Solar Electric Panels for Your Home

What Is a Solar Inverter? 

At the beginning of the solar industry, there were central solar inverters, and since their introduction, they have pretty much dominated the industry. However, the introduction of power optimizers and microinverters created an enormous technology shift within the solar industry. Power optimizers and microinverters optimize production for each solar electric panel while central inverters optimize for the entire system. By optimizing for every panel, every panel performs at its maximum potential. In the long, run, this “smart” technology makes your entire solar array system more efficient.

How Do Solar Panels Work on Your Home?

That’s a lot of technical information about how solar panels work, so let’s look at how a solar panel array would work on your home. First, sunlight in the form of photons hit the solar panels on your roof or ground mount. The panels convert the energy from freed electrons to DC current, which then flows to an inverter and is converted from DC electricity to AC electricity. This electricity is then used to power you're home. It’s simple and clean, and it's becoming more efficient and affordable.

What Happens to Excess Energy?

A typical solar panel installation connected to the power grid produces more energy that you can use during peak sunlight hours. That excess energy goes back into the grid and can be used by you or someone else. You get a credit for the surplus energy your system produces. When needed, you can draw on that credit to get power from the grid during the night. A two-way meter keeps track of the energy sent to the grid alongside the energy received from it.

Homes that are connected to the electrical grid have a utility meter that measures what proportion electricity you employ. If you've got net metering, when your solar energy system is overproducing, you send the surplus power to the grid in exchange for credits on your bill. Then, during hours of low production, such as the nighttime, you use your credits to meet your home’s energy needs. Net metering gives you a way to store your energy and use it when you need it. This significantly improves the economics of solar power.