Many homes in the Axarquía are lived in only part of the year: holiday homes, family houses, or homes of foreign owners who spend the winter or the summer here. For these, a solar system has to be designed differently from one for a full-time home.
The challenge: producing while you are away
Panels produce all year round, but if the house is empty, nobody uses that energy. What goes to the grid is credited on your bill, but with a limit: the credit can never take the energy part of your bill below zero. We explain why in selling surplus solar power in Spain. So a large system on an empty house can take a long time to pay back.
The loads that do use the sun
Many "empty" houses use more electricity than their owners think:
- The pool pump. It is one of the biggest loads and runs in the daytime. Setting it to run during the sunniest hours is the easiest way to use your panels.
- Irrigation, a well pump or a pressure pump.
- A fridge or freezer left on.
- Alarm, cameras and router.
- A dehumidifier or ventilation to keep damp away.
- Air conditioning, if you let the house in summer.
If you rent the house out for holiday lets, your guests' consumption counts too.
How we size it
Instead of starting from average yearly consumption, we look at your month-by-month consumption and fit the system to:
- the months you are in the house;
- the fixed loads that run all year (pool, fridge, alarm).
The result is usually a smaller system than for a full-time home. It often makes sense to start without a battery, with a hybrid inverter so you can add one later.
Keeping an eye on it from abroad
Modern systems come with a monitoring app. You can see on your phone what the panels are producing, what the house is using and any inverter alerts, wherever you are. That helps you spot a fault or an odd consumption early, such as a pump that has stuck on.
Grants and tax: check the conditions
- The Spanish income-tax deduction for energy-efficiency works applies to your main home or to homes that are let or offered for rent, according to the Agencia Tributaria. If you are not a Spanish tax resident you do not pay IRPF, so it does not apply to you. Check with your adviser.
- The IBI property-tax rebate depends on each town hall. See solar grants and tax rebates.
What about power cuts while you are away?
If the house is in the countryside and the supply sometimes cuts out, a battery with backup output can keep the fridge, alarm and router running. A standard system switches off in a power cut, as we explain in do solar panels work in a power cut?.
We work in English
Our whole team speaks English and Daniel Hill is a native speaker, so we can handle everything by email or phone while you are abroad. Send us your bills for the last few months through the bill check and we will tell you whether solar makes sense for your house.