is the most economical and reasonable choice as of today from technical perspective.

• There will be solar panels with new technologies such as BC and perovskite, but cost is relatively high so far

You can also find plenty of information about the various different types of solar panel on our Solar Panel Types page.

Solar Inverter

• An ‘inverter’ is installed to convert DC electricity into AC electricity.

• Basically, DC electricity from the panels goes into the inverter and AC electricity comes out.

• Power is a key parameter of an inverter. For household use, its usually within 10KW; and for commercial user, mostly less than 30Kw; and for factory, is bigger than 100Kw

Fuse Box

• The AC electricity from the inverter is then routed to your fuse box.

• Once at the fuse box, the solar electricity ‘looks’ for somewhere to go.

• If you have an electrical device turned on in your home, the solar electricity will go from the fuse box to that device.

• In this way, the device is partially or wholly powered by electricity generated by your solar panels and not totally dependent on electricity from the national grid.

Importing Electricity

• Electricity will only be imported from the national grid if the amount of electricity you need in the home is greater than the amount of electricity being produced by the panels.

Exporting Electricity

• If, on the other hand, the amount of solar electricity is greater than the amount of electricity you need in the home, then the surplus solar electricity will be exported to the national grid (unless you have battery storage – see below).

• All of the electricity flows above happen automatically – no human intervention is required.

Electric Car

• If your electric car is plugged in to its charging point, then the car will look like any other electric device in the home and solar electricity will flow to it.

Battery Storage

• If you also have battery storage installed, any excess solar electricity will automatically be stored in the battery, rather than escaping to the national grid.

• When encountering extreme situations such as power outages, you can turn off the switches of the power grid and use the stored electricity to independently supply power.

• The specific power supply time is determined by the capacity of the energy storage. Without using high power appliances, 20Kwh can provide 2-3 days of household use

If you want more excruciatingly boring details about solar panel energy terminology, read our handy guide.

2.Ten Reasons to install Solar Panels

Now that you’re an expert in solar PV technology, it’s time to assess whether a solar panel system is the right option for your home or factory.

If you find yourself agreeing with the majority of the points below, then having solar panels installed may well be the right course of action.

I would like…

• To import less electricity each month from the national grid.

• My monthly electricity bills to be lower.

• To generate my own electricity from a free resource: the sun.

• To be protected against rising energy costs.

• My electric car to be charged by the sun.

• To reduce my carbon footprint.

• To have an electricity generating system that will last for decades.

• To store free electricity in a home battery and/or to heat my water.

• To enhance the value of my house by making it cheaper to run.

• To go green!

For most people, deciding to get solar panels is partly a financial decision and partly an emotional one. Fortunately, well-priced solar PV systems should give you a solid return on your investment in any case, which means the warm, fuzzy, green feeling comes as a free bonus.

If you do have an electric vehicle, or if you get one in the future, you will notice your electricity bill goes up. Your ‘fuel’ costs are still much lower than they would be with a petrol or diesel car, but nonetheless your home electricity costs will be higher.

Solar panels are a way of getting the bills back down again. You produce your own solar electricity which can charge your car battery as well as other electric devices in the home, rather than importing the electricity from the grid.

If your electric car is normally away from your home during the day – for example if you drive it to work – then you might want to have battery storage installed alongside your solar PV system.

The battery will capture excess solar electricity generated during the day and then send it to your car’s battery when you plug in after work.

Some of the newer EVs have very big batteries. You won’t fill them entirely with a day’s solar electricity, but at least your driving carbon footprint will be lower.

For an overview of how all these renewable energy technologies fit together, we will provide more detail page.