Do Solar Panels Work At Night?

The short answer is yes… and no! Whether you can use solar energy at night depends entirely on your solar panel system setup. To answer this very common question, we’ve outlined what you need to know about how your solar panels will function when the sun isn’t shining below.

Do my solar panels generate electricity at night?

No, solar panels do not produce electricity at night. Solar panels work when the sun’s rays hit the panels, causing photons and electrons to interact and create an electric current. This current gets sent to the solar inverter and from there, it’s converted into usable energy that circulates throughout your home. 

At night, when the sun is not shining, there’s no sunlight to cause that interaction between the atoms in the solar cells, which means that no energy can be produced. However, that does not mean that your home will be without power at night just because the sun isn’t out. 

How does my solar system work at night?

You can still use solar energy at night. It just has to come from a backup battery that has been storing unused (or excess) solar energy during the day. If you have extra solar energy that did not get used during the day, you can store that excess energy in a Pink Energy battery backup and use it when your solar panels aren’t producing energy. This might be during a grid outage, on a cloudy day or, of course, at night when your panels aren’t producing.

In addition, most homes are hooked up to the grid and can use electricity from the utility company as necessary. Even if this is the case, you’ll still see the benefits of your solar system. Since we expect you will be using much less electricity from the grid during the day, your grid energy needs should be reduced substantially, so hopefully you would need grid power only at night.

Go Solar 24/7 With Pink Energy

Going solar does not mean living without power at night! With a Pink Energy battery backup and our high quality, American-made solar panels, you can harvest energy at peak efficiency during the day that can help to cover your home’s electricity needs at night. There’s no reason to avoid solar energy even if your solar panels don’t produce energy at night. Instead, you can have a custom solar solution designed to keep your home running all day and into the night with clean solar power. Contact us today to get started!