Hi George,

Thanks for your question regarding residential solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. My answer is going to be somewhat generic, as I do not have the necessary details to answer your specific question. But hopefully this information will be useful to you.

I am not sure what you mean when you say that you do not like the way that solar panels look, and am not sure exactly what type of solar panels you are describing.

For most residential solar PV systems, the first thing to consider is how much energy from the sun you can expect to receive in your particular area of the country. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has done extensive research in this and has developed easy to read maps based on the type of PV system. In Georgia, it appears that the average annual amount of energy from the sun for a flat plate collector tilted at latitude is about 5 kWh/m^2/day. You can see the map here. http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/serve.cgi

I assume you will orient your home so that the majority of the roof and the solar PV panels face a southerly direction in order to collect as much energy from the sun as possible.

Most solar PV systems have an efficiency of roughly 10-20% according to the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development and PV systems. http://www.prometheus.org

Therefore, the theoretical amount of energy that can be produced in your area (assuming 10% efficiency) would be 5 kWh/m^2/day * 10%, or 500 watts/day per square meter of solar PV panel. Let’s say you have 1000 square feet of roof area to devote to a solar PV system. This is roughly about 92.9 square meters. That should produce approximately 46.5 kWh of energy per day on average.

I can’t really tell you what percentage of electricity that would be specifically for your home because I don’t have any of the details necessary to do any type of energy modeling. However, according to the Energy Information Administration (http://www.eia.doe.gov) on average a typical household in your area of the country used about 1225 kWh/month in 2005. Based on the calculation above using 1000 square feet of solar panels, your solar PV system would product 1395 kWh/month. So with that large of a system, you could actually sell energy back to the grid if possible in your area.

As you can see, there are many variables that will affect how much energy you can expect to produce from a rooftop solar PV system.

Hopefully this information will help! Good luck with your new sustainable home.

Best Regards,

Dave

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