Solar Power

We've used the Sun for drying clothes and food for thousands of years, but only recently have we been able to use it for generating power. The Sun is 150 million kilometres away, and amazingly powerful. Just the tiny fraction of the Sun's energy that hits the Earth (around a hundredth of a millionth of a percent) is enough to meet all our power needs many times over. In fact, every minute, enough energy arrives at the Earth to meet our demands for a whole year - if only we could harness it properly.

How it works

There are three main ways that we use the Sun's energy:-

1. Solar Cells (really called "photovoltaic" or "photoelectric" cells) that convert light directly

into electricity. In a sunny climate, you can get enough power to run a 100W light bulb from just one square metre of solar panel. This was originally developed in order to provide electricity for satellites, but these days many of us own calculators powered by solar cells.

Photovoltaic Systems can be used to power your entire home. Click here to learn more about grid connect household solar power.

2. Solar Hot Water systems for buildings have two main parts: a solar collector and a storage tank. Typically, a flat-plate collector—a thin, flat, rectangular box with a transparent cover—is mounted on the roof, facing the sun collecting the solar energy. The sun heats an absorber plate in the collector, which, in turn, heats the fluid running through tubes within the solar collector. To move the heated fluid between the collector and the storage tank, a system either uses a pump or gravity, as water has a tendency to naturally circulate as it is heated. Systems that use fluids other than water in the collector's tubes usually heat the water by passing it through a coil of tubing in the tank.

Click to view Solar Hot Water Systems available through us.

3. Solar Furnaces use a huge array of mirrors to concentrate the Sun's energy into a small space and produce very high temperatures. There's one at Odellio, in France, used for scientific experiments. It can achieve temperatures up to 3,800 degrees Celsius.

Solar power is an inexhaustible source of renewable energy, that produces no pollution whatsoever in its production. The current up-front costs appear to be expensive compared to other sources of power however, as more and more people buy into solar power, the costs will be reduced as more and more research is able to be done into improving the technology. The long-term savings however are enormous. There are many applications suitable for solar powered

products. One of these which is becoming more and more common, as the windmills of yester-year fail, and become more and more costly to maintain and repair, is solar powered submersibles pumps.

Business or Residential Solar Power

Inland Solar have a large range of solar products available.

We are BP Certified Installers. BP is one of the most recognised leading brands available in the solar market; BP Solar are one of the worlds leading developers in solar power.

There are two main types of solar power connections.

Firstly there is Grid Connect Power which consists of an amount of panels hooked to an inverter which will deliver you power as well as feed what ever is unused back into the grid (power distribution company eg: Country Energy) and you will receive a cheque for how much power you have put back into the grid for the year. Prices on grid returns will vary with your local distribution company.

Second type of power is Standalone Power which consists of your panels, an inverter, battery packs, generator back up. This type of system will be designed to support individual users power needed as everyone will use different amounts of power. Features with this is you will never pay for power again, and be completely self supported from blackouts as you won't be connected to the grid power.

Also note both these systems can be installed together to give you the benefits of your own power as well as getting a refund for the power you put into the grid.

Accreditation to install these systems is in operation currently.

Range of products viewable at BP Solar

For more information on any solar powered application , please contact us.