Solar Power

The cost of electricity continues to increase as time passes. Natural resources are being exploited in order to provide the needed power for cities and towns in certain areas. This has shifted the interest of the public in utilizing the sun’s immense energy to provide power for various applications.

Solar power has been used in different areas of everyday life. Some countries have used solar energy as the main source of their enormous need for power or electricity. Several companies have utilized this energy in their offices by using solar panels. In fact, there are a number of homes that are using solar energy instead of getting it straight from the local power company.

There are many reasons choosing solar energy for our home energy needs makes good sense.
Firstly there are of course the large number of environmental benefits that solar power provides. As I’m sure you are aware, solar energy is energy which is given off by the suns radiation and as such is a natural renewable source of energy. Solar also is a very clean form of electricity, unlike traditional coal and gas fuels, the production and use of solar energy doesn’t result in environmentally harmful emissions and by-products being given off.

Another often overlooked environmentally helpful aspect of this form of energy is, as we use it more and more it replaces the traditional environmentally harmful sources, which as a result lessens the impact on the earth and gives it space to recover.

Secondly and perhaps the biggest selling point of solar energy, given the economic times we find ourselves in, is it can save you a lot of money.

Solar energy is free energy. Once you have your unit installed the energy you reap is yours, free to use as you will. This not only allows for greater flexibility in how much power you use, but it will save you a lot of money, which is always a good thing no matter what your financial circumstance.

One definite contribution that one would make in choosing solar power for their home is being able to help the environment. This is a noble cause that one must advocate. Not only that, you get to save on electricity in the long run. This requires only a little maintenance and you would be free from worrying about recurring costs. You are also assured of a steady supply of energy and would not be affected by power failures.

There are also other home devices that run on solar power. These devices include solar powered car ventilators, video cameras, flashlights, solar heaters, radios, lighting, mosquito inhibitors, etc. With these devices at home, you are actually freeing yourself from worrying of batteries, or a power outage. All it needs is for the sun to shine and it is good to go.

There is a bit of expense in the initial stage of acquiring solar power for the home. The materials that are needed for storing and converting solar energy are quite costly, such that final solar home products become high-priced as well. But the long term benefits that solar energy offers are worth the expense from the beginning. After all, whatever amount that was spent for the installation of solar panels, or for the purchase of solar gadgets would be well-compensated by not paying your monthly electrical bills for years to come. See the beauty?

The use of solar power must be promoted by the local government. It does not only help save on monthly electrical expenses, but most of all it helps the environment which is already fast deteriorating, and in one way or another, you are ensuring a better future for the generations to come.

Many of us know that solar energy is a good thing, but few really understand why. Therefore, I compiled a comprehensive list of solar energy advantages and disadvantages that will enable you to make an educated decision whether on not Solar Power is right for YOU.

Advantages of solar power-

a) Saves you money. It is getting cheaper, very rapidly due to an increase in production and new technologies being developed.

b) Panels are getting smaller, thinner and more attractive. There are even substances such as solar paint- paint which contains miniature solar panels.

c) You can circumvent some of the extreme expensive of having a system installed in your own house by a pro technician by building and installing one yourself. All you need are the right blueprints/instructions that will show you what components you need to purchase and where to get them from, how to assemble them and then how to install them in your own home in a safe, reliable and easy manner.

d) Solar energy is a renewable resource. Although we cannot utilize the power of the sun at night or on stormy, cloudy days, etc., we can count on the sun being there the next day, ready to give us more energy and light. As long as we have the sun, we can have solar energy (and on the day that we no longer have the sun, you can believe that we will no longer have ourselves, either).

e) Solar cells are totally silent. They can extract energy from the sun without making a peep. Now imagine the noise that the giant machines used to drill for and pump oil make!

f) Solar energy is non-polluting. Of all advantages of solar energy over that of oil, this is, perhaps, the most important. The burning of oil releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and carcinogens into the air.

g) Low/ no maintenance. Solar cells require very little maintenance (they have no moving parts that will need to be fixed), and they last a long time.
Disadvantages of solar power-

Here are the disadvantages of solar energy:

a) Solar cells/panels, etc. can be very expensive.
The initial cost is the main disadvantage of installing a solar energy system, largely because of the high cost of the semi-conducting materials used in building one.

b) Solar power cannot be created at night. No solar energy will be produced during nighttime although a battery backup system and/or net metering will solve this problem. See http://www.dsireusa.org for details on how net metering allows you to save electricity and money.

It requires a lot of land area if it is used on a commercial scale. Thousands of square miles of prime land would need to be used to provide enough energy for all non-transport energy use in the USA alone.

c) The expense of this form of alternative energy is still apparent. Solar panels, especially photovoltaic ones, although they have got substantially cheaper over recent years still do cost quite a large sum of money. Economies of scale still mean that it is cheaper for power companies to use gas, oil or nuclear technologies to generate electricity.

d) There is an inherent risk in the fact that the efficiency and generation capacity of solar panels relies on how much the sun is shining. The weather is quite hard to predict accurately, and very few people want to play “Russian roulette” with their electricity supply.