Electricity generated from solar power (photovoltaic – PV) is steadily proving to be a clean, reliable and essential power.Although naysayers, like fossil-fuel competitors, want us to think otherwise, I can easily demystify some common falsehoods about solar energy because progress and continued research proves that the current and future technologies of PV will meet our needs for cleaner power, which definitely is information worth discussing over any dinner party. First of all most naysayers contend that solar energy cannot deliver any major portion of electricity to the states or the world for that matter. This is a falsehood based on the fact that PV technology can meet the required demand. That a 100-mile-square area of Nevada could supply solar energy to the states with all its electricity (roughly 800 gigawatts) operating reasonably efficient (10%) commercial PV modules. Land, parking lots and rooftops are available for use to generate enough power. An estimated 17 by 17 miles per state is the required amount needed to produce 800 gigawatts. Apparently, there are enough “abandoned” sites that could be used for solar panels.Supporters of solar electricity definitely have proven that PV can supply a major portion of the U.S. electrical needs with their projection of an increase of at least 15% of new added electricity capacity in 2020 with another increase of 10% by 2030.Another falsehood I hear quite regularly is that photovoltaics will never become a huge industry. It’s a boutique business for a small group of privileged consumers.Quite the contrary, solar electricity is a full-fledged business that has been growing steadily for more than 35% per year over the past 2 years. As a matter of fact, it’s been reported that the U.S.-based industry itself is reaching the $1 billion mark per year and providing 25,000 jobs. In the next two decades the growth rate is expected to rise to the $10-$15 billion level, thus provided 300,000 jobs by 2025. We are talking a major expansion of solar electricity as a tried and true power source.Another very common falsehood that I hear at dinner party conversations is the PV is too expensive and will not ever compete against all mighty fossil-fuels – the industry will never manufacture the energy that it takes to produce the system.Do I have a smirk on my face? Yes. This is so far from the truth, it is ridiculous. The overall cost of producing PV modules has dropped from 1980 at $50 per peak watt to as low as $3 per peak watt, presently, bringing the competitive applications to as low as 15¢-25¢ per kilowatt hour (kWh).One can simply take a look at the market in California. The state incentives and net metering alone have places, PV electricity prices below 11¢/kWh, which is in the norm with some utility-delivered power. Designed for most domestic markets the trend is projected to continue through 2010 for most domestic markets.Technologically the thin-film modules that are being implemented today payback in one year or even less, which means clean and practically free of overhead energy for the remaining 29-year life expectancy of the modules. Cooler Planet is a leading solar resource for connecting consumers and commercial entities with local solar Installers. Cooler Planet’s solar energy resource page contains articles and tools such as our solar calculator to help with your solar project.
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Residential solar energy systems and wind power generators are becoming more popular. More and more people are finding the benefits of generating there own electricity to power there home. There are some situations where you may need both a residential solar energy system and wind power generators. Here we will take a look.
With Solar energy, it can work out good to have in your home, but only if you get a moderate amount of sunlight. This is a similar problem to wind power. Wind power generators are only effective, with a moderate amount of wind.
If you have a lot of sunlight, then a residential solar energy system will be of great benefit, and you will not need to look for alternative sources of energy. Likewise a lot of wind could mean that sticking with a wind power generator may be your best option.
If you find you live in the west of the US, you may have great sunshine, and a residential solar energy system maybe all you need, but what about if you are stuck in a part of the world where blistering sunshine is not a common thing?
In the UK for example, there are summer months with days that are very sunny. Residential solar energy systems are similar to a thermometer. As sunlight is more, and hotter, it means you get more power, less sunlight means less power.
In either case, a deficit will mean you just don’t have power. An option that many homes that switch to wind or solar power decide on is to have a connection to the electric company. This makes a great option, as you can get to have constant electric, and any excess, you maybe able to sell back to the electric company.
If you are in an area that isn’t very sunny or very overcast with clouds, then you may need a wind power generator that can supplement when there is no sun, but a lot of wind. This poses a few extra problems or benefits, however you see it.
Investing in a residential solar energy system is going to be a costly affair. Though the energy you get will be for many years, even decades, it still could mean that you still have to pay for electric, especially if you don’t have the sunshine.
The problem with investing in residential solar energy systems and a wind generator is that you likely have to invest twice the amount of money. This can mean a longer time to make a return on investment.
It is always advisable to seek advice from the company you plan to buy the energy system from, as they can give you an indication of whether you need a residential solar energy system, wind power generator or both.
The benefit with both is that with the excess energy you can, in most cases, sell it back to the electric company. It can be a great feeling, having the electric company send you a paycheck a few times in the year. Looking for the pros and cons of solar energy? Are you looking for residential solar energy systems for your home or solar panles? Visit the links for more details or visit – USA Today Articles

Following are some of the basic technical facts about solar energy. Environmental Facts: There is no shortage of energy on Earth and no need to use damaging fossil fuels. It is simply a matter of advancing and utilizing alternative energy technologies for a cleaner future. Anna supports and promotes the use of clean energy solutions by educating others and helping them find alternative energy solutions for their needs. Find out more at her website on Solar Power and Alternative Energy.

Solar energy is likely the largest, single answer to this nation’s dependence on fossil fuels. With enough solar energy, U.S. citizens can ignore the threat of Peak Oil, the more visible threat of oil embargoes from Mideast countries, the rising cost of fossil fuels and the air pollution that is making large cities virtually uninhabitable.Getting to that goal isn’t easy. There are a lot of solar incentives out there, from utility companies sponsoring solar installation to local, state and federal governments offering funding or tax rebates to homeowners installing a photovoltaic (PV) system. Unfortunately, these incentives are all over the board, vary from state to state and even region to region depending on the utility, are rarely publicly advertised to make homeowners aware of their existence, and change from one year to the next depending on the whims of Congress.Most homeowners, when presented with the 10,000 hoops required to get some kind of incentive package, shrug their shoulders and walk away. Life is complicated enough. If president-elect Barack Obama truly wants to meet his eco-friendly energy goals – five million “green collar” jobs, negative oil imports in by 2018, and 10 percent of energy coming from renewable sources like solar – he will first need to translate this mishmash of incentives into a cohesive, comprehensive and comprehensible national policy.What if, for example, instead of searching DSIRE’s (Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy) map for your state, then searching the more than 100 entries for a program that matches your qualifications and expectations, you could simply rely on the fact that state, regional and utility incentives all offered a specific program?Better yet, what if an agency of the federal government, like the U.S. Department of Energy, took over all incentives and offered a flat rebate not subject to change every time Congress was in session? Can you imagine the numbers of individuals who – currently stymied by a maze of regulations and stipulations – would flock to install solar energy panels? I can, and it would give the solar energy industry a boost not seen since Henry Ford first introduced an affordable automobile.You can make this happen by writing your representative and demanding a uniform, timeless, renewable energy incentive program. Better yet, join a social networking site and start your own petition, or contact renewable energy advocate sites (the American Solar Energy Society is a good start) and ask them to start a petition asking Obama and his transition team to develop such a program.The future of solar energy is you, and tomorrow is already here. Cooler Planet is a leading solar resource for connecting consumers and commercial entities with local solar Installers. Cooler Planet’s solar energy resource page contains articles and tools such as our solar calculator to help with your solar project.

Alexander Lunev is a webmaster of http://www.solarpower2008.com Learn how to setup home made Solar Panels for less, than $100. 

We all know that using solar energy is a good thing to do. We have heard, and there are quite a number of them, all about the benefits of solar energy and we can’t agree why we can’t turn this alternative form of energy source to a primary one. But despite the advantages, solar power has yet to fully make it in the mainstream. Let’s go back and discuss a couple of the advantages of solar energy and see why keep going back to fossil fuels for energy resource. In the long run, solar power saves money. Initial costs of installation and operations may be more expensive that other energy forms but after settling the expenses, you have an energy resource that is free. Nobody charges for using sunlight, right? The return of investment can also be shorter depending on how much energy you use. You won’t spend too much on maintenance either plus those photovoltaic cells can last for 15 to 20 years. There are no mechanical or moving parts to oil and maintain nor are there parts that need to be replaced yearly. Of course solar power is environmental friendly. First its renewable not like fossil fuels which according to studies will be gone in four to five decades. The process of converting energy to usable electricity does not involve the release of toxic chemicals which can harm the environment. Carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide, lead, and mercury emissions will be a memory of the past when everyone goes solar. Relying on the sun for power also helps reduce global warming. Aside from the toxic wastes and pollutants, using solar power will limit other aspects of the energy industry like hazards of working with and transporting oil or natural gas. Also, other health risks are present in the use of other fuels like kerosene and candles which are still popular in third world countries. With solar energy, these risks will be minimized if not totally eliminated. The use of solar panels is also good for remote areas where providing basic electricity services is troublesome if not totally impossible at all. Solar energy can be transported to far flung villages and once installed they can be left alone for years with little or without maintenance. Communities in Asian countries have successfully installed solar panels in their community and have been enjoying the benefits of clean and reliable power for years. For a poor country, producing electricity through solar energy can mean independence from oil producing countries which controls the supply and prices of oil. With such independence, new policies on energy can be created which will maximize the benefit for its citizens. Countries will also not be wary on natural disasters which hampers delivery of oil. With this new found independence, countries can invest its national budget on other programs aside from purchasing oil from foreign sources. My name is Anna
I’m quite interested in new Renewal Energy Methods. Green Energy, Planet enviroment, Nature, Outdoors….
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Solar Power History

“I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun’s energy… If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago.” These are words of Sir George Porter (December 1920 – August 2002), Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, which today is a reality. The energy which is derived from the sun and responsible for practically all life on earth is today harnessed for generating heat, light, power and electricity for meeting global needs for alternate energy resources. Yet the concept and use of solar energy is not new. Early Greeks, Native Americans and Chinese have used it to their benefit by orienting their home and hearth toward the sun for centuries. The term solar power has today become synonymous with solar energy which is obtained by converting sunlight to electricity.

While the application span of solar energy now encompasses the domestic (including cooking and heating), commercial, industrial, farming, aviation and surface transport sectors, there are several technologies which are in place to generate this type of natural energy. In fact, solar energy has now found its place in every day use items like cars and calculators.

Back in historical times, solar energy may not have been known by any name, but its use has always been the backbone of agriculture ever since man learned to till the land and grow food or crops. We have seen the importance of this energy in medieval Europe where farmers deployed elaborate agricultural strategies to get the maximum out of sunlight for the wellbeing of their yield. Even today, sunlight optimization is the primary agenda for anyone who is involved in farming or gardening, starting from planning their planting schedule, strategizing row orientation, altering plant heights between rows, etc.

Man has always built his home to take the most out of available sunlight. Critical use of solar energy is evident in today’s urban building designs where not only the building orientation but window placements and proportions and building materials are chosen to harness the most of this invaluable energy form. The importance of solar energy was realized by first century Roman architect Vitruvius who commented that home designs must be made according to the diversity of the climate of that particular region. Solar energy when deployed to supplement day lighting techniques, homes can save enormous amount of resources by making maximum use of sunlight during all the time that it lasts. The importance of solar lighting or natural light was appreciated way back in 6th century Rome and later corroborated by the British in 1832. In fact, it was only in the 20th century that artificial methods became the primary source of interior lighting. The energy and oil crises during 1973 and 1979, made people re-focus on natural lighting, but soon the interest died due to cheap available sources of energy.

One of the areas where solar energy is most widely used today is in the field of solar thermal applications, where the applied technology uses heat from the sun to heat water and space; for ventilation; for processed heat required for industrial applications, cooking, for water distillation plants, etc.

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Solar energy is making a big impact today. In the world we live, we have put major strain on natural resources. But, there is a renewable energy source, which is becoming a viable source to meet the needs of humanity, it is called solar energy. But, where does solar energy come from?
Imagine a home that is powered by a residential solar energy system. This home has electric 24 hours a day. You could watch TV all day, keep all the lights on, and not have to worry about an electric bill! So, how does this work? Where does solar energy come from?
In discovering where does solar energy come from, let us consider that we are in that solar powered home. Imagine for a moment that you want to watch TV. You press the televisions power button. Instantly like magic the TV comes to life. It comes on exactly as it would in a home powered by conventionally produced energy.
This energy is in the form of electric. It doesn’t matter whether it is from solar power, fossil fuels or even nuclear power. It is all the same – electric. The electric in residential solar energy systems doesn’t come from an external power station situated on Earth though. It gets more interesting!
The electric had to come from somewhere, and as we trace back, we find that the electric in the TV came from batteries. These are loads of batteries that hold onto this solar power, which we will come to in a moment.
A battery is like a cupboard. It holds things; most importantly it holds energy in the form of electric. This is important as we will see in a moment, as this source is not a 24 hour power, so we need a way to store it. Batteries make this possible, but where did this solar energy come from?
As we travel further, perhaps to the roof of the residential solar energy powered home or even somewhere else on the property, we will find solar panels. Solar panels are amazing gadgets, as they do something amazing.
Solar panels have a big area. They convert something into electric. But, how did they do this? Light is needed. And solar panels ingeniously convert light into electric. This light comes from a very big power station. In the case of Earth, this power is from our very own Sun.
The Sun is like a humongous power station that constantly does a reaction that lets out light. This light beams to Earth, and a solar powered home can make use of this to create electric around the home. It is truly marvelous, and is going to the basics that most of life on Earth uses – that is to utilize the power of the Sun. As plants do. One day all homes will utilize alternative energy such as solar power in one form or another. Take a sneak peak, and see how residential solar energy systems can even make you money by visiting.

While solar farms and tax credits and fresh energy policies push their way to the solar forefront, rooftop photovoltaic systems have been lagging. Those within the solar industry may be boasting a predicted annual growth rate of 50%, but until local businesses and citizens are able to embrace solar energy over fossil fuels, the prediction may be just that.The idea of solar farms seems somewhat contradictory in terms of providing a ‘greener’ source of energy; we’re already seeing the first fits of rushes to snag acreage for generating solar power. Isn’t one of the concepts of an eco-friendly future to re-use what you’ve already got? To get even more picky about it, the electricity generated by solar farms requires a greatly upgraded power grid in order to deliver the power from solar farms in rural areas into the cities. And the tax credits are a step in the right direction, but they still don’t make installing solar panels affordable for the average citizen. Luckily, there is a concept floating around that may assuage nit-pickers and sticklers for practicality like me: rooftop leasing for the use of photovoltaic systems which feed energy into the grid.There are positive effects of having power drip into the main grid from many different sources rather than from a few massive sources. A 2005 study revealed that if every commercial and residential rooftop was equipped to capture solar power, 75% of the U.S.’s energy consumption would be taken care of. But how to make solar installation affordable for everyone with a rooftop? Rooftop leasing.We’re already seeing the idea in action in California, where the city of Santa Barbara has leased out the rooftops of city-owned buildings to solar integration companies to provide enough energy to power 1,040 homes. But before you write a letter to your local statesperson, let’s look at some pros and cons of a solar energy grid based on the leased rooftop system.Pros Cons While the pros and cons seem to outweigh one another on paper, I still think rooftop leasing is one of the best ideas for generating enough solar energy to power a country while making it affordable and maintaining solar’s green image. Cooler Planet is a leading solar resource for connecting consumers and commercial entities with local solar Installers. Cooler Planet’s solar energy resource page contains articles and tools such as our solar calculator to help with your solar project.

Solar energy is available all around us, it helps control environmental pollution and the best thing is, it is free. Apart from that, most of us feel that installing solar panels to extract this valuable solar energy into our homes is difficult and troublesome. But little do we know that installing these solar energy solutions is surprisingly easy. Furthermore, installing these solar energy systems in our homes will help us cut down on our electric bills or even eliminate it altogether. Knowing that you are doing your part to save the earth for your children and the future generations will make you feel satisfied and delightful… Let us explore the various home solar energy solutions available in the market. The Solar cooker: You don’t have to use any fuel at all when you are cooking with a solar cooker. Food for up to six people can be cooked in the small box. You can boil, roast and bake food items in the solar cooker. The only disadvantage is that it takes a longer time to cook but the biggest advantage is that this solar cooker is using the free source of solar energy all around you and it will definitely help you cut down those utility bills and help save power. Solar lights for homes Solar energy is converted into electrical energy for your house by a solar home lighting system. This is achieved via cells that are charged with solar energy. If you are wondering why the lights can still be turned on in the house at night time, it is because the solar cells have stored the solar energy. You don’t have to worry about paying your electricity bills anymore after you have installed the solar home lighting system in your house The Solar heating system: Cut down your electricity bill and save the world’s exhausting power by installing a solar heating system in your home. Installing the solar heating system is not that expensive and it also will not make your home look unsightly. Solar power solutions companies will provide aesthetically-pleasing heating systems in your house. Do not worry about the cost of installing the solar heating system in your home because you get a return on your investment within within 2 years and the service will be absolutely free after that. Watch a video of one man who uses his very own solar panels to supply electricity to his home and now gets money back from the electrical company because his utilities electric meter reverse backwards.

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Alternatively, you can learn how to build an economical solar energy system in your own home and save TONS of money on your electrical utility bills.

Please visit: No More Electric Bills

Lets help save the earth and and preserve a cleaner planet for our children… All the best!!