Top 5 Alternative Solar Power Solutions For Your Home
Installing a solar power system is one of the easiest ways to add a renewable energy source to your home: try these great solar investments…
1) The average home can heat all the water you need with a solar thermal panel that can be installed within hours and be up and running that day.
Central heating is an area where solar heating can make a useful contribution but under floor systems will be the best option. Radiator heating operates at too high a heat to be maintained during the cooler months whereas under floor systems with a back up boiler fueled by an alternative power source will continue to work even on cloudy days.
2) Photo-voltaic cells producing electricity from solar energy are still prohibitively expensive for the average home user.
But, and this is a big BUT, if you are concerned with saving the planet and not just reducing the utility bill, systems are available that can generate up to 2kw of electricity.
This is about a third of the average household’s requirements for an investment of $15,000-$20,000.
Payback will be over decades not years, but with technology improving all the time and prices dropping as production increases, this form of electricity generation is already on a par with oil based plants.
Many people now use solar power lights in their gardens. The lights are charged during the days and give off their light at night. However, such lights do not put out enough wattage to be of use indoors.
3) For heating a pool, even low tech options such as coiled black polythene pipe in combination with a small pump to circulate the water will work to absorb solar energy and maintain the water heat during the day.
4) Adding a solar collector into the current filtration system your pool uses is a more high-tech option. Install the solar panel between the filter and the return to the pool so water on the way back is heated.
It’s as simple as it sounds. In fact for the average DIY enthusiast and a few materials from the hardware store your current system can be adapted in a matter of hours.
5) Solar powered ovens for the home are still lie in the future, but a gas fired barbecue can be replaced with DIY cookers that are both simple and cheap to make.
If you don’t mind waiting a few hours for your food to cook, baking and roasting boxes will do a great job in that regard and they can be put together for next to nothing.
In the wilderness, hikers can carry lightweight cookers for heating water that pose no fire hazard. Demonstrating the power of the sun in this fashion can be a fun project for a family outing.
Essentially this is the attitude to adopt with solar power, not just as a way to save on the utility bill but to increase your self sufficiency for when electricity may not always come at the flick of a switch.
Discover what Solar Installation options are available to you. Using Solar Energy is easier than you think!
