Find a Solar Panel Installer you can trust in Ayr.

Solar thermal panels are panels that can be used to heat your hot water. The collectors, which are either evacuated tube panels or flat plate collectors, harness heat from the sun and transfer it to a heat transfer liquid that heats up water that is stored in a hot water cylinder. You can use a boiler or immersion heater as a back-up in the winter or to heat the water up further to reach the right temperature.

Evacuated tube panels involve a bank of glass tubes mounted on the roof tiles, and while they’re usually more expensive, they’re more efficient than flat plate collectors. They’re exactly what they sound like – flat panels that can be fixed onto your roof tiles or integrated into the roof.

Having a solar thermal system will reduce your energy bills since heat from the sun is free, so you won’t have to rely on your traditional heating as much. You’ll also be doing your bit for the environment – if you have a natural gas heating system, you could save up to 295kg of CO2 every year.

Another benefit to solar thermal panels is that you might be eligible for payments through the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), which is a Government scheme to encourage people to take up renewable heating technologies. As long as you have your system installed by an MCS-registered installer and you meet a few other requirements, you could receive payments of up to £525 per year for seven years. And since the average solar thermal panel system costs £5,500, you could pay off over half of your system just with these payments. That’s not even considering that you could save up to £60 a year on your energy bills if you have a gas system.

How much energy a solar panel produces depends on its manufacturer and exposure to the sun. A good-quality solar panel typically has a power output of about 300 watts per hour, but this can vary from about 240 to 360 watts. How much energy your solar panel will produce per day depends on how many hours of unshaded daylight it’s exposed to.

Here’s an idea of how much energy you could expect a large commercial solar panel installation to produce in a year.

Solar panel system size, No. of solar panels, Annual electricity output

11kW, 44, 9,350kW

20kW, 80, 17,000kW

30kW, 120, 25,500kW

40kW, 160, 34,000kW

50kW, 200, 42,500kW

It’s important to get the right size solar panel system for your commercial property. Solar panels are usually installed on pitched roofs, although they can be fitted on stands on the ground if you have some unused outdoor space. The more panels you install, the more power you’ll generate, but there’s no point buying more panels than you have space for.

Solar panel system sizes are measured in kW. 4-10kW solar panel systems are usually too big for domestic properties but are ideal for smaller commercial properties. Here’s an idea of how many panels and space you’ll need for a few different system sizes:

System size, Number of panels, Area required (approximate)

4kW, 16, 23m²

6kW, 24, 35m²

8kW, 32, 46m²

10kw, 40, 58m²

Bear in mind that solar panels can’t be less than 30cm away from a roof edge, so you’ll need more space than the area that the panels take up.

No – solar thermal doesn’t generate electricity. Unlike solar PV, solar thermal panels harness the sun’s energy and convert it into heat which is then transferred into your home.

You can have evacuated tube solar thermal panels or flat plate collectors; evacuated tubes are thought to be more efficient that flat plate collectors. They both work by using the sun’s rays to heat a transfer fluid, usually made from water and a type of antifreeze, which is pumped to a heat exchanger inside a water tank in your home. The heat from the exchanger heats the water inside your tank, then when the liquid releases its heat it’s transferred back to the collectors to start the whole process again.

You’ll need to use your solar thermal panel system with a boiler, collector or immersion heater. This is so that the water can be stored and used for your hot water and heating, and also because in the UK, people generally need to rely on another source of heating in the winter. There are fewer sunlight hours in the winter months, so it’s not often possible for solar thermal panels to generate enough heat from the sun to get your water up to temperature.

Whatever the time of year it is, you might want to heat the water up further than your solar panels can manage. That’s why you’ll still need a form of traditional hot water heating, but you should see savings on your energy bills. If you’re currently using natural gas, you can expect savings of around £60 per year on your fuel bills, while if you’re using LPG it could be as high as £100 pr year

Unlike the photovoltaic (PV) power which works to turn a part of the electromagnetic radiation of the sun directly to electrons and electricity, a solar thermal can simply be referred to as the absorption of the sun’s heat for human use. As a result, the solar thermal has a wider range of uses than the PV does in several ways. This is due to the fact that the sun’s heat can be absorbed and transported via a medium and the stored energy incorporated for several great purposes such as to heat water, to heat and cool a home or living space, to prepare a meal as well as to generate electricity. All these functions are useful for both residential and commercial spaces.

There are generally three different ranges of solar thermal energy that are being used which includes the low temperature ( for heating, cooling as well as ventilation), the mid temperature ( used for preparing meals, heating hot water and the likes) as well as the high temperature ( used for generating electricity). To focus more on generating electricity, there are a wide array of ways through which the sun’s heat can be directed at creating electricity via a heat exchanger which operates to super heat water or inert gas to power an electricity- generating plant or to produce electricity via a Stirling engine.

In order to increase their output or make them more efficient, evacuated glass tubes are used to encircle the tubes which in turn helps them to collect more heat energy while also protecting them from re-radiating the heat energy absorbed. The trough are normal positioned north to south as well as to keep tabs on the travels of the sun throughout the day.

If you’re looking to purchase and install a solar system for your home or property, then knowing the amount of energy a solar panel can produce can go a long way to help you determine just how much solar panels that’ll be needed to power your entire house. In this article, we’ll give you an idea of the amount of energy that can be generated by a solar panel to help you make informed decisions going ahead.

First and foremost, you should note that each and every solar panel is rated by how much direct current power they’re able to generate under standard testing conditions. The output of a solar panel is given in watts units (W) and it stands for the theoretical power generation of the panel under direct sunlight as well as temperature conditions. Generally, several domestic solar panels possesses power output ratings which ranges from 250 watts to 400 watts. And as you would have expected, the higher power ratings are preferable when compared to the lower power ratings. What’s more? The total wattage of your solar panels will greatly influence a major part of your overall solar system cost.

Assuming you’re able to get just about 5 hours of direct sunlight every day, you can determine the output of your solar panel in this way - 5 hours x 290 watts ( wattage example of a premium solar panel) = 1450 watts-hours or approximately 1.5 kilowatts per hour (kWh). hence, the individual solar panel output in your array should be able to generate about 500 to 550 kWh of energy every year. This is sufficient energy to power some small appliances without problems.