Solar panel technology can be applied in many ways in todays home and businesses. With the introduction of smaller and cheaper solar panels, you can find applications using solar panels that cost just a few dollars, like solar garden lights.
Energy Efficiency
Here we look at ways to reduce one of the major cost of home ownership, energy. Articles and tips on improving your homes energy efficiency.
One form of solar power that has been working for homeowners for decades is solar water heating panels. Lower tech in nature, they don’t suffer the efficiency degradation of converting the solar energy into electricity first, but generate heat directly from the sun’s rays. Here’s a look at how solar water heating panels actually work.
There’s a lot of people who are fed up with high energy prices and would like to pull the plug and live off the grid these days. But there are a lot of ways we use power, and solar electric alone is costly and has a few other disadvantages (like it goes away at night.) Just what would it take to live off solar power alone?
One of the first issues that will come up when trying to design a solar power system is the power you are trying to deliver from the solar panels. This will play a huge role in determining the cost and physical size of the solar system, so it’s important to take the time to determine the solar power requirements up front so your solar panels will deliver the performance you expect.
If you are fortunate enough to live near a stream or small river, one way to consider generating electricity is the use of a small micro hydroelectric power generator. Hydroelectric power has been used in this country as a renewable resource for decades, and the introduction of some of the low head power generators has allowed this technology to reach much smaller hydro energy sources. Here’s a look at the technology of these micro hydroelectric generators.
With the high price of electric energy these days, one source of renewable energy that shows the quickest payback is wind energy. If you are looking to install wind energy, specifically a vertical axis windmill, you need to be sure that it will work in your area. This article examines the factors that can make or break a wind energy installation.