If you are thinking of slashing your home electricity consumption, the best option is to examine your living style and your energy usage habits before you actually think of installing solar electrical system in your home. You will be amazed to know that the amount saved on power bills would be huge if you simply adopt eco-friendly power usage habits.

Obviously, you will have to make some changes in your household so that your dependency on grid power and fossil fuels gets reduced. It is a known fact that solar power is clean energy and is gaining much popularity. Before you invest on a home Photovoltaic (PV) system, it is important to calculate your home power needs as it will determine if you should require a small, medium or large solar installation.

If you don’t feel that you have the necessary skills, by all means, seek professional help in getting the solar power system installed. However, if you are confident on your own skill to handle the job, the following are the 6components needed for the PV system.

1) Mounting.

Photovoltaic solar panel mounting is a very important part of the entire system. This is because the panels have to be mounted on a safe and secure manner as you will have to protect your investment from damage cause by strong wind.

To get the maximum benefit of using solar, you need to install the PV modules properly so that the panels are in the right direction and are facing the path of the sun for optimum exposure.

It is very important to finalize the location for installation of the solar panels on your property e.g. roof of your house, wall, on the ground or even on a pole as it will determine the accessibility for servicing.

2) Wiring and collector boxes.

The complexity of this component depends upon the number of solar panels. If you are using multiple panels system, you will have to connect all the panels in a safe and secure manner and then all the wiring connection will be linked to the multi-contact connection or the collector box.

Here’s a tip, be sure to use high quality wiring which is of correct type and size otherwise your solar system may lose power in the wiring before it even reaches your battery storage system which can significantly reduce power supply.

3) Collector and fuses.

When all of the PV panels are wired to the collector box, from there the wires are to be connected to the charge controller. Along the way, the wires will pass through switches and fuses.

Switches and fuses are used for safety purposes. They are generally circuit breakers in case there is a malfunction in the system. Fuse protection is used to prevent over heating of the cables in case of overloading. Power overload on cables is dangerous because it can cause fire on your property.

4) Charge controller.

The next component on your residential solar system is to enable you to control the power output for the PV modules and then directs it to a battery storage unit. This is where the electrical charge controller comes into play.

The complexity of the charge controller unit will depend on the amount of money you are willing to spend. An expensive controller will give you multiple options of settings and configuration in order to extract power from the panels to charge a series of deep cycle batteries.

5) Deep cycle batteries.

The function of the deep cycle batteries is generally to hold the charge from the solar panel and release them when you needed it. The size of your battery storage will depend on the amount of power you’ll need for your household. Now you know why you need to calculate the amount of power needed by your household before you install the PV system.

6) Power inverter.

The final component of your solar system would be the power inverter. The inverter is to convert Direct Current (DC) output from the battery storage to Alternating Current (AC) power. Almost all of your home electrical devices run on AC. The size of the inverter has to match the amounts of power or watts used by your home at a given time.

There you have it, 6 general components of a home solar power system. The components above are not really difficult to find. The challenge is to make the calculation and then purchase the right component unit to meet your needs. If you don’t think this is something you can do, by all means, employ the service of a profession solar contractor.