FAQ’s On Solar

There are 5 types of solar panels namely Monocrystalline solar panels, Polycrystalline solar panels, Flexible solar panels, Bifacial solar panels, Building Integrated Photo Voltaics (BIPV). Know more on types of solar panels.

Monocrystalline solar panels are made single silicon crystal whereas polycrystalline solar panels are made up of several silicon crystals which are melted together. Due to this monocrystalline solar panels have more efficiency than polycrystalline solar panels.

Flexible solar panels as the name suggest are flexible in nature. They can be bend at 30 degrees and are generally used for small off grid applications like back pack, RV’s, camping tent, etc. Know more about flexible solar panels,

Bifacial solar panels are solar panels which generate electricity from both sides of the cell. The light reflecting from the ground hits the back of solar panels and generate electricity. Know more about bifacial solar panels.

To calculate number of solar panels needed to power your house, first calculate the your house average monthly power consumption then divide it by monthly solar power generation of 1 kW system. This will give you the number of kilowatt of solar you house needs. Divide this kW by the wattage of a single solar panel to calculate total number of solar panels needed to power your house. Read detailed article over here.

Considering cleaning and maintenance space, 1 kW of solar panels need 100 sq.ft of shadow free area. If your roof is of 200 sq.ft then you can comfortably install 2 kW solar system. As a rule of thumb 100 sqft shadow free area is needed to install 1 kW solar panels. Read detailed article over here.

As we say above the warranty of solar panel is 25 years hence in ideal case you want your roof on which they are going to be install also last minimum 25 years. Unfortunately after 15 – 20 years most  asbestos roof begins to crumble. Hence it is not recommended to install solar panels on asbestos roof. Read more on this over here.

Yes you can install solar panels on metal roof. The direction of slope and pitch plays an important role in solar panels generation.

Yes you can install solar panels on an RCC roof. In fact RCC roof is the best type of roof to install solar panels as you can change the angle of inclination and height of installation as per you need.

The average size of a 72 cell, 120 cell, 144 cell solar panel is 2 m X 1 m or 6.6 ft X 3.30  ft. 60 cell solar panel have slightly small size. To know more on size of solar panels read this article.

The average weight of a solar panel is between 20 kg – 28 kg. Read this article to know more.

Solar cells convert sunlight incident on it to electricity. At night as there is no sunlight, hence solar panels does not any generate electricity at night.

Yes, solar panels do work in cloudy or rainy conditions, but their performance is down. On an average during rain solar panels operate between 30 % – 50 % efficiency.

Yes, solar panels do work in cloudy or rainy conditions, but their performance is down. On an average during rain solar panels operate between 30 % – 50 % efficiency.

Almost all solar panels offer 10 years manufacturing warranty and 25 years performance warranty. Performance warranty means even after 25 years your solar panels will generate 80 % of what it was generating in the first year of installation. Check out this article to know more warranty of solar panels.

Almost all solar panels offer 10 years manufacturing warranty and 25 years performance warranty. But in reality they last even more than 30 years.

There are mainly three types of solar system widely used for residential and industrial application, they are Solar on grid system (grid tied solar system), Solar off grid system and Solar hybrid system.

Solar net metering is a type of billing mechanism which allows grid tied solar system owners to export extra electricity their solar is producing during the day to the utility grid and import electricity from the grid when their solar is not producing electricity (at night). Read more on solar net metering.

Solar off grid system as the name suggest is an off grid solar system in which electricity generated form the solar panels is stored in the batteries and used from there. This is a stand alone system with no connections to the grid hence even if the grid is down your solar will still be working provided your batteries are full. 

A grid tied solar system / solar on grid system will not work in power outage. The moment your electricity is cut off your solar system will shutdown, but a solar off grid system works in power outage as it is a battery based system which has few hours of backup.

Solar panels are connected in strings to increase the overall current. If any one of the solar panel in the string get shadow the voltage of the entire string is reduced to it’s voltage hence, power generated is less.

If you have installed a solar off grid system then you won’t get any electricity bill as your are not connected to the utility grid. However for an on grid solar system you will get an electricity bill which will be equal to the difference between units imported and units exported.

If you are exporting more units than you are importing then you won’t get any electricity bill and the surplus unit of electricity will be stored with the utility company which you can use next month. But if you import more units than you have exported then you get electricity bill for the surplus units you have exported. 

Dust, dirt and shaodow are three main factors which reduce the generation of solar panels. Properly designed system should get no shadow whatsoever but it will get dust. Hence, depending on the dust you will have to clean your solar panels once or twice every month.

Other than cleaning of solar panels there is no other maintenance for smaller residential systems.

Today most solar inverter have screen which show live generation also there are monitoring systems which can connect your solar system to your smartphone. Hence you can see in real time how much units your solar panels is generating.

No, there won’t be any difference in the way your appliance work after installing solar, as solar on grid system is a grid connected system.

I live in India, here on an average it takes 3 – 7 days for material procurement , 5 – 10 days for physical installation and another 10 days for grid connectivity (commissioning). Hence you can assume 1 month of installation time for solar on grid system.

No, most solar system shuts down in power outage hence your battery won’t be charged in a power outage. But you can use the electricity stored in your battery to run your appliances during the outage.

Yes and No. Most household requires 15 kWh of electricity in a day. An average solar battery stores 1.5 – 2 units after considering 50 % discharge. Hence you will need close to 10 batteries for one day need. Another factor is the size of inverter, If your solar inverter is of 2 kW then at a time you can only power appliances upto 2 kW. Meaning if you are having your 1 kW water heater and 1 kW AC ON then you won’t be able to run any other appliance even if there is ample electricity stored in the battery.