Cheap Solar Panels or Used Solar Panels– Where to find them?

Many people these days are seeking to get the best out of their hard earned dollars and of course, no one likes to see their money go to waste. So, this blog post is on cheap solar panels and how you can go about finding them. The trick to finding cheap products, whether it is cheap solar panels or any other product, for that matter is to know where to look for them. Well, one of the best ways to find cheap solar panels is to get yourself used solar panels about which I will soon talk about. Of course there are also plenty of new solar panels that are available cheap online. But what I will tell you below is how I went about finding cheap solar panels and may or may not work for you. So, heed my advice and good luck on finding the purchase that fits you the best.


1. Head over to your city's popular "stuff on sale" place
One of the best ways to find cheap solar panels is to begin by looking around in your own neighbourhood if anyone is planning to put up their panels on sale. The best way to do this is to head to either popular local website where people put up advertisements about various items that they have on sale or to check by asking people around. For example, I live in Canada and kijiji is the popular classified ads website here. That's where I was able to find very cheap solar panels. Similarly, you can head over to craigslist or eBay to find cheap deals online. One of the best advantages is that you can save a lot of money on delivery services and other things such as taxes and insurance by doing it this way since you are getting stuff locally and not shipping great distances for this item. Also, you can drive over to pick it up and reduce chances of damage when the item is being packed for delivery.


2. The easy and better option, Do it Yourself

There are plenty of guides and ebooks online that can tell you how you can easily build solar panels of your own by purchasing some of the component parts and assembling them together to build your own solar panels. This is one of the cheapest solar panels that you can get since you are saving money by not buying the end products which normally always tend to be more expensive. Some such examples of Do it yourself build cheap solar panels can be found on the homepage of this blog – Solar Energy Advantages



3. How to find new solar panels that are very cheap?
The advantage with buying new products is that you get something really important; warranty. I actually learnt this the hard way. I bought a cycle from one of those thrift stores and it soon became a problem as it had faulty brakes. So I had to go all out and spend a lot of money to get a new bike. Similar to this, you get warrant for a couple of years when you buy new cheap solar panels. Since it is solar panels that we are dealing with, the warranty can be for as long as 20 years. But of course, the draw back is that they are expensive.
Here's one trick to successfully find the cheapes new solar panels. Do not buy from retailers. Retailers can be a big rip off as they are looking to make profits as well and hence they overprice the product. So head over directly to the manufacturer's website and either contact them or just order it directly from them to find a cheap deal. Also, of course make sure that you are buying from credible manufacturers and not from people who are just pure scam. Also make sure that the warranty is genuine. Also, auction sites would definitely be the way to go and are a great way to find cheap solar panels.


4. Used Cheap Solar Panels

Used Solar Panels are a great way to cut costs. But it is always useful to talk to the person who is selling the various parts face to face. This will help a lot as it will make sure that you know exactly what kind of product you are buying and will give you an idea about its productivity and usefulness.


There are some factors that you would need to consider when buying used solar panels, first and foremost is whether it is too old to use. Age is a really important factor if amorphous or crystalline silicon is not used in building the solar panel. If the above type of silicon is used, then there need not be any sort of worry with regard to age as it does not really matter even if it is really old as it can still be really efficient.


Another important factor to be considered is to actually test the used solar panel before sealing the deal with the person who sold the cheap solar panel to you. It is important to make sure that there is a steady flow of current and that there are no problems or fluctuations which may happen due to rust or other forms of damage such as corrosion.


The best place to find cheap solar panels is of course, the one place where you can buy a lot of stuff for cheap – eBay.


If you have never used eBay before, then don't worry. It is really simple to use. Simply head to www.ebay.com. You will get redirected to your local website of eBay and then you can click on register as a new user and register by providing all your details by filling up all the forms available on the website. Once you have done that, all you need to do is to go through ebay where they have a lot of guides which explain in simple terms how to get familiar with the interface and start using it immediately. Search for something like "cheap solar panels" or "used solar panels" and try to find people who have put them up for auction locally where you live. This is how I got to find very cheap deals. eBay is definitely the way to go.



I hope you were able to find the cheap solar panels that you were looking for and hope that you found that it works for you properly. Whether it is new or used solar panels, it is important to make sure that they actually work out for you.


For a greener planet,


Andy.

Solar Power Electricity – Solar Panel Batteries

There are many advantages about solar energy that makes it one of the most desired source of renewable energy available for commercial use in the whole world today. One such advantage of solar power electricity is that you can use solar panels made up of photovoltaic cells to generate electrical energy and then use it for other purposes such as storing electrical energy by using solar panel batteries. Because of the awareness that has been circulated among the people about global warming and the various problems that using fossil fuels poses to human beings and our planet, there has been a lot of interest expressed in solar panel batteries that make proper use of solar power electricity. A solar battery is a clean energy source and does not emit harmful gases such as carbon dioxide and methane etc.

 
Also, the advantage with solar energy is that in case of days when the sun is not shining not so bright, or during the night when the sun is not shining at all, you can use your traditional and normal source of energy to generate the electric power. In this way, you are not actually losing anything at all. You are actually using solar energy when you can and the sun is shining and during other times you can use power from your utility company just like any one else. Solar panel batteries can actually save up a lot of power that would have otherwise been tonnes of coal burnt up. So the efficiency of solar cells or photovoltaic cells is not so high unfortunately and there has been a lot of innovation and research being put into this by a lot of scientists in this field to try and increase the efficiency of these solar cells.
Furthermore, the operating costs or maintenance costs of these photovoltaic cells is very low. Basically what this means is that once you do the initial investment to get solar panel batteries set up in your home, all that is left to do is for you to wait for the next decade or so and just receive the profit that it generates from the free energy. Photovoltaic cells use the highly popular element that is used in most conductors today, silicon. This just totally revolutionizes the way electrical energy has been produced in the past and does make it an attractive source of renewable energy for people to install in their houses.
Basically, there are two plates in a typical solar cell or a solar panel battery. One of the plates is made up of a mix of silicon and phosophorus and the other is made up of a mix of silicon and boron. This is because silicon has 4 valence electrons and boron has 3 and phosphorus has 5 valence electrons. Hence the when the 2 elements are brought together, one of the plates has a lack of electrons and the other has one electron extra. For electricity to flow, this is what is required. You need a deficit of electrons and extra electrons. Then the two plates can be brought together or can be connected with a wire to make a simple circuit.
Many such cells when combined together make a panel or a grid. In this way, the photons from light is made use of in an efficient manner to generate electricity that can be used to power homes. One problem that people face, however, with these photovoltaic cells is the fact that the current generated is actually in DC mode whereas the various household appliances make use of AC (Alternating current) current. Therefore, one drawback is that you need to get yourself an inverter which can convert the incoming DC current into AC Current thus making sure that everything in the house runs properly.
The difference between a solar panel battery and the regular alkaline battery that we use is that a solar panel battery typically consists of a number of solar battery elements which are supported on a base plate. Thus, when the light strikes the individual solar panel batteries, the energy of the light makes little or no contribution for the photoelectric conversion is actually used to heat up the individual solar energy elements. Normally amorphous or crystalline silicon is used in the construction of these solar cells and there is the presence of at least one PIN junction. P-N junctions are also exposed to the incident light thus generating electron hole pairs. The P in P-N stands for P-type Semiconductor and the N stands for N-type semiconductor. They are basically electron "holes" (or the lack of electrons) and excess electrons respectively. In this way, solar panel batteries produce electricity.
Solar panel batteries have a variety of applications in the practical world. They are used as a substitute for the dry batteries and have been used in a lot electrical equipment. Some places where these types of solar panel batteries or solar cells would be really valuable would be in a satellite high up in the air where there are no power lines or anything of that sort to power it up. Another place where it can be practically used is in places where there is very low power consumption. An example of this could include the watches that we wear on our wrists or even other things that we use such as calculators. The advantage with these small gadgets is that you do not even really need the sun to power them. If you are sitting on a table, for example, and need to use your calculator, even bringing them closer to the table lamp that you are using will do the trick. These too can have the batteries as a separate option to be used in cases when there is not sufficient light available. These solar panel batteries typically have really long lives ranging from 15 – 20 years compared to other batteries and are really economically sound option as well. Large scale photovoltaic cells are heavily used too. They are used a lot in Germany, which is the leader in solar energy development along with other renewable sources of energy followed closely by the United States and Japan. This makes solar panel batteries a really good solar power electricity.
To a greener future,
Andy.

 

How Solar Panels Generate Electricity?

In whatever way electricity is generated, the principle behind how it works is the same. Electricity is a phenomenon that occurs due to the flow of electrons. When it comes to "how solar panels generate electricity", we should once again think of the same principle and apply it here as well. The basic reason due to which there is the flow of electrons is because of the energy that the photons contain in them.


To further enhance your understanding of how solar panels generate electricity, I have compiled here facts from various resources on the internet to help you understand the facts better. Let us first start with the material that is used in these solar panels. These panels are made from a variety of materials among which silicon is the basic element used. For those interested in details, there are actually different types of silicon that is used. Those include amorphous silicon, poly crystalline silicon and mono crystalline silicon. Silicon in its bare form i.e. in the form of the basic element becomes the perfect material to conduct or transmit electrons through it. However, sometimes impurities are added on purpose to enhance this transmission of electrons.


To go even deeper into the chemical nature of the silicon atom and to learn why it is the ideal element for solar panels to generate electricity, read on. There are basically four types of orbitals viz. s, p, d, and f type orbitals. The number of electrons that fill up these orbitals determine the chemical nature of the atom and hence, also whether the atom or the compound eventually formed from the atom is able to transmit electrons effectively or not. Bands are in turn made up of orbitals and it is because of silicon's electron distribution in the bands that makes it so good for use in solar panels. They carry four electrons in their outer bands thus leaving empty space for four more to come and sit in to the empty shells. Remember from the basic atomic laws in chemistry that atoms don't like to leave empty spaces lying around. The aim of every atom that exists is to fill up its empty shells or bands with electrons and hence become stable. Silicon needs four more electrons to do that. The thing that is special about silicon is that it can either give away its four electrons and have completely full inner shells thus becoming stable or gain four electrons. However the compound Si2 is the ideal compound for stabilization as the two silicon atoms can share the four electrons from the other and hence creating a strong sigma bond. Keep in mind, however, that this compound is not polar and hence there are no distribution of charges across the 2 atoms that just combined to form a molecule. Since this bond between the two silicon atoms is so strong, it can last for years to come. Hence, this molecule is used to form the basic structures in solar panels.



However, there is a drawback to this situation. We know that for electricity to flow we need opposite charges to attract and repel the negative electron charge. So the scientists who were conducting research on this found out a way to induce this charge without having to sacrifice the use of silicon. If we go just next to silicon in the periodic table, we will find phosphorus. This element has 5 electrons sitting in its outermost band. It is willing to give them away in order to become stable.


That's why in order to "generate electricity from solar panels", we need to combine the two of them. In that case, we will have 9 electrons shared between the 2 atoms with both atoms stable because they have filled up shells and one free electron lying around for free.
However in order to make this free electron in the above molecule to flow across, we need an opposite charge. So, in that case, if we look at the opposite side of silicon as magnesium in the periodic table, we will find another element with 3 electrons in its outer shell, Boron. This combination between Silicon and Boron will be the positive charge because of the "lack of electrons" and the former, the negative charge because of the excess electron. These 2 combinations form the opposite panels which are joined together in the case of a solar panel in order for it to effectively generate electricity and are both connected to conducting wires to transport or transmit these electrons thus generating electricity.


Now that we have studied the material that is required to make solar panels generate electricity, it is time to consider the sun's rays that are falling on these particles which help in generating electricity utilizing the solar energy advantages. Going into quantum theory, we understand that the light from sun's rays are both particles and waves. The particle part is called as the photon and that's the part we are interested in. With so many photons in a small thin ray of sunlight, when the sun's rays fall on the PV (Photovoltaic) plate, there is a lot of energy coming from the sun and hitting the silicon phosphorus combination.


Because this results in excitation of the one free electron that is left free in the combination, it gets released from the compound and is now "free". However, the silicon boron plate is longing for an electron and sees the opportunity with the single free electron and grabs it. It attracts the free electron to itself and thus the flow of electrons is created. This is in a detailed way "how solar panels generate electricity". The energy generated from this single cell ( a cell is the combination of the two types of plates. ) is enough for nothing. Thus a lot of such cells can be combined huge amounts of electricity.


To give you an idea of how much electricity is generated from a single solar cell, think of your solar powered wrist watch or a simple calculator. That can be powered by this type of solar photovoltaic cell.


Effeciency is a big problem in the solar photovoltaic cells and is one of the factors that scientists are trying to improve upon when it comes to answering the question of "how solar powers generate electricity".


Hoping for a greener future,


Andy.

Photovoltaic cells – The science behind it

Photovoltaic cells or PV's as they are also known are one of the smartest inventions of the 21^st century that has enabled people to make use of solar energy advantages and convert it into electrical energy which can in turn be converted into other sources of energy. Photovoltaic cells basically turn the energy from the sun by receiving the photons (light particles) and converting them into direct current electricity. Many materials go into the preparation of photovoltaic cells and the most common materials that are used include different types of silicon such as monocrystalline silicon and polycrystalline silicon. Other materials included are cadmium telluride and copper indium sulfenide. The research that goes into enhancing the technology for photovoltaic cells has been given a big boost thanks to the increasing demand for solar energy products. Many countries have made solar energy producing power plants an important part of their agenda and has made it an important factor to improve researching facilities that goes into the production of efficient photovoltaic cells.


The production of Photovoltaic cells has been growing at a stunning rate of 20% each year and photovoltaic cells have the privilege have the privilege of being called as the "fastest growing technology of the world". Most solar power stations today have capacities that range from 10-60 MW. Many of the new solar PV's have are expected to have capacities of more than 120 MW. When the technology of photovoltaic cells first came out, the manufacturing costs were incredibly huge. Thanks to the global awareness that has been circulating about the prevention of global warming and other similar problems that the whole world is facing, many countries now offer financial incentives for those who get solar energy panels installed in their houses for generating their own energy to support the needs for various equipment that they use in their homes such as electrical appliances and lighting etc. However, the average American household does tend to use a lot of the solar energy that they get from solar panels that they put up at their house for heating purposes as it is ideal for solar energy to convert cold water into hot water or cold air into hot air thus providing enough heat to keep the house warm or the water warm.


To talk scientifically and technically to explain the phenomena of the photoelectric effect, the various "electrons" get knocked into a higher state thanks to the incoming photons which has energy in it thus resulting in the generation of electricity. This is because electricity is generated by the movement of electrons. Thus the electrons that get pushed into a higher energy state get excited and result in the creation of electricity. Solar photovoltaic cells use sun light to produce direct current which is basically the type of current that is used to power equipment or recharge batteries. These solar photovoltaic cells find their practical usage in plenty of solar cars and other solar powered equipment such as satellites which are located at ideal places to use the solar energy to produce electricity. However, we know that most household appliances use AC to power the equipment used. Therefore, in such cases, inverters can be used to convert the DC produced by the photovoltaic cells into AC thus being able to power the entire house if used in a residential complex.


To enable large scale usage of photovoltaic cells that make use of the various solar energy advantages, many of these single photovoltaic cells can be combined together to form what we know as solar panels or modules. The basic structure consists of these photovoltaic cells being placed behind strong glass sheets in order to protect them from damage.
The worldwide usage of these photovoltaic cells is enormous and was close to 6 Giga Watts Peak in 2009. However, it shows that there is room for improvement in other countries, especially developing countries as 90% of this worldwide usage came from only three countries, namely, USA, Japan and Germany with Germany having the highest number of "solar photovoltaic cells" installation. Germany, so far, holds the record for having the highest electricity generating solar PV installation. It set up a 3,800 MW PV installation in 2009. The United States comes in at a distant second with about 500 MW installed in 2009. The difference, as you can see, is huge.


Another big solar energy advantage is that comes from utilizing these solar energy modules is the fact that it totally boosts the country's economy. This is a result of the enormous number of jobs that the industry can create and has created. Germany is the perfect example for this with over 10,000 jobs generated in the installation and production of these monolithic Solar PV panels. It is also the fastest growing solar energy market in the whole world. This is really great for the country as the amount of fossil fuel reserves are depleting as the years are passing and as opposed to that, the demand for solar energy and other sources of renewable energy is really increasing at a rapid rate.


One of the places where these photovoltaic cells are used a lot is in the power plants. At a close second comes the many buildings that can use anything varying from solar powered roofs to solar installations that are less than a couple of 100 square feet large in area.
Solar PV's are also used a lot in transport although this market is yet to evolve and become more efficient. Since the area required to power a car with the help of solar energy advantages is quite large, the car can become quite bulky which is contradictory to the normal styles of cars these days which are usually found to be tiny, slim, sleek and well, just "modern".


I hope that this "photovoltaic cells" post helped you in understanding more about them and consider getting some for your own house to generate what little electricity you can. Also consider my "solar energy advantages" posts found in this blog to learn more about making your own solar panels.


To a greener future,


Andy.

Mojave Desert – Largest Solar Power Installation in the World

Since we have been talking about various solar energy advantages, I thought I would give you a detailed summary about some of the largest solar power installations in the world and how they generate a lot of electricity that is enough to support entire cities. Mojave Desert, which is located in certain parts of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, south western Utah and North western Arizona gets its name after Mohave tribe of native Americans. It is best known because of the large number of solar power plants which generates collectively over 354 megawatts (MW). There are several power plants in the Mojave Desert built from as long back as the 80's. According to Wikipedia, there are currently about nine solar power plants in the Desert. These power plants are also called as SEGS which stands for Solar Energy Generation Systems. The federal government of the United States plans to build more solar power plants in the desert among which is the Nevada Solar One solar plant which is expected to have a capacity of 64 MW. Mojave desert is one of the most ideal places for solar power generation as the solar radiation at this desert is among one of the best that is available in the US.



The south western part of the US receives some of the best amounts of solar radiation in the whole world and hence it is considered to be an ideal location for setting up power plants. It is said that the Mojave Desert receives up to twice the sunlight than other regions of the country. Therefore it is naturally an attractive place for setting up renewable sources of energy such as the solar plant which unlike non renewable sources or traditional sources of energy do not burn and pollute the air and consume only sunlight which is abundantly available unlike other fuels.


There are many incalculable factors when it comes to estimating the uses and benefits of fossil fuels. While the advantages are obvious (can be used to drive cars, and other automobiles), there are other factors such as pollution related health problems, degradation of the environment etc. that cannot be calculated exactly and is therefore, one cannot truly estimate the costs involved when it comes to non- renewable sources of energy. Also coming into the picture is factors related to buying fuel from other countries which can also turn out to be quite expensive. However, this is different with renewable sources of energy, especially solar energy because of the materials that are required to build set up this installation. This is because you are mainly using readily available materials that are available easily. This is indeed a big solar energy advantage.



Solar power towers typically use several tracking mirrors that are positioned at different angles to try and catch the sun's rays from practically any location in the sky it is at. These tracking mirrors are also called as heliostats. An example of such solar power towers is the solar one and solar two. They have the capacity to produce as much as 10 MW of power. One characteristic feature of the Solar Two was that it used molten salt to capture the son's energy and power. The hot salt could be used whenever needed to generate electricity. Astonishingly, it operated through clouds and even throughout the night. Solar two was later used as a telescope by the Californian Government.


Solar Energy Generation Systems (SEGS) – I told you about these earlier. These are the systems that are used primarily in the Mojave Desert. Here's some details regarding what they are used for and the future prospects for these systems. These SEG's were built by a company called as the Liz Industries which hails from Israel and were built in the 1980's. They generate a staggering 350 MW of power and are today used to meet the electricity needs of more than a staggering 500,000 people.


Trough Systems are normally parabolical in shape and this enables them to focus the sun's rays onto the grid or the panel at roughly 60 times the initial intensity of the sun. Now that is one place where you would not want to be standing at as that is an incredible amount of heat. These systems also have another unique feature. They use synthetic oil instead of the normally used water for circulating around the pipes inside the solar panels. This reaches temperatures of almost 750 F and is very hot once it comes out from the pipes. The hot oil is then sent to a generator or a generating station where an exchanger is typically used to convert it into electricity which is produced at the end by using the conventional steam turbines.


The Nellis Solar Power Plant, the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility and the Nevada Solar One are some of the very well known upcoming projects that is being considered by the Us Department of Energy. So now that you have learnt about some of the biggest solar energy advantages which is being utilized on a large scale all over the world. Many countries across the world are starting to utilize the solar energy to produce electricity on a large scale these days. In fact, it is vital that fast developing countries such as India and China make use of renewable sources of energy as they are going to become one of the biggest emitters of carbon di oxide, carbon mono oxide, sulphur di oxide and other similar harmful gases in the future. This could even facilitate the forming of really big holes in the ozone layer as well. This can be a big problem for humanity.


Make use of the solar energy advantages now and build a solar power system in your house immediately to start saving thousands of dollars in the future. Avail of various tax incentives offered by the government and save even more money.


To a greener future,


Andy.

Solar Energy Facts

Since we are talking about the various advantages offered by solar energy, I thought I would write about some interesting solar energy facts that many people may be interested in knowing not.


This may further help in making you decide as to whether or not you should get solar panels installed in your house or not. If you would like to check out the various solar energy advantages that I wrote about in my previous posts, click on the link to check it out.



What can you do with Solar Energy?

• Because the utilization of solar energy does not release harmful gases such as sulphur-di-oxide or carbon-di-oxide, solar energy is good for the environment.
• Solar energy has a wide range of applications. Before the photovoltaic cell was invented, people used to dry their wet clothes by hanging them out in the sun. But, the photovoltaic cell is probably one of the best inventions that has completely taken the whole solar energy industry to a completely higher level. Other than that applications include the heating of water, generating electricity etc.
• Many outdoor swimming pools are warmed with the help of solar energy. That is one of the best uses. Also, one of the other most popular uses is probably the calculators which have for long been making use of solar energy. Many other small appliances similar to the calculator use solar energy instead of batteries. It is also used for lighting purposes as well.
• There has also been the ingenious invention of solar cookers which is basically a black box accompanied with a magnifying lens and coated with black colour on the inside so that the heat stays in and does not get reflected off. These sort of cookers are known to be very useful and have produced enough heat to cook rice and boil water and recently, even more than that.
• This is probably one industry that economists would love to study since the demand supply curve for this is way too steep. There are more people wanting these solar power products than there are manufacturers who are supplying these. This is also true not just for solar energy but also for renewable energy sources. Hence it is a big industry and the "industry of the future".

Solar Energy Facts – Measuring Units and Conversion

• Solar Energy is measured as Solar Power times the rate of conversion. Thus for all practical purposes, the basic unit used is kilowatt-hour. This is used rather than Joules because "Joules" is way too small a unit for all practical purposes when measuring solar energy.
• To give you an idea of how much a kilowatt-hour is worth, think of a 60 watt or 100 watt bulb and dive 1000 by that to get the number of hours that bulb will burn for.
• According to US Energy Information Administration's Statistics, "in 2008, the annual energy consumption by an average American household was 11,040kWh which is approximately 920kWh every month. Tennessee had the highest annual consumption at 15,624 kWh and Maine the lowest at 6,252 kWh."
  
• To get an idea of the amount of energy used for lighting, here's what EIA had to say,

"EIA estimates that in 2007, about 526 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity were used for lighting by the residential and commercial sectors.  This was equal to about 19% of the total electricity consumed by both of those sectors and 14% of total U.S. electricity consumption.

Residential lighting consumption was about 215 billion kWh, equal to about 15% of all residential electricity consumption. About 311 billion kWh was consumed for lighting by the commercial sector, which includes commercial and institutional buildings and public street and highway lighting, equal to 23% of commercial sector electricity consumption."

Solar Energy systems Facts:

• A solar system that one typically gets for residential purposes usually consists of solar panels, batteries, inverters, wiring and deep cycle battery tanks etc.
• If you want to know, how much does a home solar system panel cost? Then the answer would be anywhere between $5000 - $6000.
• For an approximately, 1 kilowatt-hour home solar panel, you would require probably around 100 square feet area for setting it up.
• The optimum time for direct sun shine on the panels would be from 10 AM – 2 PM. When the sun is shining outside, your hot water is practically free. And it can store up the energy for using it later on when you use it on cloudy days or during the night.
• The warranty that these solar panels come for is normally very high. They are available for almost around 20 years.
• It would be a good idea to have battery backup and you can go about in life just as normal since you can use everything just as normal for 24 hours a day even its bad weather outside.
  

Information about our Sun:

• Sun rays travel at the speed of light (approximately 3 * 10^8 meters per second) and reaches our earth in a little less than 8 minutes.

• Sun made life possible on the earth and it is because of that we have other energy sources that we use now such as coal and petroleum.

Miscellaneous Interesting Solar Energy Facts

• Various ancient Indian astronomers scientists like Da Vinci and Gallileo studied the sun and predicted the uses of solar energy in the future.
• The earth receives enough solar energy in a year to meet all the energy needs for the whole world in an entire year. Unfortunately, it is not being utilized efficiently.
  
• Various solar powered aircrafts have broken world records for flying large distances using just solar energy.
• Scientists are predicting solar flares from the sun spots in 2013 that could possibly cause a huge blackout and inflict heavy damages on the countries and their government. The earth's magnetic field is heavily influenced by that of the solar flares and studying space weather is becoming as important as predicting our daily weather. Scientists are predicting that any big disturbances in solar flares can cost a lot of money as the earth's entire magnetic field is affected by this. Our telecommunication and communication systems depend on the earth's magnetic field.
• It is predicted that coal and petroleum will last for only the next 40 years or so. After that we will all be using renewable sources of energy.

Solar Energy Advantages – Why you need solar panels on your rooftop

We all know about the damage that carbon-di-oxide emissions from factories or from our own cars is causing to the environment. Many of us here are aware of this and want to help as well but are not really aware of how to do so. In this post, I will outline some of the many advantages of getting a solar panel of your own. This will help you make a decision on whether it is worth investing your time and money in or not.


Here are some Solar Energy Advantages:

1. An amazing investement which saves you a lot of money in the long-term future.Although you may have to initially invest quite a bit of money in getting various tools and utilities to build the solar panel in the roof of your house, in a period of one or two months you will have recovered the money back by saving on electricity and water bills and after that, since there are no taxes on using energy from the sun, it is FREE. (Grab it while you can.)If you use a lot of electricity, then the time for you to get back your money may be longer. But regardless of how much electricity you use, you will get back what you invested in at some point of time or the other.Depending on where you live, many governments offer financial benefits and bonuses for those who make use of the solar energy advantages.You can also actually make money regularly with this. If you generate more energy than what you use up you can probably sell it for various companies for profit. Thus, you can also view this as a money making venture.

2. One of the best "solar energy advantages" is that you save a heck of a lot of money on your electricity bill.Since you can convert the solar energy into electricity using photovoltaic cells or with the solar panel cells, you can use the electricity generated to charge up your electric car which saves you a lot of money in terms of petrol or diesel.A properly set up photovoltaic cell and solar energy batteries on your rooftop has been shown to produce more energy for an average American Household. This is really good news for those you planning to make use of the solar energy advantages.It is unaffected by how or when the prices of gasoline increases.The savings can help you buy your dream house or go on the dream tour in the many years to come. YOU are saving money on your own health too and helping the planet and your neighbours at the same time.


3. Renewable Source of Energy - Probably one of the biggest advantages of using solar energy is that it is clean, environment friendly and sustainable, thereby, helping in protecting our “once green” planet which is now starting to get seriously affected because of us human beings’ activities. Using petrol or diesel or any form of traditional fuels releases various poisonous gases such as sulphur-di-oxide, carbon-di-oxide, nitrogen oxide, chloro-fluoro-carbons (CFC’s) which are indeed extremely harmful to the environment and indirectly to the people as well. Since the number of cars manufactured is ever increasing and so is the number of manufacturing industries, there are no signs of this stopping. Hence it has become very important for us citizens to try and help our children and grand children enjoy nature just like we did when we were young. The many advantages of using solar energy helps in this matter. Because of the above advantages, by using solar energy you are not contributing to other global problems such as acid rain or global warming.Solar energy can be used everywhere as the sun rises and sets in almost all parts of the world. Thus there is no headache of transporting fuels or getting rid of radioactive waste as is in the case of nuclear reactors.

4. Flexible as you can also use traditional sources of energy in combination with the renewable sources - Solar cells are very versatile and flexible. Sometimes, you may find that it is cloudy or rainy or that the sun is not out to generate the heat for you. During such times, you can use something called “net-metering” to either use the stored up energy or you can switch back to traditional sources of energy. However, an efficient solar photovoltaic cell can store up enough energy to use even during the night. You can set up solar panels that need not necessarily rely on power grids or electric generators or any such thing at all. It can operate completely independent of power lines and is therefore the ideal source of energy to use in places where you may go to holiday like at a summer cottage thus again saving you money. By using solar energy advantages, you are also helping your own government and country as they need not have to import electricity or gasoline from other countries thus helping in creating a sustainable future.

5. Maintenance free - Once the solar panels have been properly installed using proper instructions, there are no maintenance requirements necessary all. It will function for years and years to come thus providing plenty of electricity to you and also saving you a lot of money. Say bye to monthly bills by getting a solar panel of your own. They function by themselves emitting almost zero noise and have no wierd smelly parts that can cause any sort of discomfort to any one. Once you learn how to set-up a solar panel the easy way, you can set up many more as and when you want depending on your family’s needs thus proving to be an exciting potential.

I hope that the above listed solar energy advantages convinced and inspired you to start thinking of solar energy seriously and try and get solar panels in your house as well. Any questions, feel free to comment below.

To your success,

Andy.