Posts Tagged solar

Building Solar Panels To Protect Our Planet

Posted by outside_voices on Sunday, 9 May, 2010

Before learning how to build a solar panel, you would have noticed fossil and nuclear fuel have been causing problems in our green environment. But beyond that, we are also becoming very dependent on these options, and the majority of what we use is produced outside our own countries. This also leads us to dependence on the foreign exporter including the fluctuating pricing.

The sun is a natural energy, and maintains the earth’s ecological balance. Oil and its derivatives, on the other hand, produce a great amount of pollutants. To supply the average home with electricity for a year, 22,000 pounds of carbon monoxide will be produced during the processing of the required oil.

In many aspects, building solar panels is an effective way to protect our planet, plus the maintenance on the solar panels is fairly minimal, aside from the mechanical parts. Not forgetting solar energy is a natural resource; therefore, it is free and unlimited in supplies. The pricing is extremely volatile as well, dependent not only on current supplies and demands but on political situations too.

Solar panels do not create noise pollutions. They are relatively silent to operate. If you have ever come across oil drills, rigs, and pumps, you’ll know that living with these systems are a soar to the ear. They can be heard in quite a large radius. As oil becomes more in demand, the locations of these generators are appearing almost everywhere. Therefore, many residential and farming communities are being forced to deal with this form of noise pollution.

The use of solar energy is free; however, the start up costs and installation can be rather costly. This does tend to pay off eventually through the savings from electrical bills. On top of that, there are tax breaks offered in many locations by governments to encourage the use of solar panels. Remember to check with your area for such existing incentives to maximize your benefits. If you want to save more money on the start up and installation, you may want to do the installation yourself.

There is quite a number of useful DIY solar panel installation guides around that teaches you how to build a solar panel step-by-step. Looking into these alternative sources may be a better choice for you to get your solar panels up in a much affordable way.

How To Build DIY Solar Panels To Save On Electricity

Posted by outside_voices on Thursday, 18 March, 2010

Find out how you can build you own DIY solar panels to generate up to 80% or more of your electrical needs, and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.

Solar panels are one of the easiest and least expensive answers to our global needs of reducing our dependency on fossil fuels. The United States itself accounts for more than 25% of the global oil usage. By using solar panels, we are able to reduce our dependency on imported fossil fuels.

If more people were to build their own home solar power systems, the world could reduce its dependency on fossil fuels by up to 50% or more. In a residential application, it's possible to generate up to 80% or more of your electrical needs using solar panels.

Once you've acquired the parts you need, and accomplish building the DIY solar panels, then the energy they produce is free for your use. Just imagine how much you'd save if you could cut your power use by half, and how quick the solar panels will pay for themselves. If your monthly electrical bill is $150, and you can cut it by half, saving $75/month, and it cost you $375 (usually less) to build it, then it will pay for itself in 5 months. From that point on, you'll be saving $75/month. What could you achieve with an extra $900/year? You may think that building a DIY solar panel is complicated or too technically advanced for the average homeowner, but if you are handy with common hand tools and can solder, then you can build your own DIY solar panels in a weekend or two.

Once you have your tools together, you'll need to find your materials, most of which you can probably find on eBay for a really good price.

We all need to be more aware of our impact on the ecology on a global scale and take steps in reducing our carbon output by a drastic amount, if we want our grandchildren to have a place to live. Just imagine how much cleaner the air would be, not to mention how much lower your electric bill will be. Learning how to build a solar panel isn’t really a difficult task when you know how to get started along with the right tools work with.

Do-It-Yourself Solar Panels For Residential Use

Posted by outside_voices on Wednesday, 6 January, 2010

The first thing to do when you are installing your Do It Yourself solar panels is to select the perfect position. Nothing should block the solar panels from receiving sunlight. Even if it’s just a little block from a shadow, it would significantly reduce the performance of the solar panels tremendously.

The ideal position to place them is none other than the roof at the angle where the sun shines the most. If your roof does not support the best possible way to receive sunlight, you might want to tilt the panels. You may also want to place them in a spot where there will be adequate sunlight throughout the entire year.

Place the posts first and attach metal rails to the posts on your roof. Attach solar panel mounts to the panels; the roof-ground mounts will suffice.

After installing the Do It Yourself solar panels, connect them to the inverter. When it comes to inverters, the synchronous solar panel inverter is the best affordable choice.

Solar energy is stored in a battery and these excess energy can be sold back to the utility company. In any circumstance whereby you do not have enough energy for your house, the utility company will supply the energy through the solar converter.

In whichever ways you look at it, installing solar power systems is bound to be a win-win situation. In addition, you will not have any power outages if something happens at the utility company, or even during a stormy day. The battery will still provide you with sufficient stored energy you need.

You are now done with your Do-It-Yourself solar panels installation. Once you've accomplished it, you will know that it isn’t really a difficult task afterall. In fact, you will certainly enjoy the entire process. So why wait? Start learning how to build a solar panel today!

How To Build DIY Solar Power Systems

Posted by outside_voices on Saturday, 2 January, 2010

Welcome to the new era of solar power, a place where you can cut your electrical bills to zero! Home solar power systems is capable of supplying power to all household appliances and can be quite substantial. Solar power systems can be made in a modular fashion; you install the basic requirement and gradually as the time and the cost permit, carry on adding to it. A DIY solar panel comprises of a variety of materials:

• Wire crimping tools
• A sheet of plywood
• A wire cutter
• Solder, 60/40 or silver
• Soldering iron, or soldering station
• Sheet of glass
• Drill
• Copper wires
• Screwdriver
• Cobalt steel jobbers’ twist drill bit, heavy duty, wire gauge size 26, 3″ L, 1c” L flute
• A machine screw size high-speed steel hand tap taper, 10-24, H3 pitch diameter, 4 flute
• A 7/32 drill bit
• A plastic sheet cutter
• Reamer
• Pliers
• Hacksaw or cutoff saw

The hands-on process of assembling your solar power system isn't that difficult. Here are 6 Basic Steps To Build Your DIY Solar Power System:

1. Organize the solar cells in rows on the plywood sheet, with the back of the cells on the plywood and in the configuration suggested in the DIY instructional guide.

2. Holes are required to be drilled in the plywood sheet so that the wires connecting the cells can be taken through to the back. Interconnect the cells as per the instructions.

3. Position a backing board on the back of the acrylic or plywood so that the interconnected wires are held in place and sealed.

4. A sheet of glass must be positioned over the top of the solar cells

5. Place a framing piece over this assembly (as this would be done in framing a photograph)

6. Seal the edges of the assembly, and your solar power system is ready.

The assembly procedure described above is the basic process of how to build a solar panel. You can improvise always on it in order to make it more durable.

DIY Solar Hot Water Heater

Posted by outside_voices on Saturday, 2 January, 2010

Energy from the sun is also known as solar radiation hitting the earth. By harnessing this source of energy with a solar hot water heater enables you to generate energy in the form of electricity and hot water.

Evacuated tubes use a glass tube with a vacuum inside and copper pipes running through the center. The copper pipes are all linked to a common manifold which is then connected to a slow flow circulation pump. Its job is to pump water to a storage tank at the bottom, thus heating the hot water during the day. The hot water can be used at night or the next day due to the insulation of the tank.

The evacuation tube systems are superior as they can extract the heat out of the air on a humid day and do not require direct sunlight. Due to the vacuum inside the glass tube, the total efficiency in all areas is higher and there will be better performance when the sun is not at an optimum angle.

Water tank and thermal mixing - As the heat increases, the hot water delivered to the tank from the solar collector is drawn from the top for home use. As the temperature of the water exceeds 60 degrees Celsius/140 degrees Fahrenheit (a standard requirement to kill bacteria), in order to ensure a safe temperature at the taps, a tempering valve will reduce the temperature to around 45 degrees Celsius/113 degrees Fahrenheit.

Electricity and gas boosters - While the sun can provide sufficient energy to provide you with plenty of hot water for most of the year, there may be extended periods of cloudy, cold days where your system may need a helping hand. This is provided with an electricity booster or gas booster system.

Boosting with a tankless gas water heater is the most efficient boosting method as boosting only occurs when hot water is used. With an electric system, the tank is heated as soon as the internal temperature drops.

With solar hot water heaters, you will reduce these emissions and also save over 70% of your water heating costs. DIY solar water heater are very economical when used to replace expensive heating methods such as oil, electricity and gas.