Can a house be powered by solar?

Hi,

I live in a small bungalow, 72ms that has 7 radiators. Essentially an apartment sized house

I have whatever the ideal facing garden is, not sure direction.

if I was to get the roof fully covered in solar panels and battery storage would this be enough power to be basically self sufficient, i.e get rid of all the plumbing and replace all the rads with storage heaters?

Thanks

Dave

Beta Ray Bill

Mate of mine got system in and he's basically self sufficient now

So the battery charges from solar during the day and (Solar also runs the house) and excess he sells to the grid

At night the mains will top up the battery to full (if you want it to do that, you can configure on the app)

Note you need to change your plan with you electricity provider to low night rate/high day rate to make the most of this.

He's gotten heat pumps now and removed the Gas

Still has to pay standing charge, but he electricity bills have dropped to like €20 per month. Installation cost and parts were very expensive though

If you're young and plan to stay in that house, do it. If you older or and planning on moving don't.

graememk

Can a house be run by solar, including heating, via resistive heating.

Short answer is no.

Resistive heating is very expensive and unless you have a huge array 1 storage heater would suck up most of your winters solar output. (Unfortunately it's dark and days are short when you want to have heat!)

But you may be able to be cost "neutral" export as much as you can during the summer and have that offset the cost of your oil/gas/solid fuel for the winter.

zell12

I have whatever the ideal facing garden is, not sure direction

You don't know??

slave1

The answer is no as you need most power in Ireland in the Winter months when solar is irrelevant in terms of production, I will do more in a single day in May or June than December and January combined. What good is 1.3kWh of daily solar in January to heat your water and house and run all appliances?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122473196#Comment_122473196

No

...Ghost...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122474057#Comment_122474057

open up google maps. Look at the directions your roofs face. Down is south. Up in north. Left is west. Right is east.

South gets the best solar. North panels are about half as efficient but make the solar generation day longer. East and west much the same with less gains/losses respectively.

but no, you can’t realistically rely on solar solely. The battery on cheap rate will offset daily expensive rate from the grid.

slave1

or install a free compass app on your phone