Here's why owning a Swimming Pool can make you an ideal candidate for Solar Energy.
Is this you?
If this sounds like you, then you could be an ideal candidate for a solar energy system on your home.
Swimming pools are increasing in popularity and a typical Australian residential pool has 40-50,000 litres of water. The average running costs for a home pool are $660-$1,000 a year (source) and they typically use use between 2,000 and 3,000 kWh of electricity per year and often account for around 17% of your home energy costs.
Homes with swimming pools are an ideal candidate for a solar energy system because of this heavy energy demand. Even better; if you’re away for most of the day, at work or running errands, your home is quiet and energy demands are low and this is when your solar energy system can supply its highest levels of energy available in a 24 hour period.
This may mean that your solar panels are doing the heavy lifting and supplying your home with beautiful, renewable energy, but you’re not using it and without a battery, if you don’t use the energy supply, it’s lost.
With a pool pump creating such a drain on energy demand in a home, it’s therefore more effective to allow your pool pump to consume energy supplied by the solar energy system during the middle of the day.
Energy Makeovers had customer ‘Bill’ get in touch who already had a solar energy system installed on his home but hadn’t seen a significant decline in his energy costs. We had a look at his interval bill and analysed the numbers. The results showed a significant spike in energy use at night and it turned out ‘Bill’ hadn’t adjusted his pool pump use.
Before investing in solar energy ‘Bill’ was using grid-energy and a retailer that offered lower rates at night, during off-peak hours. Therefore he was optimising his pool pump use cost-effectively. However, after installing a solar energy system on his Melbourne home he needed to adjust his energy consumption accordingly. ‘Bill’s solar panels were collecting most energy during the middle of the day but he was creating his heaviest demands at night. After adjusting his pool pump to work during the day ‘Bill’ saw a significant decrease in his grid-energy demands and therefore a large reduction in his energy bills.
You can also invest in pool energy automation systems that will demand energy supply from a solar energy system on sunny days and longer periods in the summer and switch to grid-energy supply on overcast days and outside of peak sun hours in winter.
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