How To Harness Solar Power In The Home
Adrian Fletcher
The cost of power to run our homes seems to go up each year and often well above average inflation. There are a number of reasons for this we are told. For instance, privatization of many utilities companies has increased the need to make a profit. This may be part of the reason why oil, electricity and gas prices have been going up.
However the reason most often given for price rises is that the resources that create electricity are becoming scarce. Oil, natural gas and coal are finite resources and are becoming harder to find, harder to extract and harder to deliver to the consumer. Thus the consumer must cover the increased costs.
>From this perspective, people are becoming more interested in alternatives to traditional generated power for the home. One alternative that has had a long and successful history of providing making with energy is solar power. This article will cover how to run a home on solar power using the latest innovations in the solar energy field.
You can run a house using the heat energy supplied by the Sun. The most typical application of thermal energy is to heat water. This can be used as hot water to use or heat the home. Solar thermal energy can also heat a swimming pool.
The idea behind this technique is to allow a metal plate to be heated by the Sun. This can be made more efficient by painting the surface black and putting insulation on the areas not exposed to the Sun so that the heat is not lost.
Once you have a hot plate you can allow water to come in contact with it and the result is heated water. This can be piped into the home to be used however it is needed. The solar heated water can also be connected to the standard water heater thus saving grid supplied energy on making the water hot.
Energy used to heat household water is one of the most expensive items on most utility bills. This could be reduced if a solar water heating system is installed.
Using sunlight to create electricity is a fairly recent innovation. Photovoltaic (PV) cells were first developed in the 1950's. A PV cell is made from a silicon semi conductor. When photons, the elementary particles of sunlight strike the PV cell, an electron is thrown loose from the silicon atom. By controlling the flow of electrons using an electric field a current can be produced.
This is direct current (DC) that can be stored in a battery or transformed to alternating current (AC). This can be done using a power inverter. The resulting AC can be used to power the home.
The solar panels that you see on the roof of many houses are a number of PV cells connected together in a series or parallel configuration to increase the amount of electricity that can be produced.
Many people allow the utility company to install the solar panels or at least connect the panels to the grid. This means that the electricity that is created by your solar panel is sold to the utility company. This can save money on the electricity that you use from the utility company. This is even more the case if the state requires utility companies to buy the electricity at retail price.
The advantages of this is that the utility company will install the system and the home is still attached to the grid as a safeguard should the sun not shine or a problem occurs with one of the components of the solar power system.
The next step is to go off the grid completely. This is more responsibility for the individual and more knowledge of the system is needed. They will also need a back up energy generation system should there be any problems.
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