Which type of residential solar system fits your house

What are the three main types of residential solar system?

1. Grid-tied. Panels and inverter connect to the utility. You use solar power first, export surplus where allowed, and buy from the grid at night. This is the most common and the least costly type, but it shuts down during an outage.
2. Grid-tied with battery. Adds storage so that the house can run selected loads in an outage, shift solar power into the evening, or respond to time-of-use rates. It costs more and adds equipment to maintain.
3. Off-grid. No utility connection. The system needs enough panels, batteries and often a generator to cover every season, and it is usually sized for remote homes and cabins.

The trade-offs are covered in grid-tied versus off-grid solar, solar battery storage in Canada and off-grid solar in Canada.

Should the panels go on the roof or the ground?

Roof mounting is the usual choice. It costs less, uses space that is otherwise idle and keeps the array out of the way, but it depends on the roof's age, shape, strength and shading. Ground mounting suits properties with open land and a poor roof, and allows ideal tilt and easier snow clearing, but needs footings, trenching and more hardware, and may face zoning limits.

Tilt and compass direction matter more than they first seem, and the best solar panel direction explains the trade-offs. In snowy regions, see solar panels and snow removal and solar panels in winter.

Which inverter design suits your roof?

• String inverter. One central unit for a series of panels. It is simple and usually lowest in cost, but shade on one panel can reduce the whole string.
• Microinverters. One small inverter behind each panel. They handle shade and complex roofs better and give panel-level data, at a higher equipment cost.
• Power optimizers. A device at each panel that conditions output before it reaches a central inverter, a middle path.

Most residential panels installed today use monocrystalline silicon cells. See solar inverter types explained for how to choose. Panel cell type is a smaller choice for most buyers, since most modern residential panels use similar silicon technology, and warranty and quality matter more; solar panel warranties explained covers it.

What about solar systems that make heat, not electricity?

Some residential solar systems collect heat instead of power. Solar hot water collectors serve a hot-water tank, solar air heaters warm a room or workshop, and pool collectors warm a pool. They are simpler and often make better use of sunlight for those jobs. Read solar thermal versus solar PV, how solar water heaters work and solar air heating in Canada.

The Drake Landing Solar Community in Okotoks, Alberta, took thermal collection to a community scale: 800 flat-plate collectors on garage roofs fed a district loop and a borehole store serving 52 homes. See how the collectors worked.

How do you pick the right system type?

Start with the goal. If it is lower electricity bills with grid access, a grid-tied system is usually the straightforward choice. If you want backup for essential loads, price a battery as a separate line. If you have no grid, you need an off-grid design with a professional load analysis. Then check roof, shading and utility rules. The checklist in solar panels for home: a buyer's checklist carries you through the rest, and are solar panels worth it in Canada tests the finances. Installed cost, net metering credits and any rebate program vary by year and province, in Ontario, Alberta and elsewhere, so get quotes and check current terms with your utility.

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