Why Kilowatt Hours are Vital
Many home equipment record their wattage use as do photo voltaic panels. A single 250-watt photo voltaic panel will generate about 250 watts per hour with peak daylight. Nevertheless, most utility payments measure your private home’s energy utilization in kilowatt hours. Kilowatt hours are vital as a result of they let you evaluate your equipment utilization, your photo voltaic panel technology, and the way all these elements work collectively compared to your utility invoice.
The fundamental equation to seek out your kWh from wattage—whether or not for technology or utilization—is to multiply your equipment’s wattage by the variety of hours you utilize it after which divide the overall by 1,000.
Wattage X Time = kWh1,000
For instance, in case your photo voltaic system consists of 5 250-watt photo voltaic panels, you generate about 1250 watts per hour—or 1.25 kWh in an hour. If the panels generate this for 4 hours of peak sunshine in a day, your photo voltaic system generates 5 kWh throughout this time (nevertheless, a small portion of this power could also be misplaced to photo voltaic clipping).
By the identical token, your fridge would possibly use a median of about 200 watts per hour. Working all day, your fridge will use about 4,800 watts in a day—or 4.8 kWh of power in 24 hours. With the suitable rooftop configuration of photo voltaic panels, you possibly can generate greater than sufficient to energy most, if not all, of your private home’s power wants.
Keep in mind the terminology can get just a little complicated. Watts per hour, watt hours, and kilowatt hours all have sure meanings, relying on the context. Should you need assistance determining your private home’s common utilization and the variety of photo voltaic panels required to satisfy it, our specialists at Blue Raven Photo voltaic present a free financial savings estimate that will help you perceive these numbers.