“My house is powered by solar panels, so I have clean electricity”

There’s a perception that, if your house or building has solar panels, the electricity running through your home and powering your appliances is clean. Newsflash: It’s not.

Don’t get us wrong, we LOVE solar power. It is environmentally friendly, efficient and effective, and it’s a great source of energy overall, especially compared to traditional power generators. But, as experts in the field of electromagnetics, we had to nail this popular misconception: you can still have dirty electricity in your home, no matter if it’s solar power.

First, let’s remember that dirty electricity is inoperative electricity that gets into your electrical wiring and radiates electropollution into your home. According to studies, dirty electricity greatly affects electrohypersensitive people, has biological effects, and also affects the functionality and energy efficiency of electronics.

How is it generated? Well, the wiring in your home is likely 60 hertz Alternating Current. However, as modern technology evolved, devices required varying amounts of electricity not supported by this system. When your new appliances try to use electricity in a way it wasn’t intended, they generate high-frequency voltage transients, which then translates into noise and EMI (electromagnetic interferences) in the electrical wiring.

So, how can clean energy like the one collected through solar panels become dirty electricity? Let’s dive deeper into this matter.

The many benefits of solar power

Solar panels are, indeed, a clean and incredibly beneficial way of getting energy to power your house or business. Solar power is earth-friendly and causes no greenhouse gas emissions, it reduces the dependence on oil and fossil fuels, it’s renewable power is available every day of the year, it requires virtually no maintenance (lasts over 30 years), it can be installed almost everywhere and can even power vehicles, and it’s way safer than the traditional electric current.

The list of benefits is endless and, as this technology keeps evolving and becomes more used and versatile, we are sure there are many more benefits to come. 

How does a solar power system work?

In order to understand how the clean energy collected can become dirty electricity, we need to understand first how solar power systems work. These systems usually have three components:

• The solar panels themselves
• The wiring systems
• The inverter

The panels work by converting light into electricity when the panels are exposed to sunlight. That electricity travels through a wiring system to an inverter. The inverter converts this unusable energy into 120 volt Alternating Current that can be used to power our typical home appliances. It makes its way into your electrical system just the same way conventional electricity would.

The problem at the conversion process

You have a solar panel system, the recollection of the energy is natural and friendly, as it comes from solar radiation. But the electricity you use is not solar energy, as we mentioned, the solar energy collected is practically unusable without being properly converted, so it is transformed to Alternating Current (AC) of an average of 60 Hz to power your appliances. It is the conversion process through the inverter that actually uses this power and converts this energy from a clean source into dirty electricity. 

Some inverters are better at mitigating this than others, but all of them will still result in some dirty electricity. The process of converting the low voltage Direct Current from the panels to usable electricity (AC) for the home constantly puts dirty electricity into your lines. Over time, this builds up to significant levels and can expose you and your family to large amounts of radiation.