Plugin solar kit in your garden

In short: up to 50% of the electricity cost.

A plug & play solar kit produces solar energy for self consumption at home. The energy it produces is used directly by your household appliances. This avoids your household having to buy that energy from your power company, lowering your power bills.

Your savings are therefore determined by

• how much energy your kit produces
• how much you pay your power company per kWh, with all extra costs and taxes included

For example, if your kit produces 1.500 kWh per year and you pay €0,30/kWh to your power company, you save €450 per year (1.500 kWh x €0,30/kWh = €450). You can calculate how much you can save at your home address with our Savings Calculator.

How much the savings are on your overall electricity bill depends on how much you consume in total. A house consumes much more than an apartment, so the effect of a solar kit is likely higher for an apartment. The more people you are in the household, the higher your total consumption. Since plug & play solar kits are limited to 800 W by law, for households of 1-3 people the savings of a plug & play solar kit will be higher as a percentage of total electricity consumption than for larger households that consume more. Also, if you have a lot of high consumption devices on for a lot of time, like air conditioners, water boilers, ovens etc, your consumption is likely much higher than the 800 W of peak output your kit can deliver.

But take into consideration that some savings is better than no savings at all. And the higher your energy consumption is, the more likely it is that you will consume 100% of your kit’s power, maximizing your economic returns.

In short: much easier than you might think.

A plug & play solar kit generates energy from the sun with its solar panels. The micro inverter converts the panels’ DC power into AC power used in your household. A special cable connects the micro inverter to a normal Schuko plug in your home, feeding your kit’s power into your household’s power circuit.

That circuit is like a system of canals. At different points there are devices that consume energy. The sum of that energy consumption is what at the end of the canal is fed from your power company into your household. Your power meter counts how much that power is at any time.

If you now connect a plug & play solar kit to your canal, that kit immits power into that network. The connected devices use that power first. If you have several power circuits at home, these all meet at the distribution panel, that is in turn connected to your power meter and the grid. If there is excess power in the circuit your kit is connected to, it will spill over first to your other circuits that are demanding energy.

Check out our explanation video on how this circuit works.

In short: a Performance kit in Europe produces up to 1.500 kWh/year, while a Light kit can reach 1.100 kWh/year.

But it depends on several factors. The exact answer is personalized, depending on the location of installation, orientation and azimuth as well as the type of kit you choose. Our Savings Calculator helps you find the exact answer for your installation. We use the European Commission’s PV GIS database, a standard used by all major photovoltaic installers in Europe, to calculate the estimated yearly electricity production of your kit. The result is usually a conservative estimate.

When considering the installation of a plug & play solar kit, look for the place in your household with the most unimpeded sunshine hours. This can be your terrace or balcony, or a pergola, or a wall. Maybe you have a flat roof nearby that you can use. At Robinsun we offer kits for a wide range of installation locations, to help you install your kit where it produces most for you.