Solar Emergency
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Facts about Solar Energy
More and more people are taking a first step towards using alternative energy sources now that the reality of decreasing availability of fossil fuels is finally hitting home.
Here are some facts about solar power that may help you with your own first step.
- Solar energy is not just about the generation of electricity. The sun can be even more easily used as a source of thermal energy.
- Taken together, solar thermal and solar electric power can be used for heating, cooling, communications, lighting, cooking and many other applications. It is highly versatile. A good place to start when building your first solar power system is with a small solar emergency backup system, especially useful if your area gets blackouts.
- The Earth receives more energy from the sun in a single hour than the entire human population could use in an entire year!
- Solar radiation reaches a unit of space near the Earth’s orbit at a rate of 1,366 watts per square meter. This number is called the “solar constant”. However, about 25% of this energy doesn’t make it through the atmosphere leaving about 1,000 watts per square meter arriving at sea level.
- The average solar power received on land is lower still. In North America for example the average power of solar radiation striking the ground is between 125 and 375 watts per square meter or between 3 and 9 kilowatt-hour (kWh) per square meter per day. (A kilowatt-hour is the energy of 1,000 watts received or generated over a period of 1 hour.)
- The energy output of a 1 kW solar energy unit is approximately the equivalent to burning 170 pounds of coal.
Facts about Solar Energy for Your Home
- The extra energy generated by your home solar power system that you are not able to use can be fed back into the local electrical grid giving you credit from the electric company. This credit is available when you need to draw electricity from the grid during nights or periods of poor weather.
- A typical solar panel is made of about 40 individual solar cells. A one-kilowatt system will require about 10 panels, which is the equivalent of about 400 solar cells. You can learn how solar cells and solar panels work by taking the free DIY Solar Starter Course.
- A typical American home uses 920 kilowatt-hours of power per month. Since most electricity generation plants burn coal, that is the equivalent of 770 lbs of coal.
- The one-kilowatt home system can produce enough energy to prevent the burning of more than 150 pounds of coal per year.
- You can store energy in a battery for use on days when the sun is not shining. Obviously, the more batteries in your system, the more energy you can store.
- In some places, the local or federal government will provide a tax credit to homeowners who install solar systems.
- Solar power systems typically take 3-5 years to pay for themselves. However, the effect on electrical and heating bills will be felt immediately. If the units are installed professionally, nearly half of the cost may be regained through federal support programs.
- The economics of solar energy are good enough for most locations in the United States to justify the system. In some cases it is best to build your own panels, it other cases it is better to purchase them commercially.
A discussion of whether to build or buy can be found in the article “Building vs Buying Solar Systems.”
About the Author
Robyn is a single mom, green homesteader, veteran researcher and blogger also living in rural eastern Tennessee. She is quite experienced at starting with little to accomplish much, as did her family going back seven generations
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January 13th, 2008 in
Ipods and MP3 Players | tags: diy, energy, green, power, solar, solar emergency backup, solar emergency generator, solar emergency power, solar emergency power generator, solar emergency radio