Solar Energy and Going Off the Grid
Solar Energy and Going Off the Grid
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Christine_Querido]Christine Querido
Americans spend tremendous amounts of money on electrical capacity, and moving electricity from a power plant to the home involves a lot of transmission waste, waste that you’re paying for. You’re also paying for the hidden environmental and sunk costs on power generation plants as well. Learning how to save electricity will get more of your hard earned dollars back in your bank account…as will learning how to capture and use solar energy in your home.
First, when it comes to saving energy, start with the big ticket items first. For most households, the biggest draw on their electric bill comes from the refrigerator and air conditioner, followed by the water heater. All of these can be upgraded to save electricity, with energy star certified appliances. Air conditioners can be replaced with evaporative coolers in a lot of places, and there are plenty of good do it yourself kits for making solar water heaters.
However, learning how to save electricity is only part of the process. Generating your own solar power is the next part of the process. Solar cells are becoming more and more efficient, and less expensive. What used to be a ten thousand dollar investment can now be had for a few hundred dollars, and you may even qualify for a tax credit for doing it.
The basics of solar energy generation rely on the photo-electric effect, which is (interestingly enough) what Albert Einstein got his Nobel Prize for. This is also called the photo-voltaic process, and your solar panels will be linking up arrays of solar cells to generate current. You’ll also want an energy storage system, which is usually going to be a set of marine batteries tied to an inverter.
What this array will do is grab solar light and convert it to electricity, storing it for later use. Making dual purpose systems that are also solar thermal water heaters combines both solar energy and saving electricity, often in one installation. All that said, this is a scalable system. Start out small and build up the capacity as you get time, and buy the components. Most of the components are fairly inexpensive at this point.
This is a fairly substantial investment in time, and often times in money – though it can be done piecemeal. The calculation you need to do is how quickly the solar cells will pay for themselves in reduced electrical bills, and surprisingly enough, this is turning into ‘pay out’ dates of under a year from installation.
There’s more to solar energy and learning how to save electricity than this – this article is just the highlights, and the bare beginnings. Going into renewable energy offers a lot of benefits; generate enough of it, and you’ll be selling excess capacity back to your power company. Beyond this, you also get the satisfaction of knowing that you’re helping to mitigate our species footprint on the planet, keeping it in better shape for our children. http://www.earth4energy.piczo.com
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