Residential Solar Power – What You Should Know About Residential Solar Power

Today, residential solar power is mainstream and much more affordable. Residential solar power is becoming a more attractive option for home owners. Residential solar power is becoming more popular every day because it can help you save a significant amount of money on your energy bill every month.

Residential solar power is growing rapidly, particularly because of the prevalence of policies like net metering. One of the reasons that residential solar power is a good idea for a lot of people is because once you get it installed, it is pretty much maintenance free. Solar panels and residential solar power are only just beginning to increase in popularity. Residential solar power is generated by homeowners who have solar panels installed on their roofs in order to provide power to their homes.

Everything You Need To Know About Adding Solar Panels At Home

Solar-powered homes were a rarity as recently as a decade ago. But a plethora of federal and local tax incentives along with increasing worries about climate change have made them commonplace.

Installing solar panels can decrease your household’s carbon footprint by an average of 35,180 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. You’d have to plant 88 trees every year to offset that amount of carbon dioxide!

But between a tangle of technospeak (photovoltawhata?) and an explosion of installers and financing plans, it can be difficult to figure out where to get started. This introduction should help.

Why: To reduce your carbon footprint and save an average of $84 per month on your electricity bill.

How it works: Solar panels are photovoltaic (PV) cells. In a nutshell, these special batteries harness sunlight, transform it into energy, then send that energy to an inverter, which converts it into electricity to power the home. Read more here.

Should You Put Solar Panels On Your House?

Several factors are driving solar’s ever-increasing adoption, from improved technologies and falling installation costs to a generous federal tax credit that’s coming to a close in 2016. As a result, how residential solar power works is more than just the conversion of sunbeams into kilowatts. To truly understand it, you have to follow the light from the solar panel all the way to your wallet.

Step 1: Rack ‘Em Up

Humans have used the sun to heat water for thousands of years, but solar electric power, also called photovoltaic or PV, got its start in the 1950s. Since then, there have been great advances in the technology, which is helping make solar so attractive today.

Step 2: Catch Some Rays

“One thing that people notice when they put a solar system on is how silent it is because there aren’t any moving parts,” says Kimbis. The panels and the racking system make up two-thirds of a solar power system; the final piece is the inverter. See more here.

Residential solar power is particularly useful in remote areas where it is prohibitively expensive to run power lines from the electric grid to the home.

How Does Solar Power Work?

When you think of the sun, what comes to mind? Do you think about how it signals the start and end of each day? Does it make you think about vacationing by a beach or hiking in the mountains? Maybe you think about how the earth has been orbiting this same sun since the beginning of time.

By taking a behind-the-scenes look into solar power, you can gain a deeper understanding of the complex solar-conversion process

How It’s Made: Solar Modules 101

Solar modules, or panels, are comprised of dozens of individual cells. It is these cells that act as a semiconductor device to convert solar light energy into electrical energy. The making of solar modules can be broken down into 10 different steps.

1. Extract impurities: First the module’s material – silicon dioxide – is placed into an electrical furnace where carbon arc is applied to extract the oxygen and produce a product with one-percent impurity.
2. Purify again: Though many industries (besides solar) use silicon with one percent impurity, the solar industry demands 100-percent pure silicon. Thus, the 99 percent pure silicon is purified again using a unique heating technique that drags the silicon several times through a heated zone. Check full article here.

Residential Solar Power Can Have A Bigger Payoff For Homeowners

The financial benefits of a residential solar power are extensive, it also enables you to have significant financial investment returns and increase the value of your home. Residential Solar Power can reduce your power bills for decades, provide greater energy independence and can significantly reduce your carbon footprint. Residential solar power can be used for as little or as much as you want.