How powerful is solar energy?

The benefits of solar energy are well known at this point. It’s great for the environment, saves you money on your electric bills, and gets power from the best renewable resource around. The sun will not stop producing during our lifetime!

Still, while being able to say your house, phone, or car is solar powered is great to say, how powerful is solar power? Is it really up to the benefits that electricity can provide?

Well, it’s a bit more difficult to compare solar energy with electrical energy because solar energy is electrical energy. All solar panels simply take energy from the sun and convert it into electricity that your home and devices can use. But solar panels have a measurement called ‘solar panel efficiency’ which basically shows how effective the panels are at converting energy.

It is the effectiveness of the solar cells that are integrated into the solar panels on Mornington Peninsula homes and businesses that determines how efficient they are when it comes to power conversion. A panel with a higher efficiency rating will be able to collect and convert more energy than a panel with a lower rating.

There is an equation to determine how much energy is converted to usable power. First, you need to know where you live, the size of your roof, and the panels you will be putting on it. Then multiply the watts the panel produces by the amount of direct sunlight your roof receives. Once you have that, you’ll see how many kilowatts of power the panels produce in a day.

You can compare that to your electricity bill and find out how solar panels can help you with your overall electricity costs. If you know how many watts of power your devices use, you can calculate which devices can run entirely on the sun and how much money you can save.

Well, if you produce more power from your solar panels on the Mornington Peninsula than you need, you can divert the excess power to batteries or stay connected to the grid. Most of the excess power will simply go back into the grid to be used by others, and if you need that extra power, you can extract it yourself.

To answer the question of solar energy vs. electrical energy, it is important to know that they are the same. But installing solar panels can be an inexpensive endeavor and cut out the middle man. Plus, once you figure out how much electricity you use in a month and how much electricity solar panels would produce for you, you’ll have a good idea of ​​what the sun can do for you.

So you may need to use a calculator and do a bit of math, but the answer might turn it into solar power. So you’ll save some money, take advantage of a renewable resource, and feel better about powering up your devices throughout the day.