Are you thinking about installing Solar PV panels at your home?
Producing your own electricity from solar is not any great only to the environment but
it can also save money to the long term thanks to the feed in tariff and it can protect you
from rising electricity bills.
But the decision to install solar PV panels on your home is a big one.
It can be nerve wracking when you've never seen how it's done.
So we filmed a solar panel installation to show you what happens and the answers to some
of those common questions.
But first, let's find out how the system works.
Solar photovoltaic panels generate electricity whenever it's light.
Light energy from the sun hits the photovoltaic cells on the solar panel and is transformed
into electricity.
Conducting wires carry the electrical current from the your panels to the in-verter and
then into your home.
When it's light and you turn your electrical appliances on they'll be powered by electricity
your generating.
Any excess electricity will be exported to the national grid.
If you turn your appliances on when your panels aren't producing electricity, you'll use electricity
from the grid as usual.
Before the installation process can again will have to arrange a survey with a reputable
solar panel installation company.
And the number of panels that you put on your roof depends on a number of factors: the size
of your roof, the direction which it faces, the amount of electricity that you wish to
generate and how much you wish to spend.
The installation will be done in stages.
The whole process can take as little as one day, depending on the size of the system.
We caught up with Solar Panel Installation company manager Guy Hewitt to see an installation
in process "The process is quite straightforward actually.
Before we get to the site we would have already surveyed it, so we'll have produced a detailed
plan of what we're going to do on the roof.
When we arrive if the scaffold tears up than the towers will be up.
"The next phase is to mark out and set out the array on the roof so then we'll be taking
the dimensions that we've got be lifting tiles, finding the rafters and setting out where
we actually are going to insert the roof hooks into the roof.
"The stage after that is, we start installing the roof hooks.
So we lift the tile up, we find the rafters, we then insert the roof hook into the rafter,
then the tile would sit back down and be weathered if necessary, and that goes all the way along
the roof to create, if you like, parallel lines of roof hooks.
After that the rails are bolted onto the roof hooks and when they're fully secured and in
position then the panels can be installed onto the rails.
"The vast majority of roofs in the United Kingdom are able to take solar panels.
They need of course to face the right way.
We wouldn't be installing solar panels on a north facing roof.
We're really looking for somewhere from east to west or south of that.
One of the concerns a lot of people have is that there's a possibility that installing
solar panels could actually damage your roof.
"That is not the case.
Provided the right roof bolt is used for the type of tile that's on the building, and the
roofers have done a professional job, then the roof will be weather proofed."
In the house, the direct current from the solar panels comes in through this cable and
it goes into an inverter box which converts the direct current to alternating current,
which is safer for your home.
And there are two isolator switches there's a direct current isolator switch and an alternating
current isolator switch as safety measures.
From here the power is passed around the house and here You have the generation meter which
indicates how much power your solar panels have created.
As long as there is enough light the panels start producing electricity immediately.
So if you're interested in installing solar PV at your home, go to our website, which.co.uk/solar
you can read our solar panel guide and see our checklist for things to watch our for
during your installation.