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Only after watching the movie “Race the Sun” i came to know about Solar Energy. It was a story about low- income and under achieving Hawaiian students encouraged by their teacher to join the Solar Car race. In the movie, a car shaped like a cockroach and covered with solar panels used the sun’s rays as an alternative energy source to run the car.

The energy poduced from sun’s light and heat is known as solar energy. Solar energy is a free and unlimited source of energy. Using of solar energy causes no air and water pollution. But there is still some impacts on the environment although indirect.

The use of solar power for homes for daylight systems are also being used to maximize the energy released by the sun. It is used to provide interior illumination replacing the artificial lighting. The different types of Daylight system include Sawtooth roofs, Light Shelfs, Skylights and Light Tubes. Daylight systems when they are properly implemented can reduce lighting-related energy consumption by 25 percent.

The light from the sun can be converted into solar thermal technologies, and can be used for the purpose of heating water, space heating, space cooling and process heat generation. Solar energy can also be used to distil water and make saline or brackish water potable or drinkable.

Also sunlight can be converted into electricity using photovoltaics or PV. PV has been mainly used to power small and medium-sized things like a calculator powered by a single solar cell. There are homes powered by photovoltaics. Using solar energy for water and space heating is the most widely use application of solar energy. While ventilation and solar air heating is also growing in popularity.

With all the benefits of using solar energy, there is still a downside of the solar energy efficiency. Its disadvantage being that it does not work during night time. The benefits of setting up a solar power plant exceeds much more than the initial high cost of setting it up.

Tags: home repair, house additions, home improvement, electrical, remodeling

There is a difference between solar energy in residential use and that electricity produced for customers or used in businesses. The two examples of residential solar energy are “off grid” and “grid tied” – also called net metering.

Off Grid

Solar energy generated at a home is not the same as the electricity produced by a utility company and supplied through the grid. Solar energy such as this does not involve residential power lines or the batteries required to store electricity for those times when the sun not available. In the daytime however, the photovoltaic array can store the excess energy in the batteries which is then turned into electricity and given off into the system through the batteries.

In the off grid type of residential solar power systems, there is also need to have a generator which is useful when there is no sunshine as it helps in charging up the batteries rather than use the power from the sun.

Grid Tied

The second kind of solar energy is a net metering system or grid tied, and this type will have power lines connected to a utility company’s electrical system and it does not require batteries for storage. The electric meter will spin backwards in the presence of sunlight, but darkness causes a lack of solar energy which means the meter will spin in a forward direction. This form of residential solar power is administered in a manner quite different from one electric utility company to another with each using its own set of rules and regulations.

There is a lot to recommend using residential solar power in either form since it is a means to get energy that is not only long term, but which is also renewable, and with it, you don’t have to depend any longer on your utility company, and you are also not dependent on foreign governments, and best of all, you don’t need to pay for it. There no doubts that residential solar power is the way to go.