Here are a few basic questions that will help you decide what you need.
- Firstly, you need to determine how many kilowatt (kW) hours you want to produce per month. You can get a good idea this by looking at your electric bill at the graph that shows your usage, that should show how many kW hours you use per month.
- Next, do you want a roof mounted system or a ground mounted system? A ground mounted system is generally more expensive, and the price changes increases as you get farther away from your electric meter.
- If you want a roof mounted system you should have an idea of how many usable square feet of roof you have, google earth is a great tool to estimate roof square footage without actually going on the roof and measuring.
- Lastly, do you want a battery backup, and if so, how much stored energy do you want to have?
If you find the answers to these questions you are one step closer to a solar energy system!