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Alternative Power: The Advantages Of Making Energy Efficient House Plans

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

The idea of energy efficient house plans as a source of alternative power is very practical and successful although it may sound a little strange at first. It is so applied that in fact, it is identified as one of the best twenty first century innovations.

If you are reckoning about the realistic aspect of drawing up energy efficient house plans, the answer is very simple. Look around at carefully chosen, newly built houses and buildings. Most of these social systems would have at least one energy Saving, energy effective formula in movement. Of course people don’t advertise themselves saying they live on houses built with energy effective house plans  unless of course you are on discovery channel’s going green campaign. But the point is, without us realizing it, the concept of energy efficient house plans have already come in to play.

So take for example if you’re an architect, or an engineer who’s going to build a solar panel as a source of energy, isn’t energy efficient house plans a pure model to look at? Anyway the popular demand will surely make your house stand out.

The advantages of absorbing up energy competent house plans are multi fold of which, preserving energy is the first. Preserving up on conventional modes of gaining energy such as electricity, line water and gas are the major monetary plusses of the system. So when your house is energy competent, you save so much money on energy bills.

It is the common belief among many people that energy competent house plans would make you spend a lot of money. So much so that paying monthly bills is worth it. This is a common myth and it has no reason. If you can t trust it offhand, sit down and get on with some computings to see the point behind us dismissing the notion. Maybe at the implementation stage energy competent house plans may cost slightly higher than traditional methods. Even so, the price can be easily covered in less than twelve months of implementing it, if done appropriately.

So if you are keen on preserving the planet by saving energy, why not settle for energy competent house plans as a source of alternative power? After all, energy protected is money gained! Additionally, living in such conditions will enrich your life with new avenues. Think about it: is it not a great feeling to touch a warm floor beneath your feet?

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What You Need To Know About Alternative Power Sources

Friday, March 12th, 2010

Electicity is being consumed in large amounts nowadays. Why is it so? It’s because of the rapid change of technology. When a great number of high-tech gadgets, vehicles, and so on enters the market, the people are being inclined to buy it. Before, even though governments didn’t stress about it, a shortage of natural resources in the long term was a clear fact by many people. That’s why finding alternative power sources is quite important. 

A hundred long years ago, oil was an inexpensive resource that many people used without any hassle. Today this is a natural resource that is highly depleting. Countries that supply the resource charge high prices making it difficult for most governments to cope up with the hikes.

In the 1970’s, the first time the need for alternative power sources came up in the US. An oil shortage during that time resulted in people staying at long queues in gas filling stations. It’s not only vehicles that had this issue. Households have suffered with a gas shortage, as well as other energy resources that were used in their daily lives. This became one big issue and experts started to find alternative energy sources to solve it. 

A lot have come forward in their search for alternative energy sources and have given information that there are alternative power sources that can be utilized at a lower cost. Nonetheless, each person knows that the resources we’re using today come with such heavy price tags

The use of wind, water and sun are the main factors in alternative power sources found nowadays. It’s been experimented and proven that that geothermal power, hydropower and solar power can be used in producing electricity.

There may be several alternative power sources that can be utilized, but not everybody will be able to experience similar things from different geographical locations. To put it simply, a person who’s living in an area with fewer winds wouldn’t be able to experience the electricity being generated by using wind power.

The same goes for individuals who build a solar panel living in areas with less exposure to the sun. Solar power cannot be used in such locations. This proves that not every geographic location can be utilized for the generation of electricity, as the utilization of alternative power sources may differ.

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Solar Power Generation System

Saturday, December 5th, 2009

Prospective users of home solar power systems will likely find that they have different needs in terms of the appropriate number of solar panels for their systems Your monthly electricity bills will be reduced regardless of how many panels you decide to install. Those who would like to forget about their electricity bills completely, though, will want to figure out how exactly how many solar panels are necessary to do so.

The first step is determining how much electricity you use in your home per day. To do this, first, gather up as many of your monthly electricity bills as you can. (In some cases, you can find these records online if necessary.) You can figure out using these bills how many kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity you use on a monthly basis. When you divide this figure by 30, you’ll get your average daily electricity usage in kWh.

Another important variable pertaining to solar power systems is insolation. Insolation, which is different from area to area, is a measurement of the sunlight which makes contact with a given surface area over time. Solar panels only generate electricity when they are struck directly by sunlight. Every solar panel requires a certain minimum sunlight intensity in order to work. The angle and intensity with which solar panels are exposed to sunlight on a given surface varies throughout the year. Even throughout a single day, the amount of sunlight present at any given time can differ. Insolation values represent the average sunlight exposure for a given location. To find the insolation value for your area, you can refer to an insolation map, which can be found online. Then, divide the daily kWh of electricity from the previous step by the insolation value to determine the power capacity you’ll require from your system.

There’s one more variable to take into consideration. Although the latest systems are much more efficient than older ones, with any power system, there is always some power lost in conversion. The general rule of thumb in this respect is to assume you’re getting a loss of 25% (although you’re likely getting much less than that) just to be sure. Multiply the figure from the previous step by 1.25 to get the amount of power, including loss, that you’ll need. This final number represents your power needs, in kWh, adjusted for insolation and efficiency.

Divide this figure by the output in kilowatt hours of your solar panel of choice to find out how many of these panels you’ll need to generate enough power for your everyday needs.

One of the first questions a homeowner faces when choosing on whether to install a home solar power system is, “How many solar panels do I need?” If you want to know the answer to this question, head on to How Many Solar Panels Do I Need?

If you want to build your own solar panel, visit Build Solar Panel. You may also be interested in a mini course on how to build your own solar power system. Visit Solar Power Calculator to sign-up for a 6 part mini course.

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Efficiency of Solar Cells

Saturday, December 5th, 2009

The silicon solar cell has been around for more than half a century, and in that time it has made significant steps in terms of efficiency. Bell Labs released the first silicon solar cell on April 25, 1954. This solar cell was able to convert about 6% of the solar energy it collected to electricity.

This was a major improvement over the selenium solar cell, which had been the standard ahead of the introduction of the silicon solar cell. Selenium solar cells only converted around 0.5% of the sun’s energy.

Most research on solar cells since that time has focused primarily on improving efficiency and reducing manufacturing costs. Cells with as much as 40% efficiency have been created using rare materials. However, using such materials substantially increases the cost of producing cells; these high-performance cells can cost over 100 times as much as ordinary 8% efficient cells to produce. In order to encourage the use of solar power, reducing production cost might be an even more important goal than improving efficiency.

The total amount of power provided by the sun under ideal conditions is about 1,000 watts per square meter. This figure is the standard for defining the output of a specific solar cell. Sunlight intensity can be affected by things like dust, pollution, elevation, and weather. Sunlight intensity can even be reduced on a worldwide scale and over extended periods of time due to events such as volcanic eruptions. Elevation has an effect on solar cell efficiency in that higher elevation actually leads to greater efficiency. This is because, as elevation gets higher, the air gets thinner, and the effects of dust and pollution are reduced.

Currently, multicrystalline solar cells produce at approximately 14-19% efficiency. However, as mature technology, this kind of cell is thought to be near its maximum in terms of output capability. Amorphous silicon cells, on the other hand, although presently around 8% efficient, are generally thought to be the next big thing in solar cell technology.

Even without any huge improvements in solar cell efficiency, the goal of replacing fossil fuel-based energy production with solar power isn’t unthinkable. To supply all of the electricity currently produced in the US, it would take a little more than 10,000 square miles of solar panels. Even now, there is enough unused desert in the US to accomplish this purpose.

Solar power also requires power storage in order to work in an acceptable way, as a source of power that can be used at night is also necessary. This requirement is usually satisfied through the use of batteries. Even during the day, when solar panels are generating electricity, batteries can help with the task of meeting increased demand, at times when many people are using their air conditioners.

Since they were first introduced, solar cells have improved substantially in terms of efficiency, from 0.5% to as high as 40%. Although the efficiency of mass-production solar cells is not expected to improve significantly in the short term, solar cell prices continue to decrease.

If you want to install your own solar power system, you must think about the kind of roof panel that you are going to utilize. For further info about roof solar panels, kindly visit Roof Solar Panels.

If you are interested in building your own solar panel, check out these step-by-step guides Build Solar Panel and GreenDIY Energy Review.

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New Breakthroughs in Home Solar Panels

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

The average homeowner can reduce or eliminate their annual electricity bill by installing a solar power system. With a properly sized solar panel array, all of their power can be easily generated from sunlight and they will never again have to worry about another electric bill. Some homeowners, though, encounter problems that prevent them from getting the return on investment that they had hoped for. However, many of these issues can be overcome with recent innovations and improvements in solar technology.  You can make use of these improvements whether you’re purchasing solar panels or making a DIY solar panel.

The biggest concern for most homeowners that are considering installing a solar panel system is does their home have the proper orientation to the sun to be able to take advantage of solar power. For solar power systems to operate at peak efficiencies, a home has to have a roof that faced south if they were located in the northern hemisphere. As the sun travels across the sky, a southern exposure ensures that the solar panels get a good amount of sun through the day. Older panels had a very specific need to constant sun exposure for most of the day. If their positioning was even a little bit off, it could have a major impact on the amount of power they could generate

More efficient solar cells in modern panels solves this problem. Besides producing more electricity with similar amount of sunlight, these newer solar cells can also tolerate a more severe angle relative to the sun. Because of this, they have a wider tolerance for locations that would not have been good choices for older systems. This makes them a perfect fit for installations that have a lees than perfect alignment for maximum solar power generation. These modern solar panels will produce more electricity when there is dimished sunlight, like on cloudy days, and also in these situations that are out of standard alignment with the sun.  These newer panels don’t have to be rotated during the data to point directly at the sun.  This makes it much easier to do a homebuild solar panel installation.

This is a vast improvement over older cells that required a strong consistent amount of sunlight to produce power. Older panels were inactive early in the morning and late in the afternoon because of this. The amount of sun at these times doesn’t cross the electricity production threshold required by these older panels. Newer panels will produce power proportional to the amount of sun even during these periods of lower amounts of sunlight. This means they will produce their maximum output during the day when the sun is brightest and will still produce power in lesser amounts when less sunlight is present. So, these more modern solar panels can produce more average power per day and therefore more total power through the year. This additional power can have a big impact on savings and can make all the difference to homeowners that are trying to justify a solar power system for their home.

Among the many ways to increase the resale value of your home, a solar power system is one of the best.  No matter whether you supplement the electricity provided by the power company or supply all of the electricity needs of your house, a solar power system will definitely increase the value of your home.  A simple diy solar charger can be a great first solar project.

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