Electricity has become essential to so many activities of life. While it is true that we can learn to live with less or even without electricity, for most of us that is not very practical. Fortunately, alternative energy technology has brought self sufficient power systems within the reach of nearly everyone. There are three basic options – SOLAR POWER, WIND GENERATOR POWER and MICRO HYDRO POWER. In this post, we’ll simply be focusing on solar panels for homes, but you can click on the other options above to read articles about them as well.
A self sufficient energy solar system offers a tremendous advantage in that there are no moving parts, unless you utilize a tracking system. Even in this case, the moving parts are minimal. This is a clear advantage because moving parts eventually need maintainance.
To calculate how much power you can produce with a typical solar system, you need to know how much direct sunlight your solar panels will get. A basic rule of thumb is to estimate 5 hours per day as a rough average, but this approach is not as accurate as making actual site observation. Keep in mind that the angle of the sun changes during the year, so this needs to be factored in. Once you have determined this, simply multiply the output (per hour) of the solar panels by the hours of direct sunlight. This will tell you how much power you could expect. You can see this will also depend on how many panels you use. One panel that produces 200 Watts per hour in direct sunlight, will produce 1000 watts over a period of 5 hours.
The Florida Solar Energy Center presented a study in 2004 to help people understand about how much energy they might expect from a typical solar system. This particular study simulated the power generation of a 2 kilowatt photovoltaic rooftop system for 236 locations throughout the United States. They found a range of between 5 and 8.5 Kw-h per day on average throughout the year.
When it comes to solar panels for homes, if you’re short on money but have some extra time, you could consider building your own homemade solar panels. There are some resources available which provide instructions, plans, and supplemental videos for DIY solar panels for a fraction of the cost of purchasing panels. CLICK HERE if you would like to see an example. (NOTE: We have not yet checked out this particular kit, but plan on doing so and will give a review on this website soon. You will notice that they do offer a money back gaurantee if you are not satisfied with the kit, and they also are using a reputable online merchant service so we felt comfortable sharing this site with you prior to our reviewing it ourselves.)
In our next post we will consider the other components of a home solar power system.
