Homeowners Are Turning To Solar Power For Economical Reasons

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By Albert Cranton


The two ways the light of the sun can be used are categorized as passive or active. The passive techniques include building methods that use materials that have thermal mass with light dispersing components. Space inside a building can be designed to circulate the air in a natural way. Solar energy, used actively collects the sunlight using Photovoltaic panels.



The homeowner with photovoltaic panels on the roof will also have to be connected to a grid. It will enable him to get electricity from another source, such as a local electric utility in the area.

Photovoltaic panels and their installation were once too expensive for the average homeowner to buy. The decrease in cost is due to its popularity increasing production. Now the initial investment is worth the cost. The panels are functional for more than two decades once they are installed.

Some homeowners will be eligible for government subsidies. They can receive a cash rebate or a deduction on their income taxes. The panels will be financially beneficial with or without the subsidies.

About fifty percent of light and heat emanating from the sun reaches the surface of planet Earth. Of the 174,000 terawatts of incoming radiation, thirty percent is reflected back into space. Clouds, oceans and ground absorb the rest. This absorption serves to raise temperatures.

Solar energy is a concept developed by a famous United States inventor. Frank Shuman was an engineer who built a small sun powered engine. It reflected the suns energy into square boxes of ether. This in turn powered a steam engine.

He collaborated with Sir Charles Vernon Boys, a British physicist, to develop an advanced version that used mirrors. In 1913 they constructed the first thermal power station. It was built in Maadi, Egypt. Then the availability of cheap oil in the 1930s curtailed the need for solar power development.

Two decades from now the kids of today will be the inventors of the future. If they grow excited about alternative energy who knows what they will be able to do. As they see the large orange signs along the freeway, explanations about how they light up will pique their interest.

New designs are being tested all the time. Consider the lines of clothing that utilize solar energy to recharge cell phones for campers and hikers. T-shirts and caps have mini-photovoltaic panels on them. Boats and cars also have these panels to use sun power instead of petrol to fuel the engines.

Do you know about the World Solar Challenge held in Australia? It is a race entered only by cars running on energy from the sun. That country also has a passenger ferry in Sydney Harbour called the Solar Sailor, which runs on sun, wind or battery power. It can run on diesel fuel, but only on cloudy days.

Researchers are discovering new ways to use solar power every day. It is a field that is exciting. The children will someday become scientists, researchers and inventors. They may start by inventing things that run on sun power and enter them in the science fair at their school.




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