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.