Did you know?

Devon can expect well over 1500 hours of sunshine annually and, whilst May is usually the sunniest month, May to July average around 7 hours of sunshine a day.

Types of Solar panel

More and more people are looking to save money and live in a more environmentaly friendly way. Solar panels are the logical next step once your house is well insulated and you have efficient heating systems.

There is however a good deal of confusion about the different types of solar panel. There are two types of panel in common use:

Solar Photovoltaic (PV) panels
Solar Thermal panels (also known as Flat plate panels)

Solar Photovoltaic panels

Solar PV panels are silicon based panels that generate electricity from sunlight. In modern solar PV systems when more electricity is generated than is used, the excess is fed back into the national grid and you recieve an income as a result. See Feed in Tarrif

House with solar photovoltaic panels

Solar Thermal panels (Flat plate panels)

Solar Thermal or Flat-Plate solar collectors are used to directly heat water which is then stored in a tank and which can then either provide hot water directly or can reduce costs assiociated with heating water.

House with solar thermal panels to heat water