If you you are looking at powering your house by solar, do as others have said and check your electricity bill.
The next most important thing to do is look at ways of seriously reducing your power usage (low energy bulbs, turning off lights and other appliances that are not needed). Those that live off grid using solar tend to be economical with power while still leading a normal life.
Solar is still an expensive way to provide your electrical power and is unlikely to be economic unless it would cost a lot to have electricity laid onto your property or your government/state gives financial help.
To try to answer your question more directly, here in southern Spain, with plenty of sunshine, a system with panels rated at 600 - 800 watts should do the job but there are many variables to consider.
The link below gives a lot of information on how it works and what is required.
To do what? Heat the water? Light a room? Run an electric range? Charge your car battery? Please be more specific.
You might start by actually reading your electric bill-they charged you for how many kilowatts?
Then go online and check prices on PV panels or panel kits. Look at their power output numbers then figure how many you will need (in series) to power your whatever.
But of course that’s only in the daytime when you probably aren’t there (have a job?) Some local power companies have green buy-back or credits if you’re putting more power into the grid than you use… You’ll need some sort of storage system to power your evening activities. You can find everything online if you look.
If you want solar electricity, you need to look at your electric bill and see how much you are currently buying from the electric company. That is listed in kilowatt hours, or kwh.
To size a grid-tied system, or a system that is still connected to the electric company, the most common type, you decide either what percentage of your power you want to make yourself, or how much money you want to spend. You can go to a grid-tied calculator like this one to figure that out. http://www.altestore.com/store/calculators/on_grid_calculator/. The nice thing about grid-tied systems is that you don’t need batteries to store the power. If you make more than you use during the day, the electric company buys it back from you. Then at night, you just buy electricity from the electric company, same as you do now. It’s all automatic, your bill with show you a credit for how much they bought, you pay them less.
For a great bang for the buck, you should look into solar water heating. It can provide up to 75% of you hot water needs in most areas. Water heating can be up to 30% of your energy bill. Cutting down on that will go a long way towards reducing your bills.
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If you you are looking at powering your house by solar, do as others have said and check your electricity bill.
The next most important thing to do is look at ways of seriously reducing your power usage (low energy bulbs, turning off lights and other appliances that are not needed). Those that live off grid using solar tend to be economical with power while still leading a normal life.
Solar is still an expensive way to provide your electrical power and is unlikely to be economic unless it would cost a lot to have electricity laid onto your property or your government/state gives financial help.
To try to answer your question more directly, here in southern Spain, with plenty of sunshine, a system with panels rated at 600 - 800 watts should do the job but there are many variables to consider.
The link below gives a lot of information on how it works and what is required.
To do what? Heat the water? Light a room? Run an electric range? Charge your car battery? Please be more specific.
You might start by actually reading your electric bill-they charged you for how many kilowatts?
Then go online and check prices on PV panels or panel kits. Look at their power output numbers then figure how many you will need (in series) to power your whatever.
But of course that’s only in the daytime when you probably aren’t there (have a job?) Some local power companies have green buy-back or credits if you’re putting more power into the grid than you use… You’ll need some sort of storage system to power your evening activities. You can find everything online if you look.
If you want solar electricity, you need to look at your electric bill and see how much you are currently buying from the electric company. That is listed in kilowatt hours, or kwh.
To size a grid-tied system, or a system that is still connected to the electric company, the most common type, you decide either what percentage of your power you want to make yourself, or how much money you want to spend. You can go to a grid-tied calculator like this one to figure that out. http://www.altestore.com/store/calculators/on_grid_calculator/. The nice thing about grid-tied systems is that you don’t need batteries to store the power. If you make more than you use during the day, the electric company buys it back from you. Then at night, you just buy electricity from the electric company, same as you do now. It’s all automatic, your bill with show you a credit for how much they bought, you pay them less.
For a great bang for the buck, you should look into solar water heating. It can provide up to 75% of you hot water needs in most areas. Water heating can be up to 30% of your energy bill. Cutting down on that will go a long way towards reducing your bills.
The best thing you can do is to learn a bit more about solar options. You can see a free video here, http://www.altestore.com/store/Books-Classes-Educational-Videos/Educational-Videos/c1138/.