Solar Power

Free power all sound good. But when put into practice around the U.K. it not made out to be. Because we are far from the equator the average sunshine per day through the year is about 4.5 hour. If you had a 100w panel you would only have 450watts of electric in a day. Which is enough to run your lights in the evening. That if you use energy saving bulb. A energy saving bulb is about 10w an hour. A average house will have about 10light fitting. So that 100watts an hour. So you would have about 4 1/2 hours of free light. It all sound good so far. But when winter arrived you have longer night than day. This is where all the hic up start. OK light might not be good way.

Now look at the fridge. It run over time in the summer and the solar panel will be working over time. And in the winter the fridge hardly have to work or you solar panel. A average fridge consume about 400 Kilowatts a year. That about 1.2kw a day. So you would need at least at 280watt panel. That 1260watts a day.

All these figure are based on peak condition every day. If it a cloudy day you probably get less than 50% of the output and when it snow 0% as it will cover the solar panel.