Solar Power for Your Home or Business
A grid connected solar system generates through the day, feeds whatever the building is using at the time, and exports the rest. The more of your own generation you use on site the better the return, which is why the shape of your daily consumption matters as much as the size of the array.
We look at how you actually use power before recommending a system size, rather than fitting the biggest array the roof will hold.
Talk to us about solar for your Northland property
Roof, Orientation and Shading
A north facing roof at a reasonable pitch is ideal, but east and west facing arrays work perfectly well and can suit a household that uses power in the morning and the evening rather than at midday.
Shading is the thing that quietly ruins performance. A single chimney, tree or aerial shading part of a string at the wrong time of day costs far more output than most people expect, so we assess it on the roof rather than from an aerial photo.
Solar Hot Water
Water heating is one of the largest slices of a household power bill. Solar hot water uses roof collectors to heat the cylinder directly, with an electric element as backup for the days it does not get there on its own.
Where a hot water heat pump would suit you better than solar collectors, we will say so. The two solve the same problem in different ways and the right answer depends on your roof, your household and how you use hot water.
Batteries and Using More of What You Generate
Without storage, the power you generate at midday and do not use gets exported for considerably less than you pay to buy it back that evening. A battery keeps that generation on site for when you actually need it.
Batteries add real cost, so they are worth doing when the numbers stack up for your household and not before. We will be straight with you about that. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority publishes independent guidance worth reading alongside any quote you get.
Installed by Registered Electricians
Solar is electrical work. Panels, inverter, isolators, switchboard changes and the connection application to your lines company all have to be carried out and certified by somebody qualified to do it.
Our installers are registered electricians, so the same team that mounts the array does the switchboard work and issues the certification. Nothing gets handed off half way through the job.
Solar Power and Hot Water Questions
What Northland homeowners and business owners ask us about going solar.
Very well. Northland has among the highest annual sunshine hours in the country along with mild winters, so an array up here generates more per installed kilowatt than the same array further south.
Panels are typically warranted for performance over 25 years and keep generating beyond that at a slowly reducing output. The inverter is the component most likely to need replacing first, usually somewhere between ten and fifteen years in.
Rarely all of it, unless the system is very large and your use is mostly during daylight. A well sized system covers a substantial share of daytime use and reduces the bill accordingly. Anyone promising to wipe it out entirely is selling rather than advising.
A lot of Northland is coastal and salt does attack mounting hardware and frames. We specify materials to suit the location rather than using the same hardware everywhere, because corroded mounting rails on a roof are an expensive problem to put right later.
Yes, and the two pair well - running the heat pump during daylight uses your own generation instead of exporting it cheaply. Since we install both, we can look at the whole picture rather than just the array.
Why Choose JP Air Con for Solar?
Electricians who also do your heating, looking at the whole property rather than one product.
