
Solar power for homes
Comparison study with other power
sources
Solar energy is the cleaner and greener
renewable source of energy that the nature can provide us with.
The importance of solar power and the fact that it is a non
pollutant has made people consider solar energy as the most
important renewable energy source and hence more and more
people are reaping the benefits of brining in solar energy to
their lives and to their day to day activities.
In fact, solar energy is considered to be more useful than
the other renewable sources of energy like the wind energy. The
federal government and the state governments have also started
promoting of solar energy by giving a lot of incentives to
people who use and wish to use solar powers for their homes and
offices.
The comparison of solar energy is done against the
electricity, generator system and the oil. More people are
interested in knowing the benefits of the solar energy over
electricity in order to fully understand and take a final
decision before installing the solar power systems in their
homes replacing the electricity. The first and the foremost
point to be noted is that the energetic potential of solar
power is great and there are several priorities of
transformation of solar energy to other kinds of energy and the
usage of solar energy.
The first such transformation is to convert the solar energy
into heat energy and using it for heating buildings, heating
water or air conditioning. Here, the plane solar collector is
used to transform solar energy into heat energy, which looks
like a plain metallic box which lets air, water and special
liquids to pass through and is collected in an insulated
vessel. This is the solar water heater and depending on the
solar panels used the size of the collector tank can be varied.
Here, the benefit that the solar energy has over electricity is
that the cost of production of hot water through these solar
heaters is much cheaper than water being produced by electrical
heater or boiler or gas boiler. The solar energy does not
require any fuel and hence will not be polluting the
environment and this explains why more and more people are
installing solar water heaters in their homes these days.
The next important transformation of the solar energy is
into electricity which is the major concern among many
homeowners, who feel that, the rise in their electricity bills
are being sky rocketing year after year. Here, the process is
simple wherein solar panels placed on the roof tops of the
homes collect the sun rays and then converts this into electric
energy which is collected in the battery attached to the panel
through the wires. This battery will then pass on the collected
DC current to the inverter which converts the DC power into AC
power that will light up the electrical appliances in homes.
The electric energy produced this way can be increased by
increasing the number of solar panels and it also possible to
activate all the electric appliances in a house using solar
energy and its systems. The initial cost of the solar power
systems and its installation is slightly on the expensive side
and this is what is putting people in double minds whether to
go for the solar power systems or be satisfied with the present
electricity that is supplied by the state governments.
To ease the people over the financial burden of installing new
solar power systems, the federal government as well as the
state government is now providing tax rebates and incentives to
people ready to go for solar power in their homes. The
governments are now well aware of the numerous benefits of the
solar energy that they even are willing to pay to the
homeowners who are ready to supply them with the excess solar
energy that is generated in their homes. With these rebates and
incentives, the government has also advised the mortgagers to
issue loans to people wishing to install the solar power
systems in their homes. So, the cost of installing a solar
power system has now considerably reduced and every homeowner
installing the system can be assured that he will not be
required to anymore pay the huge electricity bills as long as
the sun shines over his home. So, in the long run one can see a
huge savings on the electricity bills.
The transformation of solar energy into electrical energy is
also totally free of air pollution as well as the system will
be silent and hence there will be noise pollution either. The
other methods of production of electrical energy has high
pollution factor like burning up of fuel. The use of solar
power will provide substantial reduction in the consumption of
fossil fuels and gases and hence the environment will be
protected from polluting. But for all this to happen, a sunny
weather is most essential and as long as sun is there it will
not be a difficult task to generate solar energy. The main
advantage that solar energy has over the other energy forms is
that its primary source is sun, and that it is freely
available.
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