It is no surprise that the abundant source of solar power is becoming more interesting to a lot of people, if you think about the ongoing energy crisis and the threat of peak oil. Solar power is environmentally friendly and easy to use.
It is often believed that solar power solutions for your home are too costly and hard to install. Would you be surprised to hear that it can actually be quite economical and easy to install solar power at your home? If you use solar power at your home, you can significantly reduce your power bills and make sure that our grand children have a green and working environment.
In this article, we will look at three different solar solutions for home use:
Solar Oven/Cooker:Cooking with Solar Power: Using a solar oven or cooker is the easiest application of solar power. There are different devices available, like panel cookers, parabolic cookers or box cookers. They all work by concentrating the heat of the sun through reflective materials into one spot which reaches extremely high temperatures, sufficient for cooking and baking.
Solar Power for Heating: The solar collector, a dark painted box with a glass cover through which pipes are fed, is the main component of a solar heating system. These pipes are filled with a fluid – usually some kind of antifreeze, and heated by the sun’s heat. The pipes are wound through the hot water tank, where they heat the water.The hot water system and the solar collector pipes are both closed systems and only the heat is exchanged in the hot water tank – not the fluid.
There are active systems, where the fluid is moved by pump and passive systems, where the fluid moves by natural convection.
You can use the generated hot water for different purposes, like running hot water for kitchen or bath, for house heating or even heating the pool, if you have one.
Electricity from Solar Power: The light rays of the sun can be turned into electric current by using certain materials, which is called a photovoltaic effect (PV). Did you know that this was already discovered in the 19th century by a young French physicist? Later in 1923, Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for his theories describing the photoelectric effect, which is the basis for the photovoltaic processes.
It was not until the sixties and seventies of the 20th century that the PV technology was made more reliable and also cheaper by the space industry using this technology in their space craft.
Individual solar cells can be bundled together to build a PV module. The size of the PV module and the amount of sun light determine the generated voltage and current.
A disadvantage of solar power is its unavailability during the night or on overcast days, therefore you have to use it when available or store it. Rechargable batteries should be used to store the surplus solar power generated electricity.
Solar cells are readily available these days and they have become very efficient.
Even as an inexperienced handyman can you create your own do-it-yourself solar power solution for your home and save a lot of money along the way plus show you are environmentally responsible and good to nature at the same time.
Interested in more information about Solar Power at Home? See: DIY Solar Power Solution for your Home for less than $200
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