We have a single solar panel on a flat roof just outside our office, which faces south. The panel is mounted against the outside wall, with a cable led through the wall into the office. Because of the shape of the building, the panel does not get direct sunlight early in the morning or late at night. The regulator shows that the battery is being charged continuously during daylight, although there is obviously a better charge in direct sunlight.

On the inside wall we have the charge regulator. Power is fed from the panel into a battery, and there is an inverter connected to the battery, to produce 240 volt AC power for appliances in the office.

We have a bank of appliances connected to a single lead, which can either be plugged into the inverter or, if the controller warns us that the battery charge is getting low (audible alarms as the battery power drops), we can plug into the normal mains.

In sunny weather we can run the following items round the clock -

Skype dual phone
External CD/DVD drive for a computer
Computer speakers
Wireless Credit Card machine
Normal telephone
Answerphone

During period of less sunshine we normally switch the above items across to the mains for the night time.