The term "self-consumption" is a very important concept to understand when you own a photovoltaic system. Self-consumption is a very good way of increasing the profitability of your solar panels. That's what we're going to look at in this article.
Self-consumption means instantly consuming the energy produced by your solar panels within your building or home.
When your solar panels produce more electricity than you consume, you have a surplus that can be sold to an energy supplier. On the other hand, during periods when your solar panels don't produce enough electricity to cover your consumption (night-time, winter, etc.), you need to obtain electricity from the grid.
Photovoltaic panels mainly produce between 11:00 and 15:00. However, these hours do not correspond to peak consumption times during the day. As a result, it becomes more difficult to consume a large proportion of the electricity generated by the panels.
On average, owners of photovoltaic systems consume 30% of the electricity they produce themselves. The remainder is fed back into the grid. However, it is possible to achieve self-consumption rates of 50 or even 80%!
To maximize the profitability of your photovoltaic system, it's important to increase your self-consumption rate, i.e. to consume as much of your own electricity as possible. There are several solutions. We'll look at these further on in this article.
The more you consume your own electricity, the more profitable your photovoltaic system will be.
Increasing self-consumption has several advantages:
It's very important to size your photovoltaic system correctly. Efficient self-consumption is facilitated when the size and power of your installation are adapted to your consumption needs.
Request a free quote from We Green for the installation of your solar panels.
If you can increase your consumption during the day(dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, and/or telecommuting), you'll have better self-consumption.
It's advisable to optimize the use of the electricity generated by your solar panels during the day. Therefore, it's best to use appliances such as washing machines, dryers and dishwashers during peak production periods, generally between 11am and 3pm. By following this approach, you can increase your self-consumption rate by around 10%.
If you have an electric vehicle, or are thinking of getting one, installing a charging station is agreat way to recharge your electric car, but also to increase your self-consumption. If you're at home during the day, recharging your electric car will increase your self-consumption.
Request a free quote from We Green for the installation of your charging station.
They enable you to store the surplus energy produced by your solar panels for later use, when your production is insufficient. In this way, you can use the stored energy at night or during periods when your solar panels are not producing enough.
This is a highly effective solution for increasing self-consumption. You can achieve up to 80% self-consumption instead of the average 30% without a storage battery.
Request a free quote from We Green for the installation of your storage battery.
Heat pumps and thermodynamic boilers increase your self-consumption by heating water during the day, when electricity is being generated.
