Solar energy technology is an old concept and was developed years ago, it has capability to meet all your energy needs without being dependent on the grid for your power needs. You may be wondering how can you enjoy watching big screen television, using multiple refrigerators or even enjoy cool breeze of air conditioners in those hot months.

All this can be met using solar power to your advantage as the technology has further developed. Getting off the grid has become a reality these days especially for residential or commercial buildings. These days most of the solar panel technology has become quite efficient and affordable that you can easily install it for your homes.

This is also a fact that that the initial investment could be very high as compared to the conventional power. With the rising prices of fuel and utility, solar energy is now the only viable solution to meet your power demands.

Many new buildings constructed these days have the solar panel array on the roof tops which look good as compared to large solar panels in the past. The solar panels these days are not only more efficient but are small in size so that less space is required to install the solar power system. Today you will find Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels more attractive and modern, thanks to the development of technology.

Generating electricity using solar panels is really a new concept, many houses which have solar panels installed are also connected to grid, this ensures drastic cut in their energy bills as they are using mixture of both solar power and conventional power. There are some houses which in fact produce surplus power using PV panels and earn handsome money by selling this power to the utility companies.

Installing solar array is not that costly as most people think, there is subsidy and incentives offered by the federal and local governments to the people who are interested to install the solar panels. There are almost ten federal incentives which you can expect when you install the solar panels. These are in the form of tax credits, corporate and private exemptions and special loans and grants.

In addition you can also get local solar rebate, property tax incentives and much more. In some of the states 70% of the costs are borne making installation much easier for the common home owner.

Solar Panels for Homes

Solar panels or Photovoltaic system convert sunlight into electrical energy, each solar panel contains about a group of 30 to 40 solar cells which are made of silicon or some other material which absorbs sunlight. The material is so efficient in absorbing light that it immediately converts the solar power into electricity.

Each solar panel is a series of solar cells which are connected all together; the entire panel is sealed to save it from the moisture. The part of the solar cell which absorbs the electricity is negative and the bottom is considered to be positive.

When the sunlight is absorbed into silicon cells, electrons are knocked loose and travel from negative to positive layer and the electrical energy is passed through the contacts in the top layer and is routed through the circuit array thus producing power.

The basic objectives of building energy efficient homes are to make living healthy and comfortable for the residents by efficiently utilizing electrical energy, water and other natural resources, reducing waste, pollution and other harmful effects on environment and bringing down energy costs and costs of other resources.

By making suitable alterations to the home that is designed to improve efficiency in utilization of energy, it is possible to either remove or at least reduce the amount of impure air getting into the home due to several weather conditions. The design of the house and the use of proper building materials are the two important aspects that one should focus in order to make the home energy efficient.

In Australia, 90% of the houses are built utilizing bricks and bricks are the common building materials in that country. In view of vigorous campaign all over the world to reduce energy consumption substantially, recent buildings regulations imposed nowadays stipulate that the new homes constructed should be more energy efficient.

Here are a few factors that one should keep in mind so that well considered decisions can be taken while making alterations to the home to make it more energy efficient. While significant portion of the total energy consumption in a home goes to operate equipments for cooling and heating the home, for cooking and lighting comparatively much less energy is needed.

Any expenditure on home improvements aimed at reducing energy consumption on cooling and heating in one’s home is a good investment. However, it may not be possible to reduce the energy consumption on these two items without compromising the comforts inside the home. It is where the passive design of the home will be very useful.

In passive solar home design, windows, walls and floors absorb solar energy in the form of heat in the winter and discard solar heat in the summer in order to enhance the cooling and heating effect naturally. In contrast to active solar heating systems, there is no need to use electrical or mechanical equipments in passive design.

The four prerequisites to designing passive solar homes are orientation, ventilation, insulation and thermal mass.

Orientation

This includes location of windows and the type of glazing. The large glass window on the northern side enables the low sunshine to enter the house in winter and severe sun in summer is obstructed with the help of shading from extended roof or attic.

Ventilation

After the peak summer is over, air is allowed to pass through the house freely. In order to make the cross ventilation effective, either side of the house should have windows or openings without any obstruction. The free passage of air inside makes the rooms cool and pleasant in a natural way.

Insulation

Insulating the walls and roofs and plugging the gaps in windows and doors is very important to prevent heat radiation raising the inside temperature of the house. The efficiency of insulation is evaluated by means of its R-value. However, it does no as such represent the efficiency as a whole. For example, several walls with the same R-value may not function with the same efficiency.

Thermal Mass

Thermal mass is any material used for construction of the house such as wood, concrete, bricks or even floors that absorbs solar energy and heat from the sun during the day and releases that heat at night. With the help of thermal mass concept, the temperatures in the house during summer can be significantly moderated and the energy costs brought down. In comparison with brick walls, the lightweight material has very low thermal mass and in view of this, brick walls are much effective in moderating temperatures in the house even if they have similar R-values.

The choice of materials such as brick slabs has considerable effect on the amount of thermal mass in a house or a building. The first two principles of ‘passive design’, to be precise, orientation and ventilation, need to be considered while building the house and the choice of materials such as brick slabs has considerable effect on the amount of thermal mass in a house or a building.

Use of bricks is among the easiest and cost-effective methods of providing thermal mass in a house. The bricks made from clay are abundant in thermal mass. The brick walls provide proper ventilation, are energy-efficient and keep the rooms cool and comfortable.

According to various research studies, the brick stone homes are energy-efficient and the external portion of the brick walls ensure that major portion of the heat is deflected back to the outside atmosphere. This has the effect of keeping the home cool and comfortable in summer despite fluctuating temperatures outside. The US Department of Energy has declared that thermal mass accumulates heat by converting its temperature. This is done by storing the heat coming out of a warm room or by converting solar radiation directly into heat.

As brick stones have better thermal mass than lightweight building materials, they are very useful in making a home more energy-efficient. In addition, using bricks in construction is easy and economical.

You would be able to save a considerable amount of money if you can reduce the cost of heating your house. You can do this by making sure that all your doors and windows have proper seals and will not allow air to escape or leak in. Here are some tips that will help you seal such leaks and save on your energy bill.

1) Attending to cracks in windows.

If you find that there is space between window frames and windows you should make sure that these spaces are properly sealed. Windows are the major cause for air leaking in or out.

A simple and inexpensive way to seal such spaces between windows and window frames is to use caulking to seal up the spaces. You can make this job easy for you if you use a caulking gun. Make sure you use “weather-stripping sealant” which comes in transparent colors and does not damage the paint or the special finish used for your windows.

2) Putting in storm windows.

You will prevent wasteful loss of energy if you install storm windows. These help you save energy because they act as a buffer, trapping air between it and the proper windows. Thus, storm windows help insulate your house and prevent leakage of air.

You can opt to put in wooden, vinyl or aluminium storm windows. Wooden storm windows will have to be taken down in spring. You will not have to do this if you put in vinyl or aluminium storm windows. These can be always left in place.

3) Installing energy efficient weather-stripping doors.

Though most of the air leakage occurs through improperly sealed windows, some amount of air leakage could also occur through doors. It is necessary to make sure that the weather-stripping doors that you already have in place have proper seals.

If you find that these doors do no more than keep out drafts, you could replace them with doors that offers a better seat. Such doors may have vinyl bulb or padded strip that will effectively stop air from leaking out or getting in. You can also consider installing doors which have strips made of brass or bronze. These metal strips are attached to the door jamb.

When these doors are shut they tightly seal the doorway, preventing any leakage of air.

4) Putting in door sweeps or door bottoms.

To make sure that there is no leakage of air through the threshold, you need to install door bottoms or door sweeps. Weather-stripping the doors will seal the sides and tops of the doors but the bottom where the threshold is will be unprotected and will allow air to leak in or out.

Thresholds are subject to a lot of wear and tear and do not lend themselves to sealing the gap between it and the door bottom. This difficulty can be solved by installing either a door bottom or a door sweep. Door sweeps are usually fixed on the inner side of the door at the bottom and this will prevent air leakage through the bottom of the door. You can also use an adjustable threshold to solve the problem of air leakage.

The four methods described above will help you make sure that you stop or minimize air leakage through windows or doors, and make your home energy efficient.

Does it sound good to you that property powered by solar panels is worth more than the ones that don’t? This is a fact that Photovoltaic (PV) panels reduce or eliminate the power cost from the grid. There is a protection against future rate of inflation, as the Department of Public Utilities has already approved it.

Solar PV system is allowed tax incentives which help the owner to save money. The properties which are fitted with PV panels are in great demand as compared to properties which has conventional power connection. Such properties sell faster as per the studies; as a matter of fact, it is almost 20% faster.

A solar electric system enhances the value of the property by almost $20,000 for each $1,000 in annual reduced running cost supported by the Appraisal institute. The rationality is that the money from the reduction in operating cost can be used on larger mortgage with no change in the monthly cost of ownership.

The home solar system over scores other properties improvements in percentage of cost recovered. It has been seen that most of the solar systems recover more than 100% cost, the total savings over a period over 25 years is 220% to 350% return on the initial investment. The savings can go beyond this if the energy cost from the public utilities continues to increase.

The recent study done by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has established that the solar homes sell faster by 20% and even 17% more than the conventional homes in California. This is a fact that solar energy is neat and clean energy without any emission which contributes to the pollution. Solar energy is free and clean and is available throughout the year and even can be stored in battery banks.

In one particular subdivisions, all the 257 solar homes were sold in just a year which is two years faster than expected. When interviews were conducted with the potential home buyers, it was interesting to note that buyers preferred homes which had solar fittings. The average cost of solar homes were between $380,000 to $500,000, due to heavy demand even some homes fetched a huge price of $600,000.

With the passage of time, it is certain that rates of solar homes will appreciate as the electric cost has been increasing daily. It is also a fact that with the increase in electric bill, solar energy will be the best alternative and can power 80% of a home energy needs. It is also expected that the warranty for solar module could be at least for 25 years.

Since there is already huge shortage of grid power, solar energy is getting the desired attention and even home buyers have also understood the fact. Most of the home buyers are ready to pay even 100% of the original cost for a retrofit solar system with 20 to 1 ratio only with the increase with inflated electrical price.

There is a strong feeling that such homes can recover cost in few years, if by any chance they want to sell the property.

If you have any thoughts of having a solar electrical system in your house, it will always be better to have a look at the changes that you could make in your living habits and energy consumption, that could suit the new system. You can save a considerable amount of money by employing eco-friendly power systems.

Along with saving money, you are doing something good for the nature also. First thing you should do before installing a solar electrical system in your house is, to make the necessary changes to cut down the dependency on grid power and fuels. Solar power is the future power source and before installing a solar electrical system, you should know how much power you require.

Irrespective of whether your system is small or big, it will require certain equipments for its panel operation and to harvest power.

PV Panel Mounting

Mounting has to be done in a proper manner and has to be done in a secure place, to protect it from winds and other hazards. It should be installed in such a way that it gets maximum exposure to solar rays and the location should be decided by taking all these factors into account.

Wiring and Collector Boxes

If multiple panels are used, there arises a need for a safe and secure way to connect all these panels and you can use the Collector Box for this purpose. The wiring should be of the required type and size, otherwise you may lose significant amount of power due to wire resistance.

Collector and Fuses

Wires from the panels run to the collector box and from there to the solar charge controller. Here we use combiner box, which is basically used to collect wiring from multiple solar panels and from the combiner box, a set of wires run to the solar charge controller.

For protection from overheating and overload, a breaker switch (fuse) has to be employed on each solar array. Electrical controllers are used to control the electricity generated and then the electricity will be fed to the battery.

The solar charge controller wiring should be in accordance with the panel size. Along with this an over current protection system has to be employed to protect personal hazards and to protect the major components of the system.

Inverter converts the DC power generated into AC and the wattage of the inverter should be in accordance with the total watts of power required at one time.

Deep Cycle Battery Bank

Without using deep cycle batteries, you can only use the power in real time, i.e. you can use the power only when the sun is out. Deep cycle batteries are very different from car batteries as they can survive the frequent charging and discharging cycles, typical of renewable energy systems.

Battery storage capacity is expressed in amp hours and the number of batteries should match your energy requirements. More and more people are now turning to solar systems for their energy requirements and we recommend you to get a comprehensive home solar guide that will help you in each and every step of your solar installation.

Installing a solar electrical system is not a tough job at all and all you should do is to have enough knowledge about an efficient and safe installation.

A grid-linked solar array can costs over $35,000, even after taking into account the rebates that government allows on solar energy systems and therefore, it is quite natural that its owner gets jittery, when the meter of the solar panel indicates low output.

The performance of solar panels is at their best if there is a bright sunlight and the power generation drops down drastically once the sunlight fades. When someone has spent lot of money on solar panels, he would like to ensure that the power generation from the solar electrical system is at an optimum level and that he would get a reasonable return on his investment.

It is quite apparent that apart from cloudy weather, leaves, dust and droppings of birds would also contribute to lower power generation. For those having a grid-linked solar array, a 10% reduction in output means quite a heavy loss in dollar terms over a period of time.

Nevertheless, those who have gone out to a farmhouse or living in a house on a hill, the solar array makes living comfortable by providing lighting, music and enables pumping of water. They will not get disturbed if the batteries do not get charged on a particular day; they can always be charged the next day.

Living in the countryside setting is a lifestyle choice for those who love serene atmosphere, fresh air and enjoy watching eagles flying and birds chirping. However, it is entirely different in winter. Cloudy skies can pose a problem for the solar panels so also snow in the north or on mountains.

It is very important that these seasonal problems are anticipated well in advance and necessary steps are taken to ensure that there are no disruptions in performance of solar cells in the Photovoltaic (PV) array. Solar panels are effective, generating maximum possible output provided they are exposed thoroughly to bright sunshine during rest of the year.

The general perception is that in mid – winter, as daytime is shorter, the panels are exposed to less sunlight and consequently, there will be drop in power generation from the panels. Surprisingly even in severe cold, when there is enough sunlight, Photovoltaic panels function quite efficiently.

The situation is just the opposite during very hot weather; when both power drops and “heat fade” occurs. This is because when it is, too, hot solar cells function far below the optimum level leading to considerable drop in power generation and in winter, however, this problem does not arise.

Moreover, when in snowy conditions, the reflective light emanated compensates to some extent for the poor direct light. Those living in the outskirts and whose solar array is connected to the grid system should, therefore, take adequate precautions in winter, get a snow rake and keep the solar panel on a “soft squeegee strip” to prevent damage to the costly solar panels.

On a bright winter day, when most of the snow collected on the roof of the panels is cleared, the solar panels begin to function normally. As the snow melts, the heat generated will melt away the remaining snow and in the process, the panels also get a free wash! In addition, one should keep the birds away from the panels and wipe the surface of the solar array from time to time to clear the dust.

It may be also advisable to keep a frame and turn the array over it in order to prevent snow from collecting on the surface of the array. During the day or after snowfall, the array can be turned back to charge the batteries. Learning how to clean solar panels is not such a difficult challenge. A couple hours of cleaning and wiping will yield a substantial savings in the long run.

The Pros

1) A cheap power solution if you are living in a remote area.

If you choose to live in the woods or up in a mountain, it will cost a bomb if you were to have power cables pulled all the way to your home. The combined manpower, poles, cables etc might cost more than $100,000.

2) No more power utility bill.

Since you are not drawing power from the grid, no more utility bill at the end of the month.

You also severed your dependency on fossil and coal energy. Any energy price hike in the future will not affect your family lifestyle.

3) Reduce your carbon footprint substantially.

An off-grid home will not remove your carbon footprint complete. Carbon will still be produced when making the solar cells.

Nonetheless, the amount of carbon your home generates is much lower than the national average.

4) Improve personal relationship with your family.

You and your family will tend to spend more time together because you have to share limited power supply. For example, sharing a heated room together during winter time or an air conditioned room during summer.

5) Doing your part to clean up the environment.

When you are using renewable energy such as solar, you are taking proactive action to become friendlier to Mother Nature.

6) Changing your habits to consume power more efficiently.

You and your family will start to acquire energy efficient habits. For example, you will use a clothesline instead of a dryer to dry your clothes, using a solar room for heating in the winter or using exhaust vents to cool a room in the summer.

The Cons

1) The investment in a totally off grid system with solar power can be very expensive.

Be prepared to invest upward of $40,000 or more for a complete solar system with professional consultation.

2) High maintenance cost.

The running cost to maintain the system is also very high. If the system fails, it can be a major problem because you do not have an alternative power source.

3) Limited power supply.

You and your family will have to forego certain comforts of life. No more large plasma TV, home theater system, Playstation or Wii.

4) Cost per kilowatt-hour for an off grid system is twice compared to an intertie system.

This is due to the additional cost to setup and maintain the battery bank.

5) It is difficult and expensive to dispose off used or dead batteries.

After a certain time frame, the weak or dead batteries have to be replaced. Due to its toxic material, special care has to be taken to disposed of them. Again this will incur large expenses.

6) A bank will not finance an off-grid house.

For some reasons, banks do not like to give out mortgages for an off-grid houses. Forget about trying to refinance it also.

7) It is very hard to find a buyer for an off-grid house if you decide to move.

It is very much harder to find a buyer for your off-grid solar powered home. Unless you are very lucky to find an environmental enthusiast, you have to drop your selling price substantially (usually with heavy losses) to attract any buyer.

DIY Home Solar Power Guide

Do you want to know how to use solar modules to reduce your home energy consumption? If you do, check out Michael Harvery’s Earth 4 Energy guide.

The manual comes with step by step instruction on how to make a solar panel with minimal cost. For more information on Michael’s e-book, read the Earth4Energy review on this blog.

==> Click here to visit Earth 4 Energy now!

Related web pages:

1) Earth 4 Energy Review – A quick review on the top selling renewable energy guide from Clickbank.

2) Green DIY Energy Reviews – Is Green DIY Energy Another Scam?