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Articles Informational Topics Solar Panel

What To Do With Excess Solar Power- A Detailed Guide

Solar power generation is an overwhelmingly dynamic technique for fulfilling the high power requirement of the world.

The installed solar panels convert the interminable sun energy into electrical energy to run the power requirements of the house and still produce more solar power.

These solar panels, also known as photovoltaic panels, have varying amounts of electricity over the daytime, according to the exposure to the sun’s rays.

what to do with excess solar power

The question is, “What to do with excess solar power?”

There are times during the day when solar electricity production is at its peak, and solar energy production is at its least.

The problem with photovoltaic panels is producing excess solar energy and what to do with excess solar energy.

Some ways through which extra solar energy can be consumed and utilized by people.

What To Do With Excess Solar Power?

Photovoltaic panels give the highest electricity production at the time of total exposure to the sun; now, what to do with excess solar power?

The peak production capacity is directly proportional to the amount of sunlight exposed to the photovoltaic panels.

Hence, it’s pretty evident that there will also be low production hours.

This excess amount of solar power can be utilized in four different ways, depending on your utility and convenience.

Connect To The Grid:

What to do with excess solar power?

The first and foremost advised way to use the excess solar power is by having a photovoltaic system directly connected to the grid with a meter, commonly known as the twin kWh meter.

The extra energy produced by the solar panels is directly sent to the grid, where it is either stored or supplied to other consumption areas.

This simple way of using excess production is known as Net Metering.

Go For Net Metering:

Net metering is an intelligent solution for handling the issue of excess solar power produced by solar panels.

This system connects the photovoltaic plates installed at your house or business to the grid through a twin meter, which records the current flow to and from the grid.

If your PV system produces more power than required, the extra power will be sent to the grid through the meter, and the amount will be recorded to add to your credits.

Later, when your power production lowers, and the PV system does not sustain the load of consumption, the needed power can be taken from the grid, this amount of consumption is also recorded, and the electricity bills are produced according to the amount of power injected into the grid and taken away from it.

The twin meter works both ways, calculating the electricity injected into the grid and the amount drawn from the grid.

This bidirectional meter keeps track of the power extracted and delivered to the grid, and the credits are managed according to your local electricity rules and regulations.

Select Solar Batteries For Excess Solar Power:

While the sun is at its peak, irradiating its light everywhere, the photovoltaic plates are at the highest efficiency point, producing more power than the utilization at that time.

So what to do with this excess solar power?

The peak hours are usually the afternoons when most people are at work, and the power consumption in residential areas decimates remarkably.

There is another intelligent way to store it for later use.

This extra energy can be transferred into batteries, stored, and used later when production declines.

There are different types of batteries provided for storage:

  • Lead-acid Solar Battery
  • Lithium-ion Batteries
  • Saltwater Batteries

The best battery is to be chosen for the storage of PV power; these batteries have a high capability of storing gigantic amounts of energy with a remarkable depth of discharge.

These batteries are to be selected according to their capacity, warranty, and trip efficiency, but they come at a high cost.

This is quite a lucrative option, but the impediments hampering the installment of these storage batteries are even colossal.

The main issue is the hefty amount of budget required for the storage process and batteries that are not easily affordable.

That’s why it is not that commonly used to store excess power.

Load Shifting Toward High PV Production Hours:

Another smart way is the most recommended and followed everywhere as it only requires innovative thinking and management without spending big money installing a new system.

This is known as load shifting, meaning to arrange your power consumption at your place so that it falls just within the peak hours of power production.

Load shifting will utilize the excess power at the right time when it is being produced, meaning activities like charging an electric vehicle, water heating, ironing, HVAC, and other high-electricity demanding activities should be performed during these hours.

It will certainly utilize the extra solar power while also fulfilling your requirements.

Later in the hours when the production of solar energy is lesser, these high-power demanding activities should be curtailed to facilitate an even power supply to the home and work.

Limit The Production Of Solar Power:

There is a fourth way of solving the issue of excess solar energy, and that is by limiting power production.

It is a simple solution that can be achieved by controlling the photovoltaic inverters to make them reduce the production rate of DC voltage in the solar panels.

To achieve this goal, you will need a control system that will estimate the power produced by the photovoltaic plates and maintain it at a set point, terminating the production of excess solar power.

Conclusion:

Do high-tech solar power solutions accompany their dilemmas like what to do with excess solar power? The article discusses in detail some simple solutions available to solve the problem, like going for Net-Metering by connecting to the grid, load-shifting, power-limitation, and the most effective and expensive one is storing it on batteries. All these options have pros and cons, which are discussed at length and can be incorporated according to your needs.

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About the author

Anthony Miller

Hello Guys! I am Anthony Miller, a high dynamo, communicative author, and editor of the Renewable Cop, always providing amazing, engaging, informative, unique, highly researched, and verified content based on all sorts of generators. Read more.

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