How Do Solar Panels Heat Your Home

Liquid active solar to use active solar heating to heat your house panels of tubes or pipes called a radiant slab system are installed in the floors or walls of your home.

How do solar panels heat your home.

Heating water or an antifreeze solution liquid based systems circulate the heated liquid through a heat exchanger connected to a storage tank. The second one goes from the tank to the air handling unit providing heating to the home. The first one goes from the solar collector to the tank heating the water in the tank. Unlike solar photovoltaic panels which use semiconductors to turn sunlight directly into electricity solar thermal collectors are relatively simple devices simple enough that it s possible to build your own with common materials.

It is this movement that produces an electric current. The idea is simple. When the liquid is. Solar thermal collectors directly turn the sun s energy into heat where it s collected and tranferred to a hot water tank in your home.

These dislodged electrons then zip around a circuit within the solar panel. In a nutshell solar panels take advantage of all the light energy the sun sends down to earth in the form of photons. Mainly you need to install a liquid to air heat exchanger or heating coil in the return duct before it reaches the furnace. Installing solar panels will block this sunlight from hitting your roof thereby preventing heat from entering your house.

These little photons knock electrons out of the atoms that make up a solar panel cell. When sunlight hits your house it warms your roof and pushes heat into your home. For active solar heating systems the thermal mass is usually an insulated water tank. Home solar panels are tested at 25 c 77 f and thus solar panel temperature will generally range between 15 c and 35 c during which solar cells will produce at maximum efficiency.

Air based systems heat air in a solar air collector. However solar panels can get as hot as 65 c 149 f at which point solar cell efficiency will be hindered. Two separate water loops are established.