7 Mistakes People Make When Using Solar PV Panels

A good video from LDS Reliance that highlights common mistakes people make when adopting solar power at home.

Having realistic expectations and understanding your load, are two of the points made, which we also stress here.

For that reason we have undertaken many tests to establish how much energy and power  various appliances actually consume, in normal operating conditions. We have also compiled an easy to use table of appliance power consumption ratings based on actual tests, to help you.

One of the key things you need to understand is how much energy you need per day.

Energy = power x time

One way of doing this is to compile a spreadsheet in which you list each appliance, with its power rating and then multiply that by the number of hours it runs for each day, to get it’s daily energy consumption. And then add those all together to get a basic daily energy consumption estimate.  You can also use the on-line calculators at OffGridDiy.

We have also conducted a survey of daily energy consumption for different households, which also can provide you with some idea of what other people consume per day.

Understanding your daily energy consumption behaviour is also the key to systematically reducing that consumption, which is another point made in this video.