Fill Out a Load Chart!

In order for solar system to work for you, you will have to have some idea of what you want to run. Without this basic requirement you are wasting everybodys time including your own. A general answer like "a household" or "everything" will not suffice. It will also annoy your solar dealer!

The first thing to learn is that without spending a fortune on a solar system is that you will probabaly need to economise a little on what you are already living with, assuming you are currently living in a house connected to the electrical grid.

Start out with your power bill

Assuming you are currently living with grid supplied electricity you will be getting a power bill every month or so. Look at your bill, determine how much power you are using. Work out where it is going. In Australia you will probabaly have 2 or 3 different tarriffs, one for household power, one for hot water and possibly another for off peak heating or electrical heating. Find out which is which and what is using what! You may need to contact your power supplier for hand here but what you need to finally arrive at is a daily average in killowatt hours (kWh). A kWh is 1000 watts for an hour or the equivilant of having a 1000 watt radiator turned on for one hour.

Eliminate everything you don't really need

With a solar system, usually the first things to eleiminate are heating or cooling devices. This means radiators, electric stoves, electric hot water systems and air conditioning. These are heavy power users and if at all possible you will consider gas or wood to meet these needs, or in the case of air conditioning you may consider insulation, evaporative cooling, shade and open windows.

Consider what you really need

Start looking at all your electrical appliances. Become an electrical sleuth! Every modern appliance and most older ones has some sort of placard on it stating the power required in watts or the current the item draws in amps. Remember current x appliance voltage gives you watts which is what we are going to work with.

Print out a load chart

Here is a link. This will open a seperate window or tab with a PDF file. You will need Adobe PDF reader to read the file.

"Click Here for a Load Chart" Opens in a new window ...

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