The Two Most Important Benefits Of Solar Energy
Alternative Green Energy
More and more people are looking at solar energy to help save in energy costs and to reduce their energy footprint on the environment. Solar energy is the fastest growing renewable energy source, and anyone can learn to harness its power to do things like cooking your meals, lighting your house, heating your water, any many other useful things that we take for granted most every day. Two of the most useful reasons we would want to harness this energy are to generate electricity and to heat the water in our homes.
Generate Electricity from Solar Energy
The system that generates electricity is a relatively new technology. Its called Photovoltaics (PV). PV systems are an organized array of modules that contain certain materials that convert solar radiation into direct current electricity. PV uses semi-conductors and sunlight to make electricity and the more modules a PV system has, the more electricity will be generated.
Once this direct current electricity is generated, it can be inverted into an alternating current to be useable power for a home or business, or even offset or eliminate the electric bill. Many people build their own solar panels and purchase the inverter and solar panel battery charging controller commercially.
Solar Thermal Water Heaters
Up to 30% of a home’s energy consumption is used to heat water for bathing and cleaning the laundry. This is usually the first and most cost effective step when turning to the sun for energy.
Solar water heating systems are either active, having circulating pumps or controls, or passive, which do not have any pumps or controls. They contain either a single storage tank or two. In a two-tank system, the solar tank preheats the water before it goes into your main water heater. In a single tank system, a backup heater is combined with the solar heater in the same tank.
There are many types of solar water heating systems including drain back systems that keep collector water separate from potable water, glycol systems that use indirect heating and an antifreeze to keep the water from freezing, and active direct systems that directly heat the water and circulate the potable water from the storage tank to the collector when heat is available.
Benefits of Harnessing Solar Energy
We have seen two of the major benefits of solar power: generating electricity and heating your home. The other obvious benefits are that solar energy is freely available and can reduce or even eliminate your electricity bill. In addition, if you live in an area where electricity is not available, solar energy may be your only option other than using diesel generators or propane tanks. Regardless of which situation you are in, harnessing the power of the sun can benefit everyone.
There are lots of contractors that can install solar systems in your home and there are lots of information on the Internet and other sources where you can even learn to build solar energy systems yourself with a very minimal cost. There are even some very low cost e-books that explain step-by-step every aspect of solar panel building and other alternative energy technologies.
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