What changes when the house is often empty
Size for the weeks you are there
ERSE lists it as the owner's duty to size the system so that production comes as close as possible to consumption. Tell the installer how many weeks a year the house is used, and in which months.
A battery for resilience, not for savings
A battery earns its keep when someone is home in the evening. In a holiday home its main value is keeping the fridge, lights and pumps running in a power cut, which needs a hybrid inverter with a backup function.
The same DGEG registration
The rules depend on the system's power and its grid connection, not on how often you live there. Most systems need the prior notice on the DGEG portal.
Monitoring from abroad
Choose an inverter with an app that shows production, and agree who checks the system when an alert comes in.
Questions to ask before you buy
- Is the system sized for my real occupancy, in weeks per year?
- What happens to production while I am away, and do I sell the surplus?
- Which inverter, and what does its app show me?
- Who registers the system with DGEG, and who arranges the civil liability insurance?
- Who do I call if the system stops while I am not in Portugal?
When you ask for quotes, the notes question at the end of our form lets you tell the installers how you use the house, and we ask every installer for the same four numbers so the quotes line up.