What Is Residential Solar?
You may be hearing a lot of talk about residential solar energy lately. But what does it even mean? Well, residential solar is a way to generate electricity for a single home right at its site by using photovoltaic solar panels. Photo–what? Without getting too complex, let's look at how a solar panel works.
Think back to fifth grade science when you learned about photosynthesis: the process plants use to turn the sun's light into usable energy. A solar panel does the same thing. It turns the light from the sun into usable energy in the form of electricity. In fact, when light hits a solar cell, it can generate electricity to power anything from a calculator to an entire city.
Invisible to the human eye, the whole process is actually quite simple. When the protons in the light hit the solar cells, the unstable electrons move; this movement generates electricity. Of course, this can make it difficult to know if a particular solar panel is working or not.
Solar Technology
A solar panel is a really simple machine made up of three parts: silicon wafers, glass and aluminum. While many may think solar technology is super high-tech and difficult, the technology behind it is actually more closely related to that of a pane glass window versus something more complicated, like a cell phone. Earlier forms of “solar technology” included concentrating the sun’s heat with glass and mirrors to light fires, or to “look at ants.”
And solar technology really hasn’t changed much in the last 25 years.
Solar entered the market as a viable means of producing electricity for homes, businesses, schools, factories and distribution on the national electric grid in the early 1980s. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, solar cell sales exceeded $250,000,000 in 1983.
Homeowners often wonder if this technology is going to become obsolete because, of course, there have been plenty of technologies that have come and gone with the introduction of more advanced innovations. For example, VHS to DVD to Netflix and...digital storage. Solar hasn’t changed that much; rather, small improvements have been made over time making it easier to produce more electricity per square foot. In other words, it’s only getting better.
Advancements in solar technology are great, but there isn’t a huge need for great big jumps and leaps to progress; miniaturization [of the solar panels] is not possible as solar needs light per square feet to produce electricity. Remember, the other crucial part when discussing the advancement of a technology is the need for it.
Cell phones have needed to get faster and more efficient because each software advance has demanded faster processing times and a longer battery life. With solar, the space needed to generate electricity is fixed; and for most residential single-family homes, the roof is plenty big enough to produce the amount of electricity for not only their home but a neighbor's home as well.
What Are the Parts of a Residential Solar System?
Fundamental Parts All Solar Systems Have
Unlike our solar system where planets can come and go (looking at you, Pluto), these parts are here to stay:
Wiring
Inverter
Racking
Conduit
Net Meter
Grounding
Solar Panel
Junction Box
Monitoring Unit
Roof Attachments
Back Feed Breaker
Emergency Shut Off Switch
Additional Parts a Solar System May Have
Charge Controller
Solar Optimizers
Combiner Box
Solar Meter
Batteries
Don’t get bogged down in the parts though - if you have questions or concerns about residential solar, reach out to the Spark team. We’d love to be a part of your journey in joining more than two million other solar households in the nation.
